BYC Café

[sourland]

Good morning, Cafe', coffee is brewed.

 

[aart]

Shocking a well isn't hard.

If you know how.
I kinda know but....what about the water heater?
What kind of bleach do you use...and how much?
I have a shallow well with a large pump(circa 1976) inside the house,
I'd worry about that old pump too.

 

[Sally PB]

I have a shallow well

What depth is considered shallow?

A neighbor has one that is 80' deep and has very little iron in her water, though it is considered hard water with a fair amount of calcium. I know ours is MUCH deeper, though not sure how much. We have so much iron in our water that the company that came out to replace the softener when it died last spring recommended an iron filter. $1600 (in addition to the $1300 for the softener) and WORTH EVERY PENNY!! Oh, my, what a huge difference. I wish we had known of this years ago.

 

[DobieLover]

If you know how.
I kinda know but....what about the water heater?
What kind of bleach do you use...and how much?
I have a shallow well with a large pump(circa 1976) inside the house,
I'd worry about that old pump too.

Do you know your well depth, depth to static water and casing diameter? How big is your pressure tank? 20 gallons? With all this information you can calculate the volume of water in the well and house so you know how much chlorine and vinegar to put in. There are 1.46 gallons of water per 1 foot of 6" diameter well casing.
You should shock the water heater too. You turn off the power to it and drain it and flush it out to remove built up sediment.
Water softeners should be by-passed.
The pump would be fine.
You use plain, unscented bleach. Usually 5.25 - 6%.
You are shooting for 200 ppm chlorine.
The well at dad's house is deep and hadn't been shocked in a while and a lot of work was done on to the plumbing so we erred a little high on the concentration and used one gallon of bleach dumped into 5 gallons of water and poured that down the well. We turned the pump back on and put a hose from an outside bib down the well casing to circulate the water. Then dumped one gallon of white vinegar into a 5 gallon bucket of water and dumped that down the well. Then fill the bucket up with fresh clean water and leave it near the well.
The vinegar drops the pH of the solution to increase the effectiveness of the chlorine.
Then you leave the hose running down into the well until you can smell chlorine coming out of the hose. The problem with that is you have chlorine that gets splashed around the well so you always think you have chlorine there so I use a roll of test paper. It took over 45 minutes for the chlorine to show up in the hose.
Then you rinse down the well casing with the chlorinated water to disinfect it and the wires to the pump and shut off the hose. Dump the bucket of fresh water over the pitless adapter to remove any residual chorine from it.
Then start opening up valves on every point of water in the house until you get a positive on the test strip. Hot water lines, cold water lines, flush toilets twice, bring it into the washer feeds (disconnect hose and send to laundry sink or bucket), bring it into the refrigerator water dispenser and dump all the ice out of the ice maker so it brings sanitizing solution into the ice maker.
Let sit for 12-24 hours.
Put a hose on an outside bib and run the water off the grass for several hours. Depending on the well recovery rate, you may have to run for an hour then stop if the flow is really slow so the well can recover, then start again. Keep flushing the well until your test strip reads below 10 ppm. Then start flushing the lines in the house.
For the hot water tank, I attach a hose to it's drain and flush it outside for 5 minutes to remove any sediment that came up from the well, then allow it to fill before flushing the sinks/shower/washer hot water lines. You want to minimize how much of the bleach goes into the septic so you don't upset the bacteria colony in the tank.
That's it in a very large nut shell!

 

[Sally PB]

Thanks for the coffee, Sourland. I heat up the milk in the mug on the woodstove, since I have a fire going almost all the time. Such decadence on a gloomy day.

 

[aart]

That's it in a very large nut shell!

A lot to consider....simple maybe, but rather complex at the same time.

Do you know your well depth, depth to static water and casing diameter?

40'(so I was told), no idea, 4"(I think).

 

[aart]

We have so much iron in our water that the company that came out to replace the softener when it died last spring recommended an iron filter.

ShitTon of iron here.
No softener tho.

 

[LaFleche]

Do you know your well depth, depth to static water and casing diameter? How big is your pressure tank? 20 gallons? With all this information you can calculate the volume of water in the well and house so you know how much chlorine and vinegar to put in. There are 1.46 gallons of water per 1 foot of 6" diameter well casing.
You should shock the water heater too. You turn off the power to it and drain it and flush it out to remove built up sediment.
Water softeners should be by-passed.
The pump would be fine.
You use plain, unscented bleach. Usually 5.25 - 6%.
You are shooting for 200 ppm chlorine.
The well at dad's house is deep and hadn't been shocked in a while and a lot of work was done on to the plumbing so we erred a little high on the concentration and used one gallon of bleach dumped into 5 gallons of water and poured that down the well. We turned the pump back on and put a hose from an outside bib down the well casing to circulate the water. Then dumped one gallon of white vinegar into a 5 gallon bucket of water and dumped that down the well. Then fill the bucket up with fresh clean water and leave it near the well.
The vinegar drops the pH of the solution to increase the effectiveness of the chlorine.
Then you leave the hose running down into the well until you can smell chlorine coming out of the hose. The problem with that is you have chlorine that gets splashed around the well so you always think you have chlorine there so I use a roll of test paper. It took over 45 minutes for the chlorine to show up in the hose.
Then you rinse down the well casing with the chlorinated water to disinfect it and the wires to the pump and shut off the hose. Dump the bucket of fresh water over the pitless adapter to remove any residual chorine from it.
Then start opening up valves on every point of water in the house until you get a positive on the test strip. Hot water lines, cold water lines, flush toilets twice, bring it into the washer feeds (disconnect hose and send to laundry sink or bucket), bring it into the refrigerator water dispenser and dump all the ice out of the ice maker so it brings sanitizing solution into the ice maker.
Let sit for 12-24 hours.
Put a hose on an outside bib and run the water off the grass for several hours. Depending on the well recovery rate, you may have to run for an hour then stop if the flow is really slow so the well can recover, then start again. Keep flushing the well until your test strip reads below 10 ppm. Then start flushing the lines in the house.
For the hot water tank, I attach a hose to it's drain and flush it outside for 5 minutes to remove any sediment that came up from the well, then allow it to fill before flushing the sinks/shower/washer hot water lines. You want to minimize how much of the bleach goes into the septic so you don't upset the bacteria colony in the tank.
That's it in a very large nut shell!

You truly are a well of helpful information @DobieLover

 

[Sally PB]

ShitTon of iron here

Our softener didn't take out the iron we had. The iron filter (Iron Guardian is the name, I think) works wonders. Yeah, $1600. My understanding is that they last just about forever, as there is no "filter" per se, it's an oxidation reaction.

We just recently replaced our shower head. It must have been really caked up in there. We have never had such great water pressure in the shower before. We replaced the toilet too, and it's still sparkling white. Now we just have to replace the shower stall and our bathroom will look respectable.

 

[aart]

We just recently replaced our shower head. It must have been really caked up in there.

I soak shower head in white vinegar regularly.
CLR for shower stall, that hadn't been cleaned for (many)months, stripped the 'rust' right off.