Across Fairfax County, only about 2 percent of residents draw water from a well of their own. Great Falls turns that around. The Health Department’s well map puts 3,644 of the county’s 15,636 mapped wells inside the Great Falls Census place, and its permit records show 3,552 active wells in 22066 alone. Those counts include some irrigation and geothermal wells, so not every one feeds a kitchen, but on the big lots off Georgetown Pike and Walker Road a pressure tank in the basement is the normal way a house gets water.
Half the houses here went up in the 1970s and 80s, and the well is usually as old as the house. The pump, the tank and the switch in it have each been replaced on their own schedule, or not at all. So the first question we ask in Great Falls is what’s been changed and when. A tank from the last owner and a pump from the builder are a different job than a system somebody redid five years ago.
Size matters on the water side too. The county’s tax records put the middle Great Falls house at about 3,700 square feet above ground with four full bathrooms. Three showers at once draw a small tank down fast, and the pump starts every time it does. Amtrol, which makes the tanks, says a bigger tank means more water between cycles and less running for the pump, so on a house this size we size the tank to the house, not just to the old one.
Recent Great Falls calls show the range. In September 2026 it was a 40/60 pressure switch leaking at the tank. In June 2026 an insurer wanted an automatic water shutoff on a well system, which meant draining the system and repiping part of the line. In February 2025 the gauge on a well system with a UV light read wrong, and the job was finding out why before anything got replaced.