If a house is not on town water, its water usually comes from a well. This page explains what a well is, what the province's well records say, and how to read one here.
A water well is a deep narrow hole in the ground that reaches groundwater for the purpose of water supply. Groundwater is water below ground. Rain and melting snow soak into the ground and move downwards. Down below, that water fills the spaces between grains of sand and gravel, and the fractures inside rock. A well reaches down into it, and a pump lifts the groundwater to the house.
How far down the groundwater sits changes from place to place. That is one of the things a well record says.
Most wells are drilled with a rig on a truck. Older and shallower ones were bored, augered, dug or driven into the ground instead, and the record says which. A pipe called the casing lines the top of the hole, so loose ground cannot fall in and surface water on the ground cannot run down the side.
The space around the top of the casing is filled with a seal, so water from the surface cannot run down beside the pipe. The record says how deep that seal went, when it was written down at all.
At the bottom, water has to get into the well. In loose ground (sand, gravel etc.) groundwater passes through a well screen: a length of pipe with narrow slots that let water through and keep sand out. In solid rock the bottom of a well is often left without a screen, which the record calls an open hole.
When a well is drilled, deepened or altered, or sealed up, the contractor who did the work files a record with the province. It says where the well is, the date, how deep the hole went, what the ground was made of on the way down, where water was found, and how the well behaved on a test that day.
Almost all of the well records were filed from 1946 onwards, and new ones keep arriving. Not every record is a drinking-water well: many are monitoring wells or test holes. The well record page says what each well was for.
A record describes one day - the day the work was done. Some of those days were eighty years ago.
It does not say what the well is like now, how much water it gives today, or whether the water is safe to drink. It does not say whether the pump still works. A licensed well contractor or a qualified professional can look at a particular well today and assess its conditions.
Buying a house with a well in Ontario reads one real well record, line by line.
Search an address or zoom in to find well records on the map. Read an individual record or view a summary of nearby wells, including recorded depths, flow rates, the year each was drilled and what it was drilled into. Measurements appear in both metric and imperial units, with explanations of unfamiliar terms.
Type a street, town or postal code into the search box on the map or zoom in to the desired location. After a search the map moves there. Zoom in until the dots appear - they are the well records filed near that spot. A well's 7-digit Well Record ID works too - it opens that well's record.
Well records may share one dot at the same spot. A dot beside a house does not necessarily mean the well belongs to it, because the accuracy of the locations in the province's records varies. Some records have no location good enough to place on the map at all. When no dot shows, How to find the well record for a property in Ontario gives the province's own map and request form.
Tap a dot for the well record page. That page names every line in plain words, and its Explain button opens a short explanation beside each one. The Original record (PDF) link opens the province's own document.
To look at the data for several wells at once, tap and place a circle on the map. The chart becomes visible and it counts the records inside the circle: one bar for each range of flow rate, well depth or year drilled, and one bar each for bedrock and overburden. Tap a bar and the map highlights those wells.
We do not rate wells or give advice about a property.
The Records page explains where the records come from and how they are read. The Disclaimer says what the records do not establish.
The Ontario government keeps a directory of every well contractor licensed in the province: Find licensed well contractors. The directory page explains the five licence classes. Well drilling is Class 1.
Pump installers are in the same directory: Find licensed well contractors. Pump installation is licence Class 4.
Type the address into the search box on the map and zoom in until the dots appear. The dots are well records. Tap a dot and its record opens. A dot beside a house does not necessarily mean the well belongs to that house, because the accuracy of the locations in the province's records varies. The steps are in How to look up a well here above. When no dot shows, How to find the well record for a property in Ontario gives the province's own map and request form.
The province does. When a well is constructed, altered or sealed up, the person who did the work - usually a licensed well contractor - files a record with the province. They are published by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. This site shows those records on a map.
Yes. The map on this site shows the province's well records as dots. The province keeps its own map: Well records on ontario.ca. Some records have no location good enough to place on a map.
Each well record gives the depth of that one well, when it was written down. Tap a dot to read its record, or tap and place a circle: the chart counts the records inside it, with one bar for each range of well depth. The steps, with pictures, are in How to find well depths in your area. A record says nothing about how deep another well nearby is.
Open the well record page. Its Original record (PDF) link opens the province's own document. When the map does not find the record, the province has a well record request form. The form page says: "You can expect to receive a reply within 5 business days."
No. A record describes one day - the day the work was done. Some records show the kind of water the driller marked, such as fresh or sulphur, but that is the driller's note, not a water test. A licensed well contractor or a qualified professional can look at a particular well today and assess its conditions.
On land you or someone in your household owns, the licence rule does not apply. The Ontario Water Resources Act requires a licence to work at the construction of wells, and says that rule "does not apply to a person who works at the construction of a well on land owned by the person or by a member of the person's household". Its word "construct" covers digging and drilling. The Wells Regulation's construction rules still apply to every person constructing a well, a new cased well still needs a well tag obtained from the Ministry and fixed to it, and a well record must still be completed and sent to the province within 30 days after the well's structural stage is complete (the day the well could be used, apart from the pump). The province's page Wells on your property recommends hiring a licensed well contractor when building, repairing, modifying or abandoning a well.
The province's well rules set no minimum distance between a well and a house. They set minimum distances from things that can contaminate the water, and they are rules for siting a new well or a new septic system, not a test of a well that already exists. From a septic system the distances come from the Building Code: a septic tank at least 15 metres (49 ft) from a well; a leaching bed's pipes (the septic bed) at least 15 metres (49 ft) from a well with watertight casing to at least 6 metres (20 ft), and 30 metres (98 ft) from any other well; privies (outhouses), cesspools (pits that take sewage), greywater systems and holding tanks have their own distances in the Code's tables, and the Code makes the distances larger in fast-draining soil or under a raised bed. From any other source of contaminants, the Wells Regulation says a new drilled well with casing deeper than 6 metres (20 ft) must be at least 15 metres (49 ft) away, and any other new well at least 30 metres (98 ft). The well must also sit higher than the ground around it, and be reachable for cleaning, repair and inspection. The province's page Wells on your property adds that a new well "should be kept a minimum separation distance away from all property lines".
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