My well water testing came back as showing some bacterial contamination.
I know the well needs to be disinfected but am not sure where to start. Are there companies that do this sort of thing? Is it something I can do myself? Is it difficult to do? Should I be thinking of a home filtration system?
The information on the internet is overwhelming and I’m just a bit lost.
Thanks so much.
I’m sure there is some new techno method that works as well and costs a lot more but:
When I was a kid, growing up on the dairy farm, we had a 20 foot-deep spring fed well.
Every Spring dad would dump a gallon or two of Clorox in the well and leave it sit 24 hours.
Mom had already drawn enough drinking water but had saved up the laundry to “purge” the well, when dad gave the ok to start washing clothes.
The bottom line was that we did not drink from the well, after dad cloroxed it, for around 72 hours.
I still use Clorox to clean horse buckets and troughs and nobody’s died yet. However, to reiterate, there’s probably newer method that costs more or call someone who specializes in well-decontamination and take a second mortgage on the house to pay for them:(
Who is servicing your well?
That is who you have to call to “shock” it.
Today, at least here, there are all kinds of regulations for wells and how to disinfect them is one of those.
Our well man is certified by the state and keeps logs of everything he does they check.
Our wells are around 200’ to 800’, so that may be different where you are, if it is a shallower one.
This.
Then get it tested again.
Thanks for the quick replies.
Thanks Walk. I saw that method on a couple of sites.
Bluey: I checked the website of the company who put the well in but they don’t seem to offer a ‘shocking’ service. They do have some fancy decontamination systems on the site though. I dont want to get talked into a bunch of stuff I dont need and can’t afford.
How would I find a ‘well man’?
Shocking doesn’t always work. We have a UV sterilite filter in our incoming line.
Generally, dump a gallon of bleach down the well head, wait an hour then open all of the faucets in the house until the water no longer smells like chlorine.
Your county health dept should have a fact sheet about how to shock a well. Its a little more complicated than just pouring bleach in it. You have to circulate the water using a hose and running it back into the well. You need to put water softeners in bypass mode. You need to run water from every faucet until you smell the bleach. Then let it sit for at least 12 hours. When you clear the well its best to run it out a hose into your yard or somewhere other than your septic system, so it doesn’t disturb the good bacteria. If you need more info. PM me I’ll send a link.
gypsymare: Do you mind if I ask what kind of costs are involved in that?
When we sold our house in Oklahoma, the well test failed due to a certain, fairly harmless bacteria. All that was required was for us to dump a gallon of bleach down the well, wait a few hours, and then run all the faucets until we smelled bleach. I never did smell the bleach, and shut the faucets off after 10 minutes. Never had to do anything with the water softener or filter, or running hoses back down.
Well was tested again, and was clean.
I am going to assume that where I lived, the process I did was completely legal, or else I would expect I would have had to proceed differently to legally close on the house. Heck, I had to show receipts for the chimney being swept, but no one gave a care about how the well was handled as long as it tested negative.
Hopefully treating the OP’s well is a quick, painless and CHEAP as it was for me!
Once you get things straightened out, you’ll want to consider putting on a UV light filter to help kill any residual or new bacteria as the water flows for your consumption needs.
We just had to have our well chlorinated. It involved putting bleach powder into the well, running water from all faucets until we smelled bleach, letting it sit for 24 hours, and then running all faucets until the smell went away.
I will say, however, that the man who did this looked at our piping before pouring the bleach in, and since we had a certain kind of copper piping, he had to use a special kind of bleach. He said regular bleach would have dissolved our pipes. So don’t just pour bleach into your well - you might get yourself in trouble.
Just call someone who does well maintenance. They can come out and do it for you. When our guy was here, he also noticed the bladder in our pressure tank was bad so we had to replace that. It never hurts to have an expert come out once in awhile! LOL
Thanks for all the help.
It sounds like my best course of action will be to call the company who installed the well and go from there. At least, now, I have an idea of what needs to be done.
Thanks. I really appreciate it.
This is from a local water conditioning company.
http://www.huemannwater.com/wp-content/uploads/file/WellChlor.pdf
This is how we were told to do it…^^^^^^^
Take a gallon of bleach and pour it into the well. Everyone should first take a sample of well water and get your county ag agent to do tests to see what is in it. Then follow his directions on what to do and how often to do it. Bleach is usually recommended.
Here are directions from my county’s health department website:
Following are the instructions the Health Department sends to homeowners who need to disinfect their well. These instructions should be used to disinfect after a positive bacteria sample, after replacing a well pump, or after doing any other work to the well:
Method for Disinfection of Water Supply
Chlorinating is an important step in making your water supply safe for human consumption. The Procedure for chlorinating is as follows:
Turn off the circuit breaker for the hot water heater, or in the case of a gas water heater, turn the water heater to pilot. Remove the well cap, or for and older well, remove the vent plug in the sanitary seal.
Add two (2) ounces (by weight) of calcium hypochlorite tablets (preferred) or granules (also known as swimming pool shock) directly to the well. These can be obtained where pool supplies are sold. Do not use slow release chlorine tablets designed for swimming pool chlorine feeders.
In addition, use three (3) ounces of fresh 5.25% household bleach for every ten (10) feet of water in your well. Use a minimum of one-half (1/2) gallon. If you cannot find tablets or granules, increase the amount bleach by 50% (i.e. 100 oz. increase to 150 oz.). Dilute the bleach with a gallon of water. Pour the mixture directly into the well, making sure the solution coats the inside of the casing. In some older wells, the chlorine solution may have to be added through the vent plug on top of the sanitary seal.
After the chlorine has been added, wait thirty (30) minutes, then run the water using an outside faucet until there is a chlorine smell. If chlorine is not apparent after an hour, turn the water off for fifteen (15) minutes, then run the water again for up to one hour, repeating this process until the chlorine smell is present.
Run every faucet until a chlorine smell is detected. This should include hot water taps, outside taps, barn taps, showerheads, and the taps at the bottom of the hot water heater and pressure tank. After the chlorine is detected, close each tap. Any appliances attached to the system such as dishwashers, ice makers, washing machines, furnace humidifiers, etc. should be cycled until chlorinated water has moved through the unit.* When all parts of your water system have been chlorinated, attach a garden hose to an outside tap and run chlorinated water down the well for 1 minute, moving the end of the hose around the inside of the well casing. Discontinue immediately if the water becomes cloudy.
Allow the water to remain in the plumbing system for at least 12 hours. Except for flushing toilets, no water should be used during that 12-hour period. At the end of this period, the chlorinated water should be run off. This should be done intermittently (run water no longer than one hour each time). An outside tap with an attached hose directed away from the house should be used, if possible, to prevent overloading the septic system. You should continue this process periodically until no chlorine smell is present. This process may take several days. The chlorine concentration will initially be very high, and it is strongly recommended that people refrain from using the water for bathing or laundry until the chlorine odor is gone.
When you finish, contact the Health Department for a follow-up water sample. The Health Department will normally require a 14-day waiting period after chlorination, before a follow-up water sample will be taken. This is to ensure that the sample is representative of the normal condition of the water supply. The water supply should be considered unsafe until it has been sampled and determined to be safe by the Health Department or another State-certified lab.
Please, consult with a plumber or other water service technician before
disinfection of any water treatment equipment.
Update:
Thank you so much for all the advice.
Called the people who put the well in. Companies no longer off ‘shocking’ service in our area because it is not legal any longer. A resident can do it on their own.
The company said they will come out and test the water (free). Then their advice (in general) was to put a rust filter on (I have hard water) and then a sterilite system (like what you have Jim). Sounds like it will cost about $2000. Ugh.
Thanks again for all the help. I really didn’t know where to start and the advice was really useful.
[QUOTE=Come Shine;7868709]
gypsymare: Do you mind if I ask what kind of costs are involved in that?[/QUOTE]
$2000 included our reverse osmosis filter and sediment filter. I’ll have to dig up the email with the quote later and see how much was just the UV light.
Thanks gypsymare. That’s sounds about in line with what the company was talking about today.
My rust/sediment filter cost not a huge amount of money from the home center. (GE branded) I don’t have the UV light filter since we don’t need it, but also haven’t priced them. Do some online shopping to see what might be the possibilities. And also talk to a regular, licensed plumber as the well company may be inflating things because, well…they are a well company…which is a “specialty”. As it were…
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