Water well advice needed

[Will lindsay]

Hi guys, i hope someone can help with some advice please.

I have an old house from 1895 and outside the back door is an old water well (5ft wide, 6 ft deep) which is still active, although you woudnt want to drink the water! The level inside never really chamges but you can hear drips now and again from any one of the four 4” clay drainage pipes that flow into it. It seems to be an old soakaway from the land around it.

Im planning on doing a single storey rear extension to the kitchen and really want to make a feature of the well, (with lighting inside and a reinforced glass cover), so that it is on show in the middle of the kitchen floor.

I am a tradesman and have renovated and extended a lot of properties for myself and others with my own bare hands, but completely lack any experience of water wells.

These are are the questions im having real trouble getting answers for:

1. How do I stop soakaway water from dripping in to the well so that it stays dry, and reduce the potential for any ground heave in or near the extension?

2. Is the building inspector going to insist I fill it in, or worse still, simply tell me he has issues with me building over or near it?

3. Could anybody please give me some advice?

Thanks for your time, guys

Will (yes thats ‘Will’, not well!)

 

[Russell griffiths]

Sorry

sounds like a terrible idea

my personal opinion of course you do what you want it’s your house. 

Problems I can see

damp

hard to insulate 

cost

 

now what about a wine cellar. 

[ProDave]

Leave it wet and have a walk over glass cover and lights shining down?

[Cpd]

11 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Leave it wet and have a walk over glass cover and lights shining down?

Seen this done on a property down south, worked really well.... just need to consider condensation? And the ability to clean the underside of the glass and get to the lights. 

[Hecateh]

Love it - would it be possible to put glass at water level, lighting etc above (maybe even wine storage) and then another glass at walk on level.  

 

[Triassic]

Fill it in  and be done with it.  Best taking the SEs advice!

[Hecateh]

44 minutes ago, Triassic said:

Fill it in  and be done with it.  Best taking the SEs advice!

NnnOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo

Have you no soul????

 

 

[Will lindsay]

Haha! Thanks for the replys.

Its not a terrible idea! Check out the attachment.....

Also, I think I could design a ventilation system ao that you ahouldnt need to clean the underside of the glass, but yes I guess it would have to be accessible for the lights.

I dont think i could put a piece of glass at water level because the water is only a couple of feet drom where the finished floor level would be, so you wouldnt see much brick. Consequently, it would look like a hole in the floor full of water.

Ive bought a pump anyway so I can pump out the water and see how quickly water flows back in.

its quite near a manhole, so I guess I could tap into that so any inward water simply flows out again near the bottom?

I think if i bulked up the insulation in the rest of the extension, the building inspector wouldnt be too concerned about insulating a well? Surely? Any ideas....?

[Jeremy Harris]

It's a nice idea, but off the top of my head I'm struggling to think of ways to make it comply with building regs.  The glazing would need to be walk-on double or triple glazed, then the ventilation would have to be arranged to flow air in from outside and then out again.    The problem is that the building regs will want a minimum floor U value and even triple glazing will be no where near good enough.  Whether you can trade much better insulation everywhere else for the relatively poor U value of a triple glazed walk-on floor pane I don't know; that's a question for building control.  Getting at the lights for maintenance/servicing will be an issue to be solved, but fitting sealed LEDs, like the ones used in ponds, should get around that.  I'd go for low voltage DC LEDs, so the driver can be placed well away from the well and in an easy to get at place, as LED failures are 99.99% of the time down to the driver unit, rather than the LEDs themselves.

 

Not going to be a cheap project, for sure, but could be interesting when finished.

[Guest Alphonsox]

The cottage we have just sold had a "feature" well in the dinning room, discovered by my father when he took up the floor to install a damp membrane. In our case we raised the sides with stone to give a glass topped coffee table look. I setup 12v lighting using some old Morris sidelights we had lying around (IIRC) to illuminate the well sides and water level.

Needless to say this arrangement never received the blessing of a BCO.

 

 

[Stones]

@Will lindsay Welcome to the forum.   Can't help with your specific questions, but agree 100% could be a fantastic feature if you are prepared to spend money it (have seen something similar in a hotel, albeit that was running water).  Might save you a lot of heartache paying for a consultation with a private building inspector to determine what they would require for it to be compliant and take things from there?

[Tyke2]

Hi

 

I too had a well. But in the rear garden. It has beautiful sandstone lining and I would have loved to have done as you are looking to.

It was very handy for using to make cement for the house build too.

I have kept in in place unde my garage with a manhole cover on it sadly.

I'm sure I have seen it before but cant remember where.

As you are doing a conversion building control should give you some leeway.

But the issue will be not just the incoming pipes, but also the water table I think.

I would keep it wet. perhaps have the glass cover removable for maintenance. Install a submersible pump with a float switch to keep the water at a safe level. tap the pump outlet to the external manhole, or use the pump to irrigate the garden?