Looking for any comment or advice from you experienced well guys since this was my first rodeo bleaching a well. 6 years ago I bought this home in the woods that has a 340 foot deep well with 6" PVC casement and the plumbing in the house is CPVC. Water has always been clear and odorless until about a month ago. It seemed like overnight my water had developed a strong sulfur smell (egg water). Everyone noticed it. The odor was coming from both the hot and cold lines and the water heater is 2 years old. Now a month later the odor is still there. The family and I are traveling for the next 3 days so I decided to attempt bleach the well this morning before we leave later today. The guy who drilled the well suggested I use 5 gallons of bleach because of the depth of the well and for the rest of the process I used the trusty internet. I'm not sure if this will solve my egg water issue, but thought I would try this first. So I added the bleach, ran the garden hose until I could smell bleach which took 50 minutes! Not only could I instantly smell the bleach, the water had turned slightly orange I'm assuming from iron in the well or bladder tank although I never have seen much iron in my water to any great degree. I put the hose back into the well and let it run for 30 minutes to evenly distribute the bleach in the well. Then waited 2 hours to let it do it's thing. Then filled the hot water tank ran all the facets, toilets, dishwasher, showers etc.. to distribute the bleach in the house lines. Now I'm going to let that sit for 3 days until we return and then flush everything out really really well. I wish I would have left the bleached water in the well in longer but I was running out of time. I think there is still a fair amount of bleach left in the well, but not completely sure. Hopefully this solves my problem. Thoughts?
Taking a bath at your house is gonna smell like takin a dip at the city pool! From what I've heard about doing this, it sounds like you are on the right track...
You need to leave the well alone to clean up after the bleach. It dont happen in just a few minutes. Shock the well and leave it sit for 12 to 24 hours and then get it on. Might have to do it a second time.
"shocking" a pool from my previous swimming pool days requires HIGH amounts of chlorine (chlorine bleach, do not use the "scented" bleach bottles, they don't contain the chlorine). Granted this is for swimming pools.... A sign there that the pool was sufficiently shocked but not backwashed or diluted enough properly is that smell in an icky swimming pool, kinda gross but also VERY strong chlorine smell, you know, the kind we all swam in as a kid that burned our eyes? PSA, eye test not required lol, there is a definate difference in the smell between normal chlorine levels and the used up chlorine that has already attached and smells much much stronger. Yes, pool experience but I worked at a swimming pool store for several years where people would come in to shock wells frequently. So smell the water after you get back, then reassess?
The city pool smells like sulfur?!? Bleaching should do it some good. If your getting rain like us, the water table is very high. Kinda odd that it happened all at once. Chlorine is an oxidizer, it will turn the heavy metals to rust. You might try a carbon filter to control taste and odor if the problem persists.
We have been getting a lot of heavy rains.... I will report back when I flush it all out. I'm pretty sure the odor started after we had a extremely strong storms come through. Thanks
Subbed, My well started that last year. it's a very old well and has never had any odor until last year and it was bad. this year it hasn't been too bad. we only use it now for washing trucks and drinking water for dog. Since I will move the dog water to the city water in winter would it be ok to pour bleach in and let it sit all winter?
Is there any surface water getting in your well? Any depression around the casing? Down spouts close by? Gutters overflowing? Ditches or creeks coming over their banks? Dogs/neighbors peeing on it?
Chlorine dissipates on its own. We chlorinate our water at work and it's always a fight to get it right. If it sits in the tank overnight the reading is low and if we run the water a lot the reading can be high. What I don't understand is if it's been chlorinated at the proper level and the chlorine dissipates what's the problem? I believe Chlorine will help with sulfur gas but it needs contact time. If you have a large tank and the chlorine sits with the sulfur all night it will get rid of the smell, but when the pump runs you'll get fresh well water and more of the sulfur smell.
Its good to bleach the well, but you would be better off flushing the chemicals out after letting it sit a day. Get rid of the gunk and dead matter that may be in there. And if there's any chance you or the kids/pets could get a dose of water out of it...
Chlorine...chlorine! You will probably want to remove the diffusor/sediment screens from your faucets when you flush the system...or you will get to clean them after they are plugged
Yep, already did just in case. None of the above... Well is in the woods all by itself up the hill from the structure.
I have chlorinated our well numerous times over the years and I think you should flush everything when you get back then give the well another dose and only run a small amount of water down the casing. Leave that set in the well for at least 8 to 10 hours before you flush.
I shocked our well after a hurricane and flooded basement. We have an open pipe and surface pump in a well room. Muddy water and water based paint mixed inside the well room which was under 3 feet of water. Sure that a whole bunch of contaminated water went down that pipe. No electric for almost 2 weeks kept us from using that water. Best I recall there was about 6 gallons of bleach poured down the well pipe. It smelled of bleach for nearly two weeks of normal use once the power was back. Never saw discoloration. Didn't die from the treatment. Unless I'm currently dead.
If it's sulfur, actually sulfur which is pretty common, then shocking won't get rid of it and you will keep getting the smell. Shocking the well properly can't hurt but if the smell persists then you can take a sample and send it in for cheap or free analysis of what is in the water. There are ways to remove just about everything but you first need to know what it is that you're trying to remove. The last big well I worked on had lots of manganese (like iron) that I removed with oxidation/filtration but then pow! the sulfur smell came out because the process of manganese removal exposed the sulfur. So after the manganese removal equipment I added an activated carbon filter which stripped out the sulfur. Now the water is colorless and odorless.
