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Chlorine in Farm Well

F

FBH44

Well-known Member
The old 120' deep well that Granpa Charile drilled on the edge of the barn yard has come back with Coli bacteria. No surprise, on the edge of the barn yard. DNR advises dumping a gallon of bleach into the well, no problem I'll do it.
Here's the question; how often do you guys shoot the bleach to your wells? Yearly? Every 6 months? If ever?
 
I am supposed to do it yearly.

I prefer the tablets, they seem to drop to the bottom and produce more chlorine.
 
(quoted from post at 04:58:00 04/15/13) The old 120' deep well that Granpa Charile drilled on the edge of the barn yard has come back with Coli bacteria. No surprise, on the edge of the barn yard. DNR advises dumping a gallon of bleach into the well, no problem I'll do it.
Here's the question; how often do you guys shoot the bleach to your wells? Yearly? Every 6 months? If ever?
Click to expand...

I did mine about 10 years ago and haven't touched it since then. Have it checked in a year or so. There is no set time as it varies from well to well.
 
Maybe even a couple gallons of bleach. If you can, take a hose from the nearest tap and dump it back in the top of well, run pump for a period to circulate water/bleach in well. After an hour or so, you can flush the water system by running each tap until water runs clear and free of odor. May take a while. Get another water test - may take more than one try to kill bacteria.

My bigger concern is where is the source of contamination and is it going to be a continuing problem.

Your health department or extension office can probably supply you with a pamphlet telling how to properly chlorinate a well....
 
I think they recommend 200' separation from sources of contamination now. You might be SAFER to have the old well plugged and drill a new one. Coli bacteria is nothing to mess with.
 
One issue may be a perforated casing. The depth would usually reduce the chances of contamination (though it is close to the yard). a perforated casing will allow surface watrer to easily get into the tube. A drain inspection camera could find a casing leak. Leaks like that are usually the closing moments for a well. Jim
 
I would abandon that well, and move it or the livestock.

IFFF your going to use it and try to drink from it I would install a chemical feed pump injecting chlorine into the pressure tank every time the well comes on. OR install a pill dropper that drops chlorine tablets in the well every time the pump runs. Either of these systems require daily monitoring initially them weekly. They are high maintenance with regular water testing.

After your sure your maintaining an acceptable residual chlorine level I would install a reverse osmosis drinking water system or distill your drinking water.
 
When we put down a new 5 inch in 91,I think they dumped something like 8 gallons in that one right off the bat. The state used to check every year when we were milking cows. Only had a bad test come back once. I called the guys who had put it in and they came back and chlorinated it again. I don't rightly know how much they put in it that time.
 
When I had a new well drilled they put in 8 gal of bleach and a cup of powder. Test came back with bacteria so he did it again. It just wouldn't clean up so the driller got his water truck filled up, chlorinated it, put several gal bleach down the well, dumped the water truck down the well and we let it sit for three days. He called it flooding the aquifer. Test finally came back clean. Haven't had to do it again and it's been 20+ years.
 
Very often the cause of the bacteria isn't as much the well but some part of the piping. Around here, we usually dump a gallon of clorox or a shock tablet into the well, and then put a garden hose with a spray nozzle into the well pipe and turn it on, and let it run for a few hours or overnite. This circulates the water good and through the entire water system after turning on all of the spigots for a few minutes, then let the entire system rest for a few hours before purging. Ususally a negative test is the result.
 
We had problems like that with the well at home in WI before the village worked on their sewage lagoons a half a mile away. Had to chlorinate the well every spring to get it to test OK.5-6 gallons of bleach down the well, about 300 ft deep. I recall having to send water samples in quarterly. Seemed very related to spring run off and the thaw.
 
I had an old Meyers working head out at the farm with an open casing 70' deep that was right next to the barn. There was a tile going out of the pit. Where we live now is a submersible about the same depth. There 8 on it originally and now 6, as it is a country subdivision that was layed out by a shyster. I got the job of maintanence of the well or call when something major happens. I had done what donjr said. The pipe I used for putting the tablets in for algae did not fit the slots in the well and you can not see very well down in there. When I ran the water to recirculate, it got the chlorine on the wires and ate them up. Thought the pump burned up, as we have had it to water log, kicking off and on.

You can mess you test up if you use too much chlorine. Had that happen when I was in RE. Another broker poured in 3 gallons when the first two tests came back positive. Things were out of wack until we found out about it. Then it got okayed. It may taste like to local swiming pool.
 
Yep - been there - done that.
E-Coli usally is from surface contaminates getting into the well. If near the barnyard I would suggest you raise and seal the area around the well. Concrete area around well and make sure any runoff from yard goes away from well. Dump 1 gallon of Clorox in, (get the good stuff that SMELLS) run water until you smell clorox and let it sit for 24 hours. Run water until smell is gone and re-test.
 
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