How to read a house flip well inspection before you waive

Written by Red, founder of Rehabfolio, and reviewed by the Rehabfolio editorial team. Published and last reviewed October 30, 2026.

Who this guide is for. This guide is for United States residential investors buying a one-to-four-unit property they intend to renovate, then sell or hold. You might close in your own name or in an LLC, with cash or with a loan. The guide starts when the drinking water is not a public main: a listing that says well, a green lid in the grass next to a concrete cap, a shared well with the house next door, or a blank line in the inspection window. It ends when you have a written choice: proceed on the current repair budget, order a certified laboratory sample before you waive, add a disinfection and retest line, add a treatment or replacement allowance, change the purchase price, or walk. The full inspection window is the due diligence checklist. The tank and drainfield are the septic inspection guide. Those pages can name a well. This page is how you read the water.

The Rehabfolio editorial team builds and reviews product workflows that connect a property record to documents, dates, photos, and the offer math. That is first-hand product experience with how a deal file is organized. It does not make the team a well driller, a laboratory, a health officer, or an attorney. We do not hold those licenses, and we do not invent them.

Red is the founder of Rehabfolio. He has bought and renovated houses for ten years, across more than 30 projects. He has analyzed more than 300 properties and made more than 200 offers, and he keeps the city off this page on purpose. On those jobs a well question has never been the same page as a faucet that runs, or the same page as a septic lid. The sample, the flow, and the bid to repair the well are separate lines. The three files below are original teaching examples built in that shape. They are not records of a named customer, a named city, or a result the product promises.

Laboratory panels, who may collect a sample, setbacks, and the number of days in your contract differ by state and county. EPA says the Safe Drinking Water Act does not regulate private domestic wells. A federal consumer page and a state health department can use the word well for different duties. This page is educational. It is not a water test, a yield test, a permit, or legal advice. It does not tell anyone where to drill. Use the report in your hand, the agreement you signed, and qualified local professionals for the house you are buying.

Tip: Read this beside the repair budget guide, the holding cost guide, the radon guide, the utility transfer guide, the maximum offer guide, and the free maximum offer calculator. A clear glass and a failing laboratory line are not the same repair. Do not let one of them stand in for the other.

Key terms in plain English

If this is your first house with a well, read these definitions first. The rest of the guide uses them without stopping to explain.

• Private well: a well that supplies the house's drinking water instead of a city or community water main. The owner, not a utility, is responsible for the water.
• Shared well: one well that serves more than one house. Who pays for repairs should be in a written, recorded agreement.
• Certified laboratory: a lab the state has certified to test drinking water. EPA and CDC both tell well owners to use one.
• Total coliform and E. coli: two separate bacteria results. Total coliform is a warning sign that germs can get in. E. coli is a narrower test that points to contamination from feces.
• Nitrate: a chemical that can reach groundwater from fertilizer, septic systems, and animal waste. Labs report it in milligrams per liter, written mg/L.
• Maximum contaminant level: the highest level EPA allows in public drinking water. It does not regulate a private well, but labs often print it beside your result for comparison.
• Yield or flow: how much water the well delivers over time, measured in gallons per minute.
• After-repair value: the price you expect the house to sell for after the renovation, based on comparable sales.
• Inspection contingency and waiver: the contract right to inspect, object, or walk away by a deadline. When you waive it, you give that right up.
• Objection: a written request to the seller for a repair, a credit, or a lower price, sent before the contingency deadline.

1. Decide what the well file has to prove

A well file has one job before you waive. It has to show how this house gets drinking water, what a certified laboratory measured in a sample from this well, and what was not measured. EPA's Private Drinking Water Wells page says private well owners are responsible for delivering safe drinking water to their households, and that the quality and safety of that water are not regulated by the federal government under the Safe Drinking Water Act, nor by most state governments and laws. A cap in the grass is a clue. It is not that file.

The same page says around 15 percent of the U.S. population, over 43 million people, rely on private wells as their drinking water, and that EPA estimates more than 23 million households do. It also describes a U.S. Geological Survey study of 2,100 private wells in which water from about one in five wells contained one or more contaminants at a concentration greater than a human-health benchmark. Those sentences are why the question shows up on flips outside a city main. They are not a reason to skip the sample because "a lot of houses have wells," and they are not a prediction for the house in your contract. The study is not your lot.

You are not trying to prove the water looks clear. EPA's Protect Your Home's Water page says to test every year for total coliform bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids, and pH, and to test immediately if you notice a change in odor, color, or taste. A glass that looks fine on a Tuesday has not answered the annual list. If the report in the deal file is silent on one of those four, say so before you call the well clear.

2. Keep a home inspection from standing in for the sample

InterNACHI's Standards of Practice say the inspector is not required to inspect wells or springs, and is not required to inspect underground utilities or underground items. The plumbing section says the inspector is not required to inspect well pumps or tanks, water softeners, or filtering systems, and is not required to determine the exact flow rate, volume, pressure, temperature, or adequacy of the supply. The same section says the inspector is not required to determine the water quality, potability, or reliability of the water supply or source. A report that never uses the word laboratory has not measured the water.

The plumbing section does require two descriptions that people confuse with a well test. The inspector shall describe whether the water supply is public or private based upon observed evidence. The inspector shall report deficiencies in the water supply by viewing the functional flow in two fixtures operated simultaneously. Write down both sentences if they appear. "Private, based on what I could see" is not a well log. Two fixtures running together is not a continuous yield, and it is not a coliform result. The home inspection guide is where that general report belongs. This page starts when you still need the sample.

3. Read the annual panel and the nearby-activity list

CDC's Guidelines for Testing Well Water say to test at least once every year for total coliforms, pH, total dissolved solids, and nitrates, plus other germs and chemicals of concern where you live. The page says to use a state-certified laboratory, and that the local or state health department can help you understand the results and what to do next. EPA's protect page uses the same four annual tests and says to use only laboratories certified to do drinking water testing. A kit you mail yourself is not that instruction unless the laboratory that receives it is certified and the chain of custody matches the rule your lender or health department actually uses.

Read the coliform line before you read the adjective "safe." CDC says coliform bacteria live in people's and animals' digestive systems, in soil, on plants, and in surface water, and that these bacteria generally will not make you sick. CDC also says that if the total coliform count is high, harmful germs are likely also in the water, because coliforms typically get in the same way those germs do. A positive test for fecal coliforms or E. coli, on that page, likely means feces, and the harmful germs in feces, have gotten into the well. A present coliform line with an absent E. coli line is two results. It is not one result you may collapse into "no bacteria."

Read the nitrate line the same way. CDC says all well owners should test for nitrates at least once every year, and that high levels can make people, and especially babies, sick. The sources CDC names include animal waste, septic systems, wastewater, flooded sewers, polluted stormwater, fertilizers, farm runoff, and decaying plants, and CDC says the geology around the well matters too. If nitrates are high, CDC says other harmful chemicals or germs might also be in the water, and tells you to contact the local health department about further tests. A nitrate number under a health benchmark does not close the coliform line, and a coliform line does not close nitrate.

The annual four are not the whole chart. EPA's protect page lists conditions or nearby activities and the substances to consider. The rows below are a selection from that chart, not a shorter law. If your lot matches a row, ask the laboratory and the health department for that substance. If it does not, write "not this lot" instead of leaving the row blank.

CDC's ask-the-health-department list is a second page, not a duplicate of that chart. It names volatile organic compounds, lead, arsenic, mercury, radium, pesticides or herbicides, and other chemicals or germs. Ask. Do not add a price for a substance nobody ordered, and do not treat silence as a zero. The radon row is a water question. The indoor-air test, including what a picocurie result means in air, lives on the radon guide. This page does not turn an air number into a water number. EPA's chart says to test for radon in the water when the air test or the region gives you that reason. It does not, on the chart reviewed here, print a water concentration.

EPA's protect page also says you may want to test more often if small children or elderly adults live in the house, or if someone is pregnant or nursing, because those groups are often more vulnerable. It says to test immediately when there are known groundwater problems, when conditions near the well change significantly, including flooding, land disturbance, and new construction or industrial activity, when you replace or repair any part of the well system, or when odor, color, or taste changes. CDC adds a mechanical check: at a minimum, look the well over every spring for mechanical problems. A spring look is not the annual laboratory panel. Put both dates on the file if you will hold the house.

4. Use public-water numbers without calling them a private-well law

A laboratory report often prints a national standard beside your number. Read whose standard it is. EPA's National Primary Drinking Water Regulations table is the public-water list. EPA's private-wells page says those federal rules do not regulate a private domestic well. The number can still be the benchmark your health department, your lender, or your resale buyer uses. It is not, by itself, a permit you passed.

Nitrate is the line where the public number is written as a single concentration. The national primary table lists nitrate, measured as nitrogen, with a maximum contaminant level goal of 10 mg/L and a maximum contaminant level of 10 mg/L. The health effect named there is for infants below six months who drink water above that level: they could become seriously ill and, if untreated, may die, with symptoms that include shortness of breath and blue-baby syndrome. Nitrite, measured as nitrogen, is listed at 1 mg/L. EPA's page on private wells and infants says there are no requirements for testing private wells, recommends a test especially if you have an infant or expect to become pregnant, and says not to mix well water containing more than 10 milligrams per liter of nitrate with infant formula or food. That page also says nitrate and nitrite levels are typically highest between April and July, and to test after flooding if floodwater covered the well. A flip you will resell to a family is not an infant-formula plan. The 10 mg/L line is still the benchmark that page prints. Do not replace it with a round number you prefer.

Total coliform is not that kind of one-bottle score. The same national primary table lists total coliforms, including fecal coliform and E. coli, with a maximum contaminant level goal of zero and a public-system maximum contaminant level described in the footnote as no more than 5.0 percent of samples positive in a month. For systems that collect fewer than 40 routine samples a month, the footnote says no more than one sample can be positive per month. The table's health note says total coliform is not a health threat in itself. It is used to indicate whether other potentially harmful bacteria may be present. The footnote says fecal coliform and E. coli indicate the water may be contaminated with human or animal wastes. That 5 percent rule is a monthly rule for a public system that takes many samples. One bottle from a private well is not a monthly percentage. Use CDC's well page for what a high coliform count and an E. coli positive mean on a house. Do not announce that one positive bottle "violates the 5 percent MCL."

Lead and arsenic show up the same way: as public-water rows a lab may print, and as questions CDC says to ask about. The national primary table lists lead with an action level of 0.015 mg/L and arsenic with a maximum contaminant level of 0.010 mg/L. Those rows regulate public systems. They become a private-well comparison only when the report, the health department, or a lender standard that points at EPA says to use them. If the plumbing contains lead, EPA's condition chart says to test pH, lead, and copper. Order the line. Do not copy the action level into the offer as if it were a repair bid.

EPA's protect page says some problems can be handled quickly, and gives high bacteria as the example: concentrations can sometimes be controlled by adding disinfection such as chlorine, ozone, or ultraviolet treatment. "Sometimes" is the word on the page. A receipt that says the well was chlorinated is a work record. It is not a new sample. Ask for the retest before you waive. The page does not print a national price for that work, and this guide will not invent one.

5. Separate a shared well from a well on your lot

A well that serves only your house is a different file from a well the neighbor also uses. HUD Handbook 4000.1, in the shared-well paragraphs of the Update 18 PDF reviewed for this guide, says the mortgagee must confirm several facts before a shared well is the water supply on an FHA-insured loan. The well serves properties that cannot feasibly be connected to an acceptable public or community system. It can provide a continuous supply so that each existing dwelling is assured of at least three gallons per minute, and each proposed dwelling five gallons per minute, over a continuous four-hour period. The handbook allows a lesser yield from the well itself if pressurized storage makes 720 gallons available to each connected existing dwelling during that four-hour period, or 1,200 gallons for each proposed dwelling. The yield has to be shown by a certified pumping test or another means acceptable to the parties. The well provides safe and potable water, with an inspection under the same circumstances as an individual well. Each dwelling service line has a valve as it leaves the well so one house can be shut off without cutting off the others. The well serves no more than four living units or properties.

The same section says a shared-well agreement has to be binding on the signers and their successors, recorded in the local deed records, and joined by any mortgagee on a connected property. The table of provisions includes sampling at the request of any party, corrective measures if testing shows a significant quality problem, continuity of service if one party no longer needs the well, a ban on adding another living unit without every party's consent, easements for maintenance, and rules for who pays for the pump, repairs, and an emergency. A listing sentence that says "shared well" is not that agreement. If the recorded agreement is missing, you do not yet know who fixes the pump. That is true on a cash purchase even when no lender is asking for the handbook table. Ask the title file for the recording. Do not pace off a fence and call the share documented.

An individual well still has a flow line, and it is a different sentence. For existing construction, the handbook's water-well requirements say existing wells must deliver a continuous water flow at a minimum of three gallons per minute. The five gallons per minute over at least a four-hour period is printed on the new construction row, under 24 CFR § 200.926d(f)(1), not on the existing-construction row. Do not paste the four-hour test onto a house that is already standing unless the row you are using actually says it. A two-fixture glance from the general inspection is neither row.

6. Read the FHA water rules before you promise a buyer

Cash at your purchase does not retire the question if the resale buyer will borrow. The Update 18 PDF says the mortgagee must confirm a connection to a public or community water system whenever feasible and available at a reasonable cost. If connection costs are not reasonable, the existing onsite systems are acceptable provided they function properly and meet the local health department. When a public system is present, the handbook treats the water as safe and potable unless the appraiser indicates deficiencies or says the water is unsafe, or the health authority has issued a public notice that the water is unsafe. The paragraph reviewed here does not print a percentage of value for "reasonable cost." Do not invent one, and do not recycle an older bulletin that used a percent unless the version in your file still says it.

When the supply is an individual well, the mortgagee must ensure the water quality meets the health authority with jurisdiction. If there is no local or state water-quality standard, quality must meet EPA's national primary drinking water regulations in 40 CFR §§ 141 and 142. The handbook then names sources that are not eligible for FHA mortgage insurance: a mechanical chlorinator, or water served by springs, lakes, rivers, sand-point wells, or artesian wells. Read that list before you tell a buyer the house is FHA-ready because a faucet runs. A chlorinator in the basement is a named eligibility problem in that sentence, not a bonus feature, until a lender accepts a different handbook version.

A well water test is required for, but not limited to, properties that are newly constructed, where the appraiser has reported deficiencies with the well or the water, where water is reported or known to be unsafe, or that are located in close proximity to dumps, landfills, industrial sites, farms using pesticides, or other sites that could contain hazardous wastes. The "not limited to" means the list is not a ceiling. All testing must be performed by a disinterested third party, including collection and transport. The sample is collected and tested by the local health authority, a commercial testing laboratory, a licensed sanitary engineer, or another party acceptable to the local health authority. The borrower, the owner, or another interested party does not collect or transport the sample. When a test is required, the report may not be more than 180 days old from the disbursement date, and it comes from the local health authority or a lab qualified to test in that jurisdiction. A bottle you filled on the walkthrough is not that sample.

The same PDF prints minimum distances for existing construction. The rows reviewed here are 10 feet from the property line, 50 feet from a septic tank, 100 feet from a drain field, and a septic tank drain field reduced to 75 feet if the local authority allows that reduction. If the property line is adjacent to residential property, local well-distance requirements prevail. If the property is adjacent to nonresidential property or a roadway, the separation is at least 10 feet from the property line. Local requirements prevail if they are greater than the table. Those distances match the rows the septic guide quoted from an earlier handbook PDF. They are well-to-system distances for an FHA file. They are not a universal setback for a house on city water.

Read the later waiver before you treat the table as the only path. FHA INFO 2026-17, dated July 27, 2026, on HUD's FHA INFO page, says FHA issued a broad waiver of the well-distance requirements for individual water supply systems in the minimum property requirements for existing construction. The waiver applies only when the property meets the local jurisdiction's distance requirements and the mortgagee documents acceptable water testing. The local jurisdiction, in that message, is the health authority, environmental agency, or municipality that has inspected, permitted, or grandfathered the private water system in its current configuration. The waiver is effective immediately and does not apply to new construction. It does not delete the water test. A shorter local distance without the test, or without proof the local authority actually accepted this well, is not the waiver.

If safe water depends on a purifier, the handbook has another section. An individual residential water purification system is equipment, point of entry or point of use, installed where the property otherwise lacks a continuous supply of safe and potable water. The mortgagee must then ensure the system, a service contract for ongoing maintenance, a plan approved by the local or state health authority, and an escrow account. Point-of-use equipment has to be on each faucet that supplies water people will drink. The treated water has to meet the local or state standard, or EPA's standards if neither applies. A filter you plan to buy after closing is not that package. Price the system, the contract, and the question of who funds the escrow as separate lines. Do not hide them inside a blanket contingency once the laboratory has already shown the untreated water fails the benchmark you are using.

7. Treat transfer rules as local, then read one state example

EPA's infant page says there are no requirements for testing private water wells, and recommends testing anyway. That sentence is national. It does not tell you what your county asks for at a transfer, and it does not cancel a contract contingency you signed. Call the health department that permits wells where the house sits. Ask what a buyer's file usually contains, who may collect the sample, and which substances are required rather than recommended. Write the name of the person and the date.

Massachusetts is one worked example, not a national form. MassDEP's private-well questions on Mass.gov say MassDEP recommends that, before purchase, a buyer test the water in a home with a private well. After purchase, the interval can generally be measured in years if the well is properly constructed and located in a safe area. The same page lists reasons to test more often: heavily developed areas that handle hazardous chemicals, recent well construction or repairs, an earlier result above a standard, and a noticeable change after heavy rain, drought, or a previously trouble-free well that now tastes or looks wrong. It recommends a bacterial test after any well repair or pump or plumbing modification, and only after disinfection and substantial flushing. It recommends sampling after a heavy rain. It tells you to contact the local board of health for tests that local private well regulations require, and to use a state-certified laboratory. Bacteria and nitrate or nitrite, on that page, should be sampled yearly. Other contaminants of concern should be tested at least every ten years, or as the board of health requires. None of those sentences is a license to skip the test in another state, and none of them is a promise that Massachusetts will accept a report from a different state's form.

8. Work three named well files

These three files are illustrative. The names, the bids, and the contract prices are teaching numbers, not quotes and not customer results. Each one uses the same screen the 70 percent guide explains: after-repair value times 0.70, minus repairs. Holding cost stays on its own line, the way the holding cost guide separates a daily carry from a contractor invoice. Run your own inputs in the maximum offer calculator or the flip analysis calculator. The screen is not a laboratory, and it is not an appraisal.

Illustrative scenario: Elena Ruiz. Elena is under contract at $172,000 on a vacant house with a private well. Her after-repair value, from closed sales she can explain, is $310,000. Her repair budget before anyone samples the water is $46,000. The 70 percent screen is $310,000 times 0.70, which is $217,000, minus $46,000, which is a maximum offer of $171,000. The contract is already $1,000 over that screen. The general inspection says the supply appears private and that two fixtures ran. It does not report a laboratory. She orders a certified lab. Total coliform is present. E. coli is absent. Nitrate is 3.2 mg/L, which is under the 10 mg/L maximum contaminant level on EPA's public-water table. Total dissolved solids and pH are reported. The water in the glass was clear.

She does not call the well a pass because the glass was clear and E. coli was absent. CDC says a high total coliform count means harmful germs are likely also in the water, and that a positive E. coli test likely means feces. Her report says present, not a count, so she does not invent a concentration. She treats the present coliform line as unfinished until a retest or the health department speaks to it, and she does not let the absent E. coli line erase it. EPA says disinfection can sometimes control high bacteria. Sometimes is not a retest. Her well contractor bids $1,400 to disinfect and resample. That bid is hers, for this example. It is not an EPA price. The cap and casing were not opened, which matches the InterNACHI limit: the general inspector was not required to inspect the well. She writes her own $6,500 allowance, labeled as her number until a well contractor replaces it, for whatever the cap and casing require after someone qualified looks. She keeps that allowance out of the "passed" column.

New repairs are $46,000 plus $1,400 plus $6,500, which is $53,900. The new screen is $217,000 minus $53,900, which is $163,100. The contract is $8,900 above that ceiling. Her contingency, if she had been holding 10 percent of the original $46,000, would be $4,600. The new well lines are $7,900. That reserve does not cover them. Her decision is an objection: a price cut or a credit that funds the disinfection, the retest, and the allowance, or she walks. A seller who will pay only for a bottle of chlorine has not closed the unseen casing.

Illustrative scenario: Marcus Hale. Marcus is under contract at $228,000. After-repair value is $420,000. Repairs before the water test are $62,000. The screen is $420,000 times 0.70, which is $294,000, minus $62,000, which is $232,000. The contract sits $4,000 under that screen, which feels like room. The house is beside active fields. EPA's chart says nearby intensive agriculture is a reason to test nitrate, nitrite, pesticides, and coliform. The certified lab reports nitrate at 14 mg/L, above the 10 mg/L maximum contaminant level, and total coliform absent. He does not use the absent coliform line to retire the nitrate line.

EPA's infant page says not to mix water over 10 mg/L nitrate with infant formula. Marcus is not mixing formula. He is planning a resale. A treatment contractor's written price, his number for the example, is $4,800 for a point-of-entry system. The handbook says that if the property does not have a continuous supply of safe and potable water without purification, an FHA file needs the system, a service contract, a health-authority plan, and an escrow. He does not have that package. He allows 10 days for install and a retest of the treated water. His holding assumption is $70 a day. That rate is his, not a published index. Ten days cost $700.

New repairs are $62,000 plus $4,800, which is $66,800. The new screen is $294,000 minus $66,800, which is $227,200. The contract is $800 over that screen. The 70 percent shortcut still has not subtracted the $700 of holding. A detailed ceiling that also subtracts those days is $226,500, and the gap to the contract is $1,500. The $4,000 cushion is gone. Marcus's decision is an objection for a reduction that covers the treatment, with the holding days written beside it, or he walks. If he later proceeds with cash, he keeps the system and the retest on the sale file and does not advertise the house as ready for an FHA buyer until that purification package exists. He does not hide $4,800 inside the old contingency.

Illustrative scenario: Jordan Adeyemi. Jordan is buying with cash at $195,000 and plans to resell. After-repair value is $355,000. Repairs are $51,000. The screen is $355,000 times 0.70, which is $248,500, minus $51,000, which is $197,500. The contract is $2,500 under the screen. The listing says the well is shared with the house next door. The title package has no recorded shared-well agreement. Nobody has produced a certified pumping test. The general inspection's two-fixture note is the only flow comment in the file.

She does not treat "shared" as documented. The handbook limits a shared well on an FHA loan to four living units, wants each existing dwelling assured of three gallons per minute over four hours or 720 gallons of storage, and wants the recorded agreement described above. She is paying cash. The missing agreement still means she cannot tell who pays when the pump fails, and she cannot promise an FHA buyer a file she does not have. Her allowance, until the recording and a yield test exist, is $9,000, her number, for a new well on her lot if the share cannot be papered. New repairs are $60,000. The new screen is $248,500 minus $60,000, which is $188,500. The contract is $6,500 over that ceiling.

Her decision is an objection. She asks for the recorded agreement and a yield test before she spends the allowance, and she walks if the share stays verbal. She does not measure the neighbor's septic from the fence and call the distances compliant. If both a well and a septic system are on the parcel, the distance rows belong on both files, measured by someone whose report you can attach, and checked against the local rule and, if the exit is FHA, against the July 27, 2026 waiver conditions. The fix-and-flip workflow is where the purchase math and the resale math stay on one property. The deal analysis feature is the product page for the offer, not a water certification.

9. Use a well-file checklist without an account

You can do this on paper. You do not need an account to decide whether the report in your hand is complete enough to waive.

1. Write the address, the sample date, and the laboratory's name. Confirm the laboratory is certified for drinking water in that state, or write "not confirmed" and the date you asked.
2. Name the supply with the words on the report: individual well, shared well, public, spring, lake, river, sand-point, artesian, or unknown.
3. Write who collected the sample and who carried it to the lab. If you, the seller, or another interested party did either job, it is not the disinterested collection the handbook requires when an FHA test applies.
4. Copy total coliform, E. coli or fecal coliform if it was run, nitrate, nitrite if it was run, total dissolved solids, and pH. If one of the four annual items is missing, ask before you waive.
5. Mark each nearby-activity row from EPA's chart as ordered, not this lot, or not asked. Do not leave the row blank.
6. If the report prints a national standard, write whether it is a public-water maximum contaminant level, an action level, or a monthly percentage. Do not treat a 5 percent coliform rule as a one-bottle score.
7. Put any disinfection, treatment, or drilling bid on its own line. Leave it blank until you have the bid. Do not borrow a national price this guide does not contain.
8. If the bid is disinfection, schedule the retest as a second report. A chlorination receipt is not the retest.
9. Write the flow evidence you actually have: two fixtures, a gallons-per-minute test, a four-hour test, storage gallons, or none. Do not upgrade a two-fixture note into three gallons per minute.
10. If the well is shared, attach the recorded agreement or write "requested, not received." Count the living units it serves.
11. If a septic system is on the parcel, copy the well-to-tank and well-to-field distances from a report, and note whether the July 27, 2026 distance waiver could apply. If there is no septic, write that.
12. If the rehab will repair the pump, the casing, or the treatment system, or if crews will disturb the ground at the well, flag a new sample. EPA lists repair and land disturbance as reasons to test again.
13. Convert the finding into a repair line and, if a retest or a permit adds days, a holding line. Rerun the maximum offer. Compare it with the contract.
14. Circle one decision: proceed, object with a number, or walk. Date it. A blank circle is not a waiver you can explain later.

10. Keep the rehab from changing the sample

The laboratory can look acceptable and the renovation can still make the result stale. EPA's protect page says to test immediately when you replace or repair any part of the well system, and when conditions near the well change significantly, including land disturbance and new construction. A new pump, an opened casing, a trench through the yard, or a treatment system you install is that kind of change. A paint color in a bedroom that does not touch the well is not, on that page, a new water test. Say which one you are doing. MassDEP's example, which applies in Massachusetts, recommends a bacterial test after a well repair or a pump or plumbing modification, and only after disinfection and substantial flushing. Ask your own health department whether the same sequence applies. Do not import the Massachusetts sentence into a state that wrote a different one.

Flooding is its own line. EPA's protect page lists flooding among the significant changes that call for an immediate test. The infant page says to test wells after flooding, especially if they were covered by floodwater. If the house sits in a mapped flood hazard and you have not read the map, the due diligence checklist is where that lookup is introduced. A flood map is not a coliform result. A coliform result from before a flood is not the water after the flood.

Treatment you add for nitrate, bacteria, or a metal has to be checked on the water people will drink. The handbook's purification section says the treated supply has to meet the health-authority standard, or EPA's if no state or local standard applies. Test the treated tap. Do not file the untreated failure and the filter brochure as if they were the same page. Service the system on a schedule you can show a buyer. EPA does not print that schedule for your brand of filter. The manufacturer and the health department do.

Crews need water, and a vacant well is still a well. Do not let a running toilet or a hose left open become the way you learn the yield. The flow test, if you need one, belongs to the person qualified to run it, with the result written down. Utility transfers for a house on a public main are covered in the utility transfer guide. A private well is not a meter you move into the owner's name.

Keep the paper on the property record: the laboratory report, the chain of custody, the well log if you have it, the distances, the shared agreement, the bid, the retest, the health-department email, the objection, and the decision. A workspace can hold those next to the offer. It cannot sample the well or decide the waiver. The rehab cost calculator and the holding cost calculator are the public places to separate the disinfection, the treatment or drilling allowance, and the extra days before you create an account. If a summary drafted from the photos says the water is fine and the report shows coliform present or nitrate over 10 mg/L, the report wins.

11. Avoid the waivers that happen from a running faucet

• Waiving because the general inspection never said the water failed. InterNACHI does not require the inspector to inspect the well, the pump, or the water quality. Silence is not a laboratory.
• Treating clear water as a pass. CDC's coliform explanation does not depend on what you can see. Elena's clear glass did not retire a present coliform line.
• Collapsing two bacteria lines into one. Total coliform and E. coli answer different questions on CDC's page. Absent E. coli is not "no coliform."
• Using the public-water 5 percent coliform rule as a one-bottle grade. That footnote is a monthly rule for systems that take many samples. A private well's single result is not that percentage.
• Treating a chlorination receipt as a new sample. EPA says disinfection can sometimes control high bacteria. The retest is the result. The receipt is the work.
• Pasting a city-water utility transfer onto a well. A well is not an account you move into the owner's name. The utility guide is the meter page.
• Calling a shared well documented because the listing said shared. The handbook's agreement is recorded, and it says who pays. Jordan's verbal share is not that paper.
• Upgrading two fixtures into a yield. Three gallons per minute, five gallons per minute, four hours, and 720 gallons are different sentences. Use the sentence that matches the house.
• Ignoring the July 27, 2026 distance waiver, or treating it as a free pass. The waiver is existing construction, local distances the jurisdiction actually accepted, and acceptable water testing. It is not new construction, and it is not a missing lab report.
• Inventing a percentage for a public-water connection. The handbook paragraph reviewed here says feasible and available at a reasonable cost. It does not print a percent. Do not add one.
• Using another state's form. Massachusetts is a real recommendation, with a yearly bacteria and nitrate habit and a ten-year note for other contaminants. Your board of health can require something else.
• Letting a draft summary overrule the report. If the summary says the water is fine and the report shows nitrate at 14 mg/L, the report wins. You still send the objection yourself.