Treating well with bleach

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I have been lurking on this forum for quite a while and learning a lot, and want to thank everyone for such a great and informative place to go! We are getting ready to move back to our farm after a long absence and have been having trouble with coliform bacteria in the well (only water source.) I want to try "shock-treating" the well with chlorine bleach as described in the thread on this method, but I am confused about the part where it says to discharge water until "chloride level is down to an acceptable level." How do you know when? Is there a test? Or just wait until the water doesn't smell or taste bleachy anymore?

Thanks again for all your help, even when you didn't know you were helping!

Cass (the newbie)

-- Cass (olaf72@advant.net), July 07, 2000

Answers

we have done this a few times to our well and this is what we did ... 1 get tablets from a pool supply store they should know how many 2 dissolve a few in a bucket to pour down the sides when you open the well 3 dump the rest in the well make sure they do not get stuck on wires and such 4 turn on a out side hose and let the water run back into the well until you smell bleach 5 run every sink, toilet, washer any thing that water passes through. 6 turn off all water for 48 hrs. run nothing. 7 get atest kit andfrom the pool company and let 1 outdoor hose run on a cycle 4 hours on 2 off, check that cycle time i think thats what we did. allow the water to drain away from your house you do not want it in the septic. 8 after about 2 or 3 days test the water from the hose to see the clorin level, if it still there keep up with the cycles. 9 once the test is clear run the water in your house, we used a 5 gal bucket to catch the water until the smell was gone then dumped it out side. 10 re test the water in about 3 weeks. we ended up getting a pool company to dump a tank of water down the well and cleaned it that way . it is a long job make sure you plan on not having water for up to 10 days. we used a 250 gal tank and had the fire dept. fill it for the animals. good luck e mail if you need help.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), July 07, 2000.

I'm not sure it takes so long to shock a well. I had to do it several times in Dayton, OH as a condition of a house sale. Well pipe was shocked with swimming pool tablets, then water was recycled through the well for a couple of hours. Then everything which used water was run until you can smell the strong chorine odor. Left to set overnight and then ran well until the chorine odor and taste was gone. This took about another day so it would pass county health department testing for bacteria and chorine. It was usable after a couple of hours of pumping. As Renee said, vent the water outside, not to a septic system or it might kill all of the bacteria in the tank.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), July 09, 2000.

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