Private well guide

Well Water in Alabama: Testing, Rules, Labs and Licensed Contractors

215,755 households in Alabama get their water from a private well. Here is what the state requires, where to get it tested, and who is licensed to work on it.

Find a certified labLicensed contractorsPick my county
150Licensed contractorschecked against state records
14Certified labsfrom the state certified list
67Counties covered
215,755Households on wells11% of households (est.)

About 216,000 Alabama households, one in nine, drink from a private well, and in the rural counties of the Black Belt, the Piedmont hills and the southwest it is close to half or more. Alabama licenses its drillers and sets a construction standard, tests nothing after the well is built, and leaves the water to the owner, with a county health department bacteria kit and a county Extension office chemistry test as the two cheap ways to keep up.

Who is in charge of an Alabama well

ADEM’s Water Well Standards Program licenses water well drillers under the Water Well Standards Act, writes the construction rules in chapter 335-9 and receives a notice before each well is drilled and a completion report after. There is no state permit for the owner and no state inspection; ADEM’s job is the driller and the hole. ADEM also certifies the drinking water laboratories, though the certified list is written for public water systems and is short. Water quality in a private well belongs to the Department of Public Health, whose Bureau of Clinical Laboratories tests bacteria samples that come in through the 67 county health departments, and to the Alabama Private Well Program at Auburn University, which runs the education and the Extension water test.

What is required, and what is left to you

A licensed driller, construction to the state standard, disinfection, and the driller’s paperwork with ADEM. After that, nothing: Alabama does not require a test of private well water when the well is new or when the house is sold, and with no mandatory seller’s disclosure a buyer has to ask. The advice from Public Health and Auburn is a bacteria test every spring and a chemistry test every few years, and in north Alabama’s karst, a retest after heavy rain.

At a glance

Water test for a new wellNot required statewide

No statewide water test and no state permit for the owner. The Water Well Standards Act requires the well to be drilled by an ADEM-licensed water well driller to the 335-9 construction standards (grouted casing, sanitary seal, setbacks from septic tanks, drainfields and other contamination sources), and the driller must notify ADEM before drilling and file a well completion report afterward. The driller is required to disinfect the new well; a few county health departments ask for a bacteria sample before a well serves a new home, and lenders usually do.

Water test when a home is soldNot required statewide

No statewide requirement. Alabama is a caveat emptor state with no mandatory seller's disclosure form, so nothing about the well has to be disclosed unless the buyer asks. FHA, VA and USDA loans normally require a bacteria, nitrate and lead sample from a certified lab before closing.

What the state recommends

The Department of Public Health and the Alabama Private Well Program at Auburn recommend testing a private well every year, preferably in spring, for coliform bacteria, and every few years for nitrate, pH, hardness, iron, manganese, lead and copper (Auburn's W1 Total Water Analysis covers the chemistry). Add radon in the Piedmont, arsenic in the Black Belt and coastal plain, chloride and sodium near the coast and in deep Black Belt wells, PFAS in the Tennessee Valley around Decatur and near airfields, and test again after flooding, well work or a change in taste, color or smell.

Free or low-cost testingAvailable

No statewide free program, but two cheap routes. Every county health department sells the Department of Public Health bacteria kit (total coliform and E. coli, a few dollars per sample, results in a few days from the Mobile or Prattville branch laboratory), and any county Extension office will take a sample for Auburn University's W1 Total Water Analysis for a small fee, with the county agent explaining the result. The Alabama Private Well Program at Auburn (888-844-4785) runs periodic free screening events.

What the water is like

Alabama’s groundwater splits along the fall line that runs from Phenix City through Montgomery to Tuscaloosa. South of it, the Coastal Plain’s thick sands hold plentiful water at 100 to 400 feet, soft and acidic enough to corrode copper plumbing, nearly always high in iron and often smelling of sulfur; in the Black Belt the chalk yields nothing and wells go 300 to 800 feet to the Eutaw and Gordo sands, where the water can turn salty. Along the Gulf, Baldwin and Mobile county wells draw from sands that saltwater is slowly creeping into. North of the fall line the east-central Piedmont drills into fractured granite and gneiss for modest yields with radon and acidic water, and the limestone country of the Tennessee Valley, the Cumberland Plateau and the Valley and Ridge gives hard water through karst that carries bacteria and cloudy runoff straight to the well after storms. Nitrate shows up in shallow wells around Sand Mountain’s poultry farms and the Wiregrass, and the Tennessee River corridor around Decatur has some of the highest PFAS levels found in groundwater anywhere in the country.

Certified labs, the county health department and the Extension test

ADEM certifies drinking water laboratories for public water system compliance, and the in-state commercial list is a dozen labs in Auburn, Birmingham, Decatur, Florence, Dothan, Tuscaloosa and Mobile, most of which mail bottles anywhere in the state. For the yearly bacteria check, the county health department is the usual route: the kit costs a few dollars and the sample goes to the Department of Public Health laboratory in Mobile or Prattville. For chemistry, any county Extension office will take a sample for Auburn’s Soil, Forage and Water Testing Laboratory. Every lab below comes from the ADEM certified lists dated April 2026, the Department of Public Health or Auburn, with the tests each is certified or set up to run.

14 certified labs

See all 14 certified labs in Alabama

ADEM-licensed water well drillers

Alabama licenses the individual driller, not the company, and licenses drillers only: there is no separate pump installer license, so the driller who builds the well also sets the pump. Every profile below is built from ADEM’s AL-OpCert public driller search, grouped under the business each driller works for, with the license numbers shown. Licenses renew every September 30. The state record rarely carries a phone number, so the numbers shown come from the business listings; Alabama publishes no well-record database, so the profiles do not show well counts.

150 licensed contractors

See all 150 licensed contractors in Alabama

By county

Well use runs from under 1% of homes in Jefferson County and a few percent in Montgomery, Madison and Shelby to 45% in Perry, Conecuh, Washington and Coosa, 56% in Clay and Cleburne and 62% in Choctaw. Each county page carries its well population, the nearest certified labs and the licensed drillers based there.

Alabama well water questions

Do I need a permit to drill a well in Alabama?

Not from the state. Your driller must hold an ADEM water well driller license, notify ADEM before drilling and file a completion report afterward. A few county health departments have their own well rules, so a call to the county environmental office before drilling is worth making.

Is a water test required when I sell my house?

No. Alabama has no statewide requirement and no mandatory seller’s disclosure. Government-backed mortgages require a bacteria, nitrate and lead test before closing, so most sales include one anyway.

How do I get my well tested for bacteria?

Go to your county health department’s environmental office, buy the sample bottle, collect the sample the way the instructions say and bring it back the same day. It goes to the Department of Public Health laboratory in Mobile or Prattville and the result comes back in a few days.

How do I get the chemistry tested?

Take a sample to your county Extension office for Auburn University’s W1 Total Water Analysis, which covers pH, hardness, nitrate, iron, manganese and a dozen other elements for a small fee, or use one of the ADEM-certified commercial labs below for metals, VOCs, radon or PFAS.

How do I find the record for my well?

Alabama has no public well log database. The driller files a completion report with ADEM, which you can request from the Water Well Standards Program, and the Geological Survey of Alabama holds older records; if you do not have the report, ask the driller named on the pump or pressure tank.