If a house is not on town water, its water usually comes from a well. Here you will find information on what the province's well record says about that well, what it does not say, and where to look the well record up.
There are two places to look.
Our map: type the address into the search box and zoom in until the dots appear. Tap a dot and its record opens. 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.
The seller or a previous owner may have the paper well record. For a new well, the Wells Regulation says the person constructing the well must "deliver a copy of the well record to the well purchaser and the owner of the land on which the well is situated within 14 days after the date on which the well's structural stage is complete". In this law, the well purchaser is the person who hired the well work, not someone buying the house.
Wells, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 903, s. 16.3 (1) (b). © King's Printer for Ontario, 2007. Not an official version.
When nothing shows, How to find the well record for a property in Ontario gives the province's own map and request form.
For illustration purposes, here is an example of one real record: Well Record ID 5302189, a house well drilled in 1970. It is an example only, and nothing here says it is a good well or a bad one.
Where was the water in the well? The depth to the water level was measured to be 2.4 m (8 ft) below ground. Groundwater was encountered during drilling at a depth of 5.5 m (18 ft).
The well was not flowing.
What happened on the test day? After the well was installed, a pump test was performed on this well to evaluate the well yield. The driller pumped this well at 8 GPM (36.4 LPM) for 1 hour. The water level before pumping was measured to be 2.4 m (8 ft) below ground. The water level at the end of the test was recorded to be 12.2 m (40 ft) below ground.
Please note that the test rate is not the same as the recommended flow rate.
The well page uses the words "pump test" and "pumped" regardless of how the water was actually removed for well yield testing. On this paper the box marked is Bailer, a tube lowered on a cable or rope to lift water out.
How was it constructed? Drilling method: Cable Tool. Completion: Open Hole. Surface seal: Not recorded. A surface seal is material around the outside of the casing, near the ground. It helps keep surface water out. The well was cased with steel pipe at depths of 0 - 11 ft (0 - 3.4 m) below ground. The diameter of the casing is 6 in (15 cm). Below the casing, the well was completed as an open hole at depths of 11 - 42 ft (3.4 - 12.8 m) below ground. Screen details were not recorded.
"Not recorded" means the record does not say.
What was the ground made of on the way down? Ground layers were recorded from the ground surface down:
0 - 3 ft (0 - 0.9 m): Topsoil.
3 - 9 ft (0.9 - 2.7 m): Boulders - grey.
9 - 11 ft (2.7 - 3.4 m): Shale, Limestone - grey.
11 - 42 ft (3.4 - 12.8 m): Limestone - grey.
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.
Testing the water is separate from the record. Public Health Ontario says:
We provide testing for the presence of the bacterial indicators of contamination, E. coli and total coliforms in private drinking water systems.
We do not test for other contaminants such as chemicals. This means that even if your results show there is no bacterial contamination in your drinking water, it still may be unsafe to drink.
Its page also says: "Water collection kits are available from your nearest PHO laboratory, public health unit or designated pickup location in your area." For chemical testing, the province's page points to its list of licensed laboratories.
The map can show more than one dot near a house: a neighbour's well, a second well on the same lot, a test hole. Each of those is one record, read on its own.
On the map, tap to place a circle and see a summary of well depths, flow rates and more. A 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 (the loose ground above the rock).
A licensed well contractor or a qualified professional can inspect a particular well today and assess its condition.
The Ontario government keeps a directory of every well contractor licensed in the province: Find licensed well contractors. Well drilling is licence Class 1. Pump installation is licence Class 4.
Water tests are in What the record does not say.
The well records say nothing about a septic system. The province's page Regulatory roles for construction and renovations says: "In most cases the local municipality is responsible for enforcing rules for septic systems". It says the authority can sometimes be a local board of health, a conservation authority or an upper-tier municipality.
The Water Wells page explains what a well is and the words a record uses. The Records explains where the records come from and how they are read. The Disclaimer says what the records do not establish.
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