-
Arab Water World Magazine publishes article in April 2009 “The Method of Operation Determines the Quantity and Quality of Water Harvested from Groundwater Wells”. See it in AWW Magazine on page 34.
- See our new Well Manager Videos.
- Girl Scouts' Commitment to Environment
Prompts Use of Well Manager® at Expanding Campsite in Sourland Mountains read press release here
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NJBiz.com publishes article detailing the
benefits of Well Manager...read
the article
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High-end Custom Home Builder to Include a
Well Manager® or Herculan Constaboost™ in all New Homes
read press release here
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HOMEBUYERS BEWARE: OMISSION IN
PLUMBING CODE COULD TURN YOUR
NEW HOME INTO YOUR NEXT NIGHTMARE
You Can Protect Yourself AND Help Make a
Change March 4, 2004 read press release here
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Reid Plumbing Products’ PumpChamber™
Earns U.S. Patent Jan. 27, 2004
read press release here
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Water Conditioning &
Purification Magazine publishes "When Your
Customer’s Water Well Can’t Keep Up—A New Look at an Old Problem"
by J. Andrew Reid
Approximately 42 million people in the United States obtain water from
their own private drinking water supplies, and more than 15 million
homes rely on private groundwater wells.
Many of the people who live in these homes know less about their well
than they know about the city water system that probably serviced their
last home...read
the article
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Letters to the Editor in Water Conditioning &
Purification Magazine: Pros and Cons of Storing Water in
Atmospheric Tanks.
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NJBIZ.com publishes
article on Well Manager
The article details the successful
installation of a Well Manager for Far Hills NJ resident Colleen Boehmer.
The article concludes with Ms. Boehmer comments, “I wish I had known
about Andy Reid and Well Manager before we had the house built,” she
says. “It would have saved a lot of trouble.”
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USDA Contract Will Put Well Manager® in
National Park Campground
Feb. 5, 2003 read
press release here
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"A Well
Manager system can take a terrible well and turn it into a good source
of water." notes Andy Reid in a
October 09, 2002 Trentonian article.
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Jody Martin, of Hopewell
Township NJ, said she found out about the Well Manager through her
neighbors, and wound up talking to Mr. Reid and township officials about
options. She said the township officials were skeptical on hearing
about Mr. Reid's product, but in the end Mr. Reid convinced them.
"They were impressed," she said in a
August 27, 2002 Princeton Packet article.
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"It has lived up to
everything it promised. We have had no pressure problems, and no
problems at all with the water," Bob Iwanowski said in the
July 1, 2002 Jeffersonian article, adding that he cannot say the
same for some of his neighbors.
Girl Scouts'
Commitment to Environment Prompts Use of Well Manager® at Expanding
Campsite in Sourland Mountains
Hopewell, NJ (Sept. 29, 2005) - Ever since Juliette Gordon Low organized
the first Girl Scout Troop in 1912, one of the organization's key
missions has been to instill girls with a healthy respect for the
environment and a philosophy of social responsibility.
They are lessons that have not been lost
on two leaders of the Girl Scouts of Rolling Hills Council: Marilyn
Siegel, Chief Executive Officer, and Ruth Hall, Director of Camp
Services. One of the campgrounds falling under Hall's jurisdiction is
Camp Agnes DeWitt in Hillsborough. Each summer, nearly 2,000 Girl Scouts
convene at this camp in the Sourland Mountains to learn about nature and
themselves.
And every summer, water is scarce at the
152-acre camp, which relies on three wells, each one slow to replenish,
to meet the needs of as many as 250 campers each week.
When the Girl Scout’s Board of Directors
approved plans to build a pole barn and provide water to outlying
campsites, Hall found herself facing a new challenge: drawing enough
water to meet the increased needs, without adding more stress to the
aquifer. She could:
A. Dig a new well or wells for each new area of the site she wanted to
develop.
B. Forego expansion plans and continue running the camp as is, or
C. Find a solution that combines the Girl Scouts' dedication to
environmental stewardship, particularly in an area as delicate and
sensitive to development as the Sourland Mountains, while laying the
groundwork for an environmentally sensitive approach to future water
needs.
It took a bit of doing, but after carefully examining all options, Hall
decided on option C.
Where There's a Well, There's a Way
Hall called on experts to examine the
problems facing the campground. The three wells had proved inadequate
for current campsite uses, and woefully inadequate for the proposed
expansions. And there were the flushometer toilets in the Activity
Center which, when the water pressure was too low, would all come on at
once, flooding the septic system and emptying the well connected to that
building. The result was a tremendous waste of water and the
hard-to-deal-with reality that five of the eight toilets could not be
used.
Tom Stover of Stover Well Drilling in
Ringoes directed Hall to J. Andy Reid of Reid Plumbing Products in
Hopewell, NJ. Reid's company produces well management equipment that is
in use on low-yield wells across the US and Canada. After consulting
with Reid, Hall discovered that it would be possible to do everything
she wanted without drilling additional wells.
"They could have replaced the toilets and
solved the problem in one building, but they would still need to dig a
new well to supply the pole barn and campsites. Given the Sourlands'
reputation for poor wells and Hall's previous experience drilling dry
holes on the property, I suggested she consider a way to make more
efficient use of the existing wells, and she agreed," said Reid.
"What we came up with is a flexible plan
that will permit expansion of the facilities, and correct the existing
water supply problems, without limiting future expansion possibilities,"
Reid said. "I've learned that where there is a well, there is a way to
make it work efficiently, no matter how low the yield."
Under the new plan, all three of the
camp's wells, which now operate independently, will be combined into a
single resource operated by a Well Manager® System. The Well Manager®,
covered by several patents and produced by Reid's company, will collect
small amounts from each well, on a rotating basis, and deposit the water
into a surprisingly small, unpressurized water storage tank in the well
house. The amount of water collected from each well will be based on its
ability to contribute so that no well will be over taxed. From that one
central location, water will be distributed at a controlled rate to
various local storage sites at Camp DeWitt.
Reid calls this a Distributed Storage
System. It was originally developed by Reid's company for the arid
Southwest and permits a number of buildings to function on a seemingly
inadequate well(s). The system expands easily by adding local storage
when a new building or group of buildings is constructed and, because
water distribution is controlled, it is impossible for any one client to
pump a well empty because they cannot use more than their allocated
share of the supply.
Local storage and delivery will be
handled by another of Reid's products, the Herculan ConstaBoost Static
Storage System (HCB System). There will be two of these for now: a
220-gallon unit at the pool house and a 425-gallon system to serve the
community program center and the new pole barn. Improved pressure and
water availability will allow use of all the toilets once again. If the
toilets malfunction and begin wasting water there is a device to turn
them off automatically until the problem can be corrected.
The combined fill rates of all these
tanks will be only a fraction of the combined wells' total capacity and
the rate at which water is delivered to plumbing will be four times that
of the current system.
The end result will be more water
availability for the Girl Scouts, less waste and a dramatically reduced
influence on the local water supply using the existing wells.
Work is currently underway at the camp,
and expected to conclude by Oct. 31.
To learn more about Well Manager, contact
Reid at 609-466-1785 or jandyreid@wellmanager.com, or visit
www.wellmanager.com.
# # # #
High-end Custom Home
Builder to Include a Well Manager® or Herculan Constaboost™ in all
New Homes
F.C. Batton & Sons, Builder of
Quality Homes In Baltimore Area Since 1902, Started Installing Well
Manager® During 2002 Drought – and Sees No Reason To Stop
Hopewell, NJ (April 14, 2004) – Monkton,
MD-based F.C. Batton & Sons, fine custom homebuilders since 1902, has
announced plans to install a Well Manager® or Herculan ConstaBoost
System™ in each new home the company builds.
Well Manager® will be used in new homes
with low-yield wells, and Herculan ConstaBoost System™ will be installed
in homes with better wells.
Either way, “all of our homes will have
plumbing performance to please our most demanding clients,” said Rick
Batton, president of F.C. Batton & Sons. “We are so happy with the
performance these systems provide that we are contacting owners of homes
built before we discovered Well Manager® and ConstaBoost™. Several of the
homeowners we’ve reached have said they want a system installed in their
homes.”
Batton said his company decided during the
drought of 2002 to test Well Manager® in two new homes. “I was very
pleased with the product’s winning combination of excellent results and
low maintenance,” said Batton, who had tried a different system earlier,
and was disappointed by the amount of maintenance required.
Complaints about poor pressure are so
common in houses relying on wells that most contractors don’t pay much
attention when they hear them. The prevailing opinion is that this is just
part of the charm of living in the country with a well water supply.
Batton has never felt this was acceptable but, until he discovered Well
Manager®, there wasn’t much to do other than raise the settings on the
well pump pressure switch.
When Batton asked if there was something to
boost the pressure on wells of better yield, where water treatment
equipment has resulted in low pressure and poor plumbing performance, he
discovered Herculan ConstaBoost Systems™. Well Manager® and Herculan
ConstaBoost Systems™ are manufactured by Reid Plumbing Products under two
separate patents. Both systems deliver consistent flow and pressure so
that all the showers in a four-bath home can be used at the same time.
Batton’s company builds homes that average
5,000 square feet and typically include 3 ˝ baths (often with features
like showers with body sprays, which require more water and pressure to
operate properly). Tack on a garden irrigation system, and the strain on a
well operated with a normal pump system can be severe. In fact, two
recently built homes required multiple wells to accommodate garden
irrigation needs. “That was before we knew Well Manager® was available,”
Batton said. “We won’t need to drill an extra well anymore.”
Baltimore-based Joppa Plumbing & Heating, Batton’s pump contractor, will
handle their Well Manager® and ConstaBoost™ installations.
J. Andy Reid, CEO of Reid Plumbing Products
and inventor of the Well Manager® and Herculan ConstaBoost™ said,
“installing one of our systems when a home is first built is a good step.
It will deliver the kind of performance people are accustomed to when they
live with city water and, at the same time, prolong the life of the well
and reduce the impact that pumping can have on an aquifer.”
# # # #
Batton Learned of Well Manager® From
Long-Time Subcontractor
Batton learned of Well Manager® through one
of his long-time subcontractors, well drilling company J. Edgar Harr Sons
of Cockeysville, MD.
Paul Fabiszak, then president of J. Edgar
Harr, broke the traditional mold of well driller in January 2002 when his
company began distributing Well Manager®. Fabiszak told a local reporter
then that he’d decided to partner with Well Manager® because “it’s very
well thought out. For every question I asked [the inventor] about things
that could go wrong, he had designed ways to keep it from happening. It
makes a low-yield well yield very comfortably.”
According to Reid, making “a low-yield well
yield very comfortably” was exactly what Well Manager® was designed to do.
Reid began working on Well Manager® in the
mid-1990s, when customers with low-yield wells complained that they
couldn’t draw enough water to support their daily household needs. Reid
examined traditional water collection methods and realized that those
systems can’t keep up because they were not working with nature but
expected nature to work with them.
“Attempting to force nature to do anything
is a losing proposition. Well Manager is the result of studying nature’s
infrastructure – the aquifer - to see how it transmits ground water so we
could find a way to get in step with it. Most lack-of-water problems
result from the way water is collected from the well, not because there is
not enough water to collect. When you figure out how to work with nature
you can get amazing things to happen ” said Reid.
In developing Well Manager®, Reid drew
heavily on his four-plus decades of plumbing experience – much of it in
areas of NJ and Pennsylvania where homeowners rely on less-than-perfect
wells. “Some look at a Well Manager and, seeing a large tank full of
water, say there is nothing new about that. And, of course they are right.
It’s not the tank, it’s that we can fill it again and again to provide a
reliable supply of water and superior plumbing performance using wells
that previously could not keep up with demand and provided poor pressure”,
says Reid.
One customer called the sudden abundance of
water a miracle. “It’s not a miracle, just good management” say Reid.
The Herculan ConstaBoost™ line of products was introduced in 2003 in
response to complaints of poor water pressure in homes with seemingly
adequate wells. An increasingly strict requirement for potable water
quality in private well supplies has resulted in homes with so many
treatment systems that plumbing performance is very poor. Herculan
ConstaBoost™ can take a system that will barely supply one shower, and in
the space of a few hours, turn it into one that performs better than you
might expect if it were connected to city water.
Today Reid’s systems are in
homes, parks, churches, and institutions across the US and Canada.
# # # #
About F.C. Batton & Sons, Inc.: Builders of
custom, quality homes, additions and renovations since 1902, F.C. Batton &
Sons Inc. earned the coveted Builder of the Month designation from
Builder/Architect magazine because of their commitment to excellence.
Learn more at www.battonandsons.com, or by calling F.C. Batton & Sons at
410-628-6510.
About Joppa Plumbing & Heating Co. Inc. –
Joppa Plumbing & Heating Co. Inc., owned by Ken Oldewurtel Jr., was
established in 1989 to serve residential and commercial clients in
Baltimore County, MD and surrounding counties. Oldewurtel has been in the
profession since 1975, and associated with F.C. Batton & Sons since 1979.
To learn more, contact Oldewurtel at 410-335-1700.
Reid Plumbing Products’ PumpChamber™
Earns U.S. Patent
Hopewell, NJ, Jan. 27, 2004 –PumpChamber™, a product designed by Reid
Plumbing Products LLC, has been awarded a U.S. Patent for both its
atmospheric and pressurized styles.
The PumpChamber™ converts a standard
submersible well pump to an end suction pump, allowing a vertically
mounted standard submersible well pump to collect from bodies of water
as shallow as 2 ˝ inches. Referred to as the Tank PumpChamber™, this
model can be used in atmospheric water tanks, cisterns, dug wells or
streams. See
http://www.wellmanager.com/pump_chamber-limitations.htm for
illustrations.
“Submersible well pumps are used around
the world in all sorts of applications, in ways the designer never
imagined. Many of these creative applications fall just outside the
design limits of the pump’s motor. That’s why PumpChamber™ is so
important,” said Andy Reid, CEO of Reid Plumbing Products and inventor
of this product. “Many contractors lay submersible pumps on their side
in cisterns and storage tanks though this drastically reduces life
expectancy. Pumps installed this way can empty a vessel to about 7”. A
Tank PumpChamber allows the pump to be vertically mounted and still
empty a tank down to 2 ˝”. This extends the life of the pump and allows
atmospheric water storage systems to be much smaller because more of the
stored water is usable.”
The wall-mounted version of PumpChamber™
can be installed in pressurized piping systems. In this form it can be
used as a booster to correct low-pressure problems on buildings
connected to a municipal supply or to draw water from a tank or open
body of water up to fifteen feet below the pump.
PumpChamber™ is available with or without
a pump. Tank PumpChamber features a smooth uniform exterior so it can be
installed through a UniSeal gasket into any size or shape tank - even in
cases where the PumpChamber is taller than the tank is high.
####
USDA Contract Will Put
Well Manager® in National Park Campground
Hopewell, NJ, Feb. 5, 2003 A Well
Manager® System, like those in use across the continent to manage wells
as poor as 0.1 GPM, has been purchased by the USDA, Forest Service to
operate the new well at the ‘Jumbo’ Campground in Western Colorado’s
Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest which hosts an
estimated 6,000 campers annually.
Because of the geology of the area,
surface water contamination of the aquifer is a potential problem. By
slowing the rate at which water is drawn from the well, Well Manager®
will reduce the likelihood that contaminants, like parasites and
biological agents, will be drawn toward it from nearby lakes and
streams.
The contract with the Forest Service
calls for three 425- gallon tanks, a Well Manager® pump control panel,
level controls, meters, pumps, a chlorine- mixing chamber and spare
parts. The Well Manager® system custom-designed for the campsite will
manage the collection of water from the well, provide contact time for
chlorine treatment, provide the storage required by federal guidelines
and deliver water to the campground at constant pressure.
The project manager is Gordon Griswold,
civil engineer with the Forest Service, who anticipates installing the
system by October 2003 in time for a test run before winter sets in.
When it’s time for the Jumbo campground to officially reopen in May
2004, Well Manager® will be in place and fully operational.
####
HOMEBUYERS BEWARE: OMISSION IN PLUMBING CODE
COULD TURN YOUR NEW HOME INTO YOUR NEXT NIGHTMARE
You Can Protect Yourself AND Help Make a Change
Imagine this scenario. A family is buying a
home, and during the inspection process, the plumbing inspector turns on
the tap for one kitchen sink, one bathroom sink and one bathtub. For good
measure, the inspector flushes a toilet. With everything seemingly in
working order, the homebuyer is issued a certificate of occupancy (CO).
CO in hand, the family moves into the new
home, and soon discovers that there is not enough water or pressure to run
two showers at once and flush a toilet; run the dishwasher or washing
machine while anyone is bathing; or run the custom multi-outlet shower in
the master bath for longer than a couple minutes, if at all.
These are just a few examples of the things
that go wrong, according to Andy Reid, CEO of Reid Plumbing Products LLC
in New Jersey.
Until an omission in the
National Standard Plumbing Code 2000 is rectified, Reid says, homeowners
won’t have a legal leg to stand on when they move into their new home and
discover there is not enough water for their plumbing to work properly.
As now interpreted by the New Jersey
Department of Community Affairs, this code requires a plumbing inspector
to verify that there is adequate water to supply one bath or shower, one
toilet and two sinks (one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen). There
does not need to be adequate flow to operate bathrooms beyond the first, a
dishwasher, a washing machine or an irrigation system -- even though the
code says the piping system must be sized for proper operation of all
connected fixtures and appliances.
“Consumers believe that the plumbing code
will insure that the plumbing in a new home works correctly, but it
doesn’t,” said Reid, who has 40-plus years experience in plumbing.
After sending a letter to the State of New
Jersey’s Department of Community Affairs, Reid heard from Thomas
Pitcherello of the Division of Codes and Standards, Code Assistance Unit.
Pitcherello, one of 10 members from across the United States that make up
the National Standard Plumbing Code Committee, agrees with Reid that this
is something that only a code change can correct.
“Until then, consumers are unprotected,”
Reid said. “There should be a sign on the front of every new home with a
disclaimer saying, ‘Let the buyer beware. A CO doesn’t necessarily mean
that everything will work to your satisfaction’.”
Reid offers these tips for prospective
homebuyers:
- During your home inspection or
walkthrough: Insist that all the showers be turned on at the same time.
If the home you are buying has a well, let these fixtures run for 10
minutes or until the well pump has started.
You might come up against some resistance when asking for this, but
don’t let that dissuade you. “Builders and inspectors might say it’s not
standard operating procedure, or that it’s not the way it’s done, but a
home that costs 10 times as much as a luxury car certainly deserves a
test drive,” said Reid
- Require written confirmation that you
will be able to use all the showers at once.
“As the prospective homebuyer, you’re in charge,” Reid said. “Be
prepared to walk away from the sale if you don’t get the answers or
assurances you expect.”
- Ask whether the water has been tested
yet. If it has not, you may fall victim to this trap: After inspecting
the home and verifying that everything works to your satisfaction, the
water test may come back outside of the parameters set by the state.
In that case, it may be necessary to install a neutralizer if the pH is
too high or too low, a softener for hardness or an ultraviolet purifier
if e. coli bacteria turns up. This equipment comes rated for various
gallon-per-minute flows. The higher the flow rate, the higher the cost.
Equipment that is undersized can seriously affect flow pressure and the
performance of the plumbing. Be sure that the testing in #1 above is
done after the required treatment equipment is installed.
Home sellers should also be wary, said
Reid, who knows of several families who were successfully sued after the
buyer discovered the water supply was insufficient to meet their unique
needs.
“There might be enough water for your
family, but if the family looking at your home is larger, they will also
have a larger water need. When a prospective homebuyer asks about the
well, tell them the truth. If you run out of water occasionally, they may
run out every day and you may find yourself discussing the matter with
their attorney,” said Reid.
Reid is asking homeowners who’ve
encountered water supply problems in new homes to contact him at
609-466-1785, or
jandyreid@wellmanager.com, before April 8. He is keeping a file of
complaints to share with the National Standard Plumbing Code Committee,
which in March will begin discussing code changes for 2006. In addition,
Reid suggests that homeowners file complaints with consumer protection
agencies. While there is no Lemon Law for new home purchases, Reid hopes
that code changes will lead to mechanical systems functioning as the code
says they should.
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