As a routine maintenance practice,
clean your well at least once each year. You should start out by
chlorinating your well every month for one year, quarterly the second
year and then twice annually thereafter.
Get Ready
By-pass your water softener and other water
treatment equipment! This is important as chlorine in your
softener can ruin it.
Add Chlorine or Bleach
Loosen
the screws or bolts on the well cap if possible or you might have to
tap the cap off gently with a hammer. Gently lift the wires off
to the side. If your well has a water tight cap or a well seal or
it is an artesian well or flows you might not be able to chlorinate
your well, contact us for more information.
For normal
household wells add 1 gallon of non-scented household bleach or about
an eighth of a cup of granular chlorine. For farms or very deep
wells add 2 gallons of non-scented household bleach or one quarter cup
of granular chlorine.
Bleach works the
best as the chlorine is already in a liquid form so it mixes
readily with the water in the well.
Mix And Circulate
Using a garden hose, run the water back into the well, flushing the
sides of the casing. Be careful around the splices in the wires.
Leave it run for 20 minutes, this will circulate the water and
disinfect your water system.
At this point your
water may appear off color, this is normal. Continue to circulate
the water for another 15 minutes.
Fill several
five-gallon pails with the chlorinated water. Turn off the hose
and pore the pails of water into the well as fast as possible.
This will raise the water level in the well and force the water
and chlorine back out into the aquifer.
Remove faucet
screens (aerators) and turn on each cold water faucet (Including outside faucets) individually and
run until you smell the chlorine. Don't forget to flush the
toilets! (Once is enough)
Quiet Period
Turn
off the water and let the system sit for 4-8 hours or longer if
possible. Try not to use any water. For farms, leave the
water sit as long as possible if the 4-8 hours can't be met.
Purge the Well
Run
water from one or more outside faucets until you can't smell any more
chlorine, this could take as long as 4 or 5 hours. Run the water
onto your driveway or into a ditch taking care not to run any bleach
water into lakes, streams or onto your grass (especially young grass).
Bleach will kill fish, grass and beneficial bacteria in your
septic tank. (A small amount in the septic tank is ok if you must
flush the toilet.)
Put your water
softener back into service and manually regenerate it. Clean and
reinstall the screens and aerators in your faucets.
Test your water
Now
is the time to take your bacteria, nitrates arsenic or other tests you
want with a test kit. Test it within one week after cleaning and
again two weeks later if the water was found to be unsafe.