Did you know…

The sealing of a well consists of making the well impervious to any infiltration of surface water and to protect it from contaminants and bacteria that could be contained in this water.

Here’s an idea of the distances to respect to establish the location of the well :

• The installation must be located at 30 meters or more of the unsealed wastewater treatment system (septic field) or, if the well is sealed in accordance with article 19, at a distance of 15 meters of such a system ;The fact of sealing a well doesn’t permit you to locate the well at less than 30 meters of an unsealed wastewater treatment system if the configuration of your property allows the 30 meters distance.
• It must be located at 15 meters of a sealed wastewater treatment system (septic tank) ;
• The well also needs to be at least 10 meters away from a watercourse ( lake, river, stream, pond, etc) ;
• The regulation also requires it to be at least 30 meters from a parcel in culture, which means from a cultivated and fertilized field.

A well must be sealed in all time when the roc is at less than five (5) meters from the ground’s natural surface. You can’t, under any circumstances, arrange a monticule or raise the ground surface in the area of the drilling to avoid the cementation of your well. The driller will be the one to determine if a cementation is required or not.

If the dimension of your property or if the proximity of your neighbours septic systems does not permit you to respect the distances required by the Regulations on water levies and their protection (chapter Q-2, r. 35.2), you will be able to ask your municipality for authorisation by having the well sealed under the supervision of a professional, while reducing the length of the minimal distance required by law. The well should however be, at 15 meters or more of any unsealed wastewater system. The services of the professional will be the responsibility and at the expense of the owner/client.

The way to proceed to perform the sealing of the well is to drill a ten (10) inch hole in the first five (5) meters of the drilling to then fill up the space between the hole and the six (6) inch steel casing of bentonite, material used to make this space completely sealed.

Know that the well driller can’t insure the integrity of the sealing material within the first two (2) meters of the ground surface, and this for two reasons. On one hand, the bentonite collar can partially collapse in the hours that follow the execution. Secondly, the integrity of the work is necessarily affected on the upper section during the connection of the pump. The section under the connection point must remain intact and effective over a minimum length of three (3) meters, for it is this section that is most important to preserve the integrity.

Our company has executed the drilling of thousands of wells throughout the province of Quebec and we are aware of the laws and regulations to respect for the realization of a compliant and secure groundwater catchment work.