My wife and I live in Cumberland, Ontario, Canada with our 3 kids ages 2, 8 and 10. Back in 2000, we bought a 2 acre lot just outside the City of Ottawa and planned to build our dream house on it. When we bought the lot, we were advised by residents of the neighborhood that the area had very little water, however, everyone had at least 4 to 6 gallons per minute from their wells. This was of some concern for us, although, given that everyone in the neighborhood had enough water to sustain their households, we thought the same would apply to us.

During the summer of 2002, we began building our house, a 3300 square foot bungalow. Our well was dug in July of 2002 and the well driller insured us we had 4 gallons per minute. Three weeks later, I hooked a garden hose to the well and within 10 minutes the well had run dry. The well driller explained that I had left the hose running too long and given the size of the pump (1.5 HP), I had emptied the well. Our well is 455' deep with a static level of 120', hence, we should have had a reserve of about 300 gallons of water in the well. Given the recovery rate of our well, it has now been established that our well produces about ¼ gallons per minute or less.

Eventually, the well filled up and the construction of the house continued on schedule. When the plumber was done with the installation of the water lines (hot, cold and hot water re-circulating line) inside the house and the hot water tank, he turned the pump on to let water fill the lines and hot water tank. The well ran dry. At this point I was very concerned.

Eventually, the house was completed and we moved in before Christmas on the 21st of December 2002. A few days later, on Christmas Eve, we ran out of water. Not being too familiar with submersible pumps, I tried getting it started too many times and ended up burning out the pump. On Christmas Eve, I was therefore left with no water and a burned out pump. We could only get a contractor to come in on the 27th of December to pull the pump out and put in a new one. You don't realize how precious water is and how much we depend on it until you don't have any. Finally, the new pump was installed in the well and we had the well filled up by a water truck.

After this incident, we decided to do the laundry at my parents' house and were taking quick showers. We would turn the water on long enough to wet ourselves then shut it off. We would then soap up and shampoo, then turn the water back on only long enough to rinse off.

We finally got into a routine that seemed to work, namely, we would do a load of laundry every second day. The dishwasher was also only turned on every other day and showers were then taken as quickly as possible. We had a corner roman tub in our master ensuite, which we were not able to use.

However, even though we were very careful in conserving water, for some unknown reason, we would run out of water every three weeks. No matter what we did, just like a time clock, every three weeks the water in our well would drop right to the bottom.

My father, who has a hobby farm and a sugar bush, would fill his 350 gallon sap water reservoir with water from his house in the city and drive out in the country to fill up our well. He would have to do 4 loads, an hour each, to fill up the well. This he did every three weeks for six months. From January up until June 2003, when we installed the Well Manager, we were running out of water every three weeks!

This could not go on. In the meantime, we had tried everything from dropping dry ice down the well to hydro-fracquing but nothing increased the flow of water from our well. Desperate, I began searching the Internet by typing in key words like "no water", "well drying up","low yield wells", etc. Eventually, I found the web site www.wellmanager.com. Within just a few minutes of looking at this web site, I knew this was the answer to my problems. I immediately contacted the representatives in Canada to obtain a quote for this system.

It seemed like our only option. Drilling a new well would have cost us between $15,000.00 and $20,000.00 CDN and we still would not have a guarantee of having more water. I thought that if the Well Manager was able to collect only a few gallons every hour, this would be more than sufficient for our needs. Furthermore, I also thought that should our well run dry, like it did every three weeks, at least we would have a 425 gallon reservoir in the basement which would last us a few days, long enough for the well to recover.

My wife and I decided to take a leap of faith and order the Well Manager model no. WM420CP.

Our system was delivered a few weeks later. We slid the unit down the stairs in our garage to the basement and I began the task of installing the system. While I had worked in various construction trades, including five summers for an electrical contractor, during my summer years at University, I had never done any plumbing work. The whole installation took me about 2 days since I had to remove all of my purification equipment which includes one water softener, one treatment unit for sulfur in the water and also a reverse osmosis unit and UV ray water purifying equipment. Moving this equipment from one wall to another in the room to make way for the Well Manager took about a day. Therefore, the installation of the Well Manager took less than a day to complete. By the way, before the installation of our Well Manager, our purification equipment had to be unplugged since our well would not produce enough water to keep up with the backwashes.

Overall, the installation was very simple and Andy handled the one technical question I had over the phone. I enclose a few pictures of my installation for your convenience. Note that my large blue WellTroll pressure tank is still in the mechanical room. I need to remove it since our Well Manager has a constant pressure module which has greatly increased the pressure in our house, but just didn't get to it yet. This is only one of the many benefits this system has offered us.

All of this is to say that since turning on the power to the Well Manager on June 21, 2003, we have not run out of water once. This system works great. But, as I mentioned, after reviewing the web site www.wellmanager.com I knew it would.

We are now doing one or more loads of wash every day, running the dishwasher every night, and each one in our family can now take a shower or bath without the threat of running out of water.

During the week of August 16 to the 22nd 2003, we put the Well Manager to the ultimate test. My in-laws were visiting from New Brunswick in their 42' motor home. As you can see from the picture, his motor home is parked beside our garage and connected to our electrical and water system. In addition, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and their two children were also visiting from New Brunswick that week. Therefore, we had 4 additional adults and two more children in our household, AND our water system was now sustaining another home, ie., the 42' motor home, complete with kitchen and full bathroom.

While the water in our well was lower than usual during that week, we did not run out of water once. This could not have happened without the Well Manager. Note that a month before we installed the Well Manager, we had a guest over from London, Ontario and the addition of this one adult in our household caused our well to go dry. This is, therefore, a true testament to the Well Manager's capabilities. This system is truly remarkable.

Anyone who is having similar problems to those we have described above will, without a doubt in my mind, benefit by the installation of a Well Manager. You can't put a price to the peace of mind that comes with this product. It is worth every penny we spent on it.

Next Year I will try topping off my pool and filling up my hot tub using the Well Manager and will let you know how things work out.

I hope this testimonial will help convince others that this system really does work and can truly make a difference in a family's quality of life.

Andy, my family and I would like to thank you for this truly exceptional system.

Yours very sincerely,
Michel A. Chartrand