The well is drilled. Here's what nobody was hired to check.
A finished well comes with paperwork. Depth, casing, static water level, yield in gallons per minute, the driller files a well log with the Idaho Department of Water Resources, and it's worth keeping your own copy somewhere you can find it.
Read that report carefully and you'll notice what isn't on it: anything about what's in the water.
That's not a gap in your driller's work. Drilling is regulated in Idaho, permits, licensed drillers, construction standards. Water quality isn't. Once the pump is set and the water runs clear, everyone whose job touched your well is done, and no agency ever shows up to test a private well. From the first glass onward, the chemistry of that water is entirely your department.
Here's the order of operations.
First: let the chlorine clear
Drillers normally disinfect a new well when they finish, a strong chlorine charge to knock down the surface bacteria that construction inevitably introduces. You'll smell it.
Don't sample for bacteria while any chlorine is still in the water. The chlorine kills whatever's in your sample bottle and hands you a clean result that means nothing. Run outside spigots until the smell and taste are completely gone, this can take a surprising amount of flushing, and give it a few days after that before the bacteria sample goes to the lab.
While you're flushing, expect some cloudiness and grit. A new well stirs up sediment from its own construction, and it usually settles down as the well gets pumped. Persistent cloudiness weeks later is worth a call, to your driller first.
What to test before you drink it
Two tiers, honestly separated.
The minimum, right away: coliform bacteria and nitrate. This is the standard first-test guidance for any new well, and it answers the immediate question, is there anything in this water that says stop. If coliform shows up on the first test, don't panic and don't buy anything: a single hit right after construction is common, and the usual sequence is re-disinfect, re-flush, re-test. If E. coli ever shows up, that's different, boil or use bottled water immediately, and get eyes on the wellhead before any other conversation. And if nitrate comes back above 10 mg/L, the federal standard, and there's an infant or a pregnancy in the household, the answer that day is bottled water, before anyone talks systems.
The baseline, within the first months: a full certified panel, arsenic, uranium, iron, manganese, hardness, pH, and the rest of the metals and minerals. Arsenic and uranium occur naturally in parts of this region's groundwater, they have no taste, smell, or color, and no amount of running the tap tells you whether your new well found them. A new well is a brand-new straw into rock nobody has ever sampled at this exact spot and depth. The only way to know what it drinks from is a lab.
Certified lab, chain of custody, not a strip kit. A strip can't read arsenic anywhere near the concentration the federal standard is set at, and the baseline is only worth keeping if the numbers on it are real.
Why the first year is the one to watch
New wells move. Three reasons:
The well is still developing. Months of regular pumping keep clearing construction effects, fines wash out, and water that sat against fresh cement grout can run at a higher pH than the aquifer's real number until it's pumped through.
You haven't seen the seasons yet. Shallow and moderate-depth wells in this region can shift with recharge, spring runoff and snowmelt change what's moving through the ground. The August version of your water and the April version are not always the same water.
The first test is one frame of a moving picture. Which is exactly why it's worth taking. Test early, then re-test the things that matter after the well has settled and seen a spring. Two data points a year apart tell you whether you have stable chemistry or a well with a seasonal personality, and that difference changes what any future equipment should be.
What the baseline is actually worth
Three things, none of them hypothetical:
It's the reference for every future change. Water that shifts in year six means something completely different when you can compare it to year one.
It's paperwork that outlives you owning the house. Buyers with wells are starting to ask. Sellers with a certified history answer from a folder instead of a memory.
It's the difference between sizing and guessing. If this water ever needs treatment, the equipment gets specified from measured numbers. Systems sized from a guess are how garages end up with the wrong tank in them.
The honest part: don't buy equipment yet
Week-one water is not the water you'll live with, and anyone who quotes you a treatment system off the water your driller just finished flushing is quoting a moving target.
Test now, absolutely. But unless the lab turns up something with a federal standard attached, bacteria, nitrate, arsenic, uranium, the right move in month one is usually to run the well, watch it, and re-test before specifying anything. If someone's already quoted you a system for a brand-new well without a certified report in hand, ask them what number they sized it from.
What we'd do
A free consult first. Twenty minutes on the phone. Tell us when the well was finished, what the driller's report says, and whether the chlorine has cleared. We'll tell you what to test now, what to leave for the settled re-test, and what to simply watch.
If you want the full picture, the Water Assessment is the certified baseline panel with chain of custody, credited in full toward a system if the water ever turns out to need one. If it comes back clean, you've bought the document every future decision about this well gets measured against.
For drillers
You drill it, case it, chlorinate it, and hand it over, and then the water-quality calls start, which were never your scope.
Send them here, or send them to us. We don't drill, we don't set pumps, and we don't touch anything on your side of the wellhead, flow, yield, drawdown, and pump questions go straight back to you, by name if you want. We'll give your customer a straight answer about what's worth testing on a new well, including "nothing yet, let it settle." Get in touch and we'll send you a one-pager you can leave with a finished well.