Well Pump Replacement in Shelby County, IN

• Requests are welcome from any Shelby County address. Shelby County's rows in the Census Bureau's 2020 places-by-county listing name Shelbyville city, the towns of Edinburgh, Fairland, Morristown and St. Paul, and Waldron census-designated place in the county; it also lists Edinburgh under Bartholomew and Johnson counties and St. Paul under Decatur County.
• County zoning: outside the planning jurisdiction of its cities and towns, Shelby County's Unified Development Ordinance requires an Improvement Location Permit (section 9.05) before permanent construction, installation, addition, alteration or relocation of a structure, permanent alteration to the land, or a new or changed land use, and lists installing a well or septic system as an example. One of the section's exemptions lets maintenance and repairs to an existing structure or site features proceed without that permit, though the ordinance's other rules and any other required permits still apply. Ask the county Plan Commission office how your job is classed.

• Pulling and replacing submersible pumps in outwash and carbonate-bedrock wells
• Jet pump replacement on wells served by a surface pump
• Bladder tank pre-charge and pressure switch checks when a pump short-cycles
• Raising a short casing or replacing a loose well cap at the wellhead
• Chlorinating the well and drawing a bacteria sample once pump work is finished
• Capping idle wells and plugging wells that have been abandoned

• Choice of pump style. Submersible and jet pumps carry the separate NGWA survey ranges quoted above. The guide says a particular well's performance demands might suggest one type over the other, a choice to discuss with a water well system professional or pump installation specialist.
• Yield and water level. For outwash wells (White River and Tributaries Outwash Aquifer System), DNR reports domestic yields commonly 10 to 25 gallons per minute (gpm) and static water levels generally 10 to 30 feet below surface; for carbonate-rock wells (Silurian and Devonian Carbonates Aquifer System), typical domestic yields of 5 to 15 gpm and static levels typically 10 to 30 feet down.
• Setting depth for the pump. 312 IAC 13-7-1(c) says pumping equipment goes in deep enough to allow for drawdown from two causes, the pumping equipment itself and seasonal swings in the water level; subsection (d) exempts monitoring and dewatering wells.
• Method: we have not surveyed Shelby County prices. The two pump ranges in this entry are NGWA's national survey figures, used without any adjustment for depth, permits or local labor.

• Licensing: Indiana's licensing section, IC 25-39-3-1, makes a license a precondition for any individual acting as a water well driller or as a water well pump installer. Whoever installs a pump under a license must carry it and present it for inspection when a department representative asks, and a license's expiration falls on December 31 in its year of issue. IC 25-39-2-15.5 defines a pump installer as a person who installs or repairs water well pumps.
• Exemptions: chapters 3 and 4 of IC 25-39 do not reach four situations named in IC 25-39-1.5-3: (1) installing a personal-use well no wider than 1 1/4 inches in inside diameter and 24 feet deep or less; (2) well installation by an IC 25-28.5 licensed plumber, registered with the department under IC 25-39-1.5-4, where the wells stay within those diameter and depth limits; (3) personal-use installation or repair of a water well pump or of water well pumping equipment; and (4) anyone working under the personal supervision and direction of someone who holds a license. Under 312 IAC 13-1-19.3, use counts as personal when a well or its pumping equipment serves water supply purposes and either is located on land owned or possessed by that person, or is held by a permanent employee of a public water supply utility.
• License fee: 312 IAC 13-2-2(a), last readopted in a filing dated May 17, 2023, sets the fee accompanying a driller or pump installer license application at $100 for a calendar year; DNR's licensing page lists the same amount.
• Casing height: the well-location section, 312 IAC 13-3-2, says in (a)(3) that earthen materials go around the pitless unit or finished casing so surface water drains away from the well, and that the casing or pitless unit extends 1 foot or more above ground level. For a well located in a designated flood hazard area, its casing or pitless unit must also sit 2 or more feet higher than the regulatory flood elevation, or a well seal or pitless unit cap that is watertight must carry a vent reaching 2 or more feet above that elevation. Monitoring and dewatering wells fall outside the section under subsection (b).
• Well records: under 312 IAC 13-2-6 the water well driller has 30 days from a well's completion to file accurate records on a departmental or division-approved form. Listed entries include the pump type and pump setting depth (if applicable), total depth and static water level, and the form carries an accuracy statement the driller or an authorized representative signs upon affirmation or attestation.
• Idle and abandoned wells: 312 IAC 13-10-1 covers a well left unused longer than three months that has not been permanently abandoned. The rule requires a seal at or above the ground surface using a welded, threaded or mechanically attached cap that is watertight, and upkeep must keep it from turning into a channel or source of ground water contamination. For wells abandoned after December 31, 1987, the land's owner must, under IC 25-39-4-6(b), have a water well driller plug the well within a year of abandonment. 312 IAC 13-10-2 sets plugging materials and methods, written notice to the division and separate terms for older wells; ask DNR's Division of Water which apply.
• Wellhead protection: in the ordinance's Wellhead Protection Overlay District (the 5-year recharge area shown on the Wellhead Protection Area Map), all known abandoned wells shall be identified and sealed at the surface or plugged with impervious materials under Rule 10 of 312 IAC 13; single-family and two-family dwellings connected to a municipal sewer are exempt from the district's requirements.
• County health department: the Shelby County Health Department's Environmental Division says it issues permits for residential and commercial sewage disposal systems not connected to a regulated sewage facility, and it lists abandoned wells among the housing complaints it investigates. Before well or pump work starts, ask the division whether anything is required from its office.
• New homes: the health department's New Construction Permitting Procedure handout (March 27, 2024) cites Shelby County Ordinance No. 1994-14 for submitting six certified engineer/surveyor site plans to Planning and Zoning for review and approval. Its site plan checklist (revised 5-21-01) requires, among other items, existing and proposed well locations for Class 2 developments (residential, commercial, industrial and other non-agricultural land-disturbing activity not defined as Class 1, 3 or 4) and Class 3 developments (residential development in a platted subdivision approved under the ordinance and not served by a septic system), but not for Class 4 residential additions or accessory buildings.

• Glacial cover: DNR calls the thickness of unconsolidated sediments quite variable. In much of the southeastern county they are under 30 feet thick, with bedrock exposed in places along the Flatrock River; elsewhere they are commonly greater than 60 feet thick. They are thickest, up to 350 feet, in the southwest near Mount Auburn, where till and outwash are stacked above a broad buried bedrock valley.
• White River and Tributaries Outwash Aquifer System: the deposits DNR says formed the most prolific aquifer system in the county, mapped in western and northern Shelby County along portions of the Flatrock River, Big Blue River, Sugar Creek, Brandywine Creek and Snail Creek. Wells are commonly completed at 40 to 70 feet. DNR rates it highly susceptible to contamination from surface sources where overlying clays are absent, and moderately susceptible where clay or silt overlies it.
• Till-covered systems: the New Castle / Scottsburg Complex Aquifer System, mapped through much of northern Shelby County, the west-central uplands between the Big Blue River and Sugar Creek, and to the southwest, has wells typically completed at 50 to 90 feet. In the New Castle Till Aquifer Subsystem, about 70 percent of wells bypass the unconsolidated materials for the bedrock below.
• Bedrock: Silurian and Devonian Carbonates wells have reported depths of 20 to 300 feet but are commonly 55 to 175 feet. DNR rates the system's surface-contamination susceptibility low under the thick clay covering most of the county, but moderate to high under sand and gravel outwash or where clay aquitards are absent, and calls bedrock water quality generally acceptable for domestic use.
• Man-made pathways: DNR's report on unconsolidated deposits notes that man-made features, among them poorly built water wells, wells left unplugged or improperly abandoned, and open excavations, can give contaminants a route that bypasses the naturally protective clays.
• Frost depth: the state health department's recommended private well standards list 54 inches as Shelby County's minimum depth for burying water lines to preclude freezing, measured from the top of pipe to finished grade.

Shelbyville · Morristown · Fairland · St. Paul · Waldron · Edinburgh (Shelby County part)