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Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 2:25:05 AM

camille65

Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
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I am hoping that someone on CM has experience with private wells.

Okay I got the inspection report back from my buyer. There is a bacterial problem with my well (ew, just a huge ew as I imagine 117 colonies of bacteria breeding in my water ew ew ew).

So I uncapped it (go me!) and as per directed I poured 2 gallons of bleach in. I waited 20 minutes then ran every tap cold water. I was supposed to be able to smell the bleach but didn't. I was told, run the taps for 24 hours and then all should be fine. Just to bypass the water softener which is another worry, my ex said he turned it off. I double checked with him 'its turned off even though the 'on' light is green and the 'pause' light is dark?'
He swore that yes its actually off.

Well um, its been about 15 hours and I got up in the middle of the night to pee. When I went to flush the upstairs toilet... omg there was no water. Then I noticed the sink and tub were not dripping. I went downstairs and only the kitchen faucet was still dripping and there never was a bleach scent.

Now I'm all worried at 5am. There should have been a strong bleach scent in the house and no one mentioned that I might run out of water.

Did I really run out, or is it just that my holding tank ran out? How can I tell without paying an exorbitant price to a well guy? I'm going to have to pay for the retest and thats all I can afford.

Please if anyone has experience in this, I need some advice. Hopefully when I wake back up there will be knowledge of wells compiled for me. Please please and thank you in advance.

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 2:34:39 AM

ScooterTrash

Posts: 1407
Joined: 1/24/2005
From: Indiana
Status: offline

I haven't had a well for quite some time, but it sounds like you simply ran the well out. If it is spring fed it should start filling back up fairly soon, but many wells are fed from the water table and it has to seep through layers of rock to get back to where your well is. If that is the case, you may have to have a truck come in and refill your well. Around here it is not that uncommon to have to have a water truck come in once a month or more often if the weather has been hot and dry. As for the bacteria....no clue, never heard of that before, the good news is, no water, no bacteria I guess. Good luck.

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 4:41:27 AM

Aileen1968

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Joined: 12/12/2007
From: I miss Shore, New Jersey
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I have well water too. You should have been able to smell the chlorine fairly soon after pouring it in. Check to see if there is a bypass valve to the softener, rather than just turning it off. Also...check to make sure you didn't pop the well pump fuse. Hopefully, that may be the reason for no water.

edited to add...I don't ever remember having to run the water for 24 hours. Are you sure that was the directions. Seems extreme to me.

< Message edited by Aileen1968 -- 9/4/2008 4:43:07 AM >

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 4:42:18 AM

camille65

Posts: 5746
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From: Austin Texas
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Thanks Scooter. I'm pretty sure that there is a lot of water underground, I've never once seen a water truck anywhere around here. I am on a lot of gravel and limestone, but well repair stuff is beyond me.

I had my water tested as part of the buyers inspection and it came back as having 117 colonies of bacteria when the legal limit is 10 colonies. Hence the bleach treatment. It worries me that I was supposed to smell the bleach coming through the running water but never did, then it worried me when in the middle of the night all the water had stopped running and I couldn't even flush a toilet. But the toilet is second floor so that could be a water pressure issue with my level being so low.

Jees I'm so glad I use bottled water for drinking and for my coffee! I'm completely squicked thinking that I've been showing in 117 colonies of bacteria. I've always cooked with well water and I now wonder if some of my digestive problems were caused by that, would be really awesome if thats the case since now I know about the colonies. Ew.

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 4:45:18 AM

camille65

Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

I have well water too. You should have been able to smell the chlorine fairly soon after pouring it in. Check to see if there is a bypass valve to the softener, rather than just turning it off. Also...check to make sure you didn't pop the well pump fuse. Hopefully, that may be the reason for no water.

Thanksssssssssssss Aileen. What does 'pop the well pump fuse' mean? Do you mean that I may have blown the fuse?

Aw fuckity fuck fuck. This was the only major thing on the inspection report and I'm clueless. And broke, so trying to do most of this myself which is kind of funny in a bad way lol.

There is a bypass, the ex swore he did everything right but he has a history now of trying to sabotague (sp) this move. So I'm just not sure. I've got a call into a neighbor plumber guy and hopefully he will return my call.

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Post #: 5

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 4:46:54 AM

Aileen1968

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From: I miss Shore, New Jersey
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Yup...pop = blown
(that turned me on

)

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 4:48:36 AM

camille65

Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

Yup...pop = blown
(that turned me on )

Mmmmmm. A turned on Aileen.

My work is done.

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Post #: 7

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 5:00:25 AM

OneMoreWaste

Posts: 910
Joined: 8/24/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: camille65

Thanksssssssssssss Aileen. What does 'pop the well pump fuse' mean? Do you mean that I may have blown the fuse?

Yes. The well pump should have a dedicated circuit breaker or fuse (possibly a double circuit breaker). Check the fuse box to see if any of them have blown.

With the faucets open, go out to where you uncapped the well. Can you hear an electric motor running? If you do, then you've probably run the well dry, unless there's something funky with the water softener (don't know anything about those). If you don't hear the electric motor running, then you've either tripped the breaker/fuse, or burned out the motor. See if you smell overheated electronics.

Oh, one other thing. Find the outdoor spigot closest to the wellhead and turn that on, just in case you've got something screwy in the house plumbing.

Good luck!

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Post #: 8

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 6:06:53 AM

DomMeinCT

Posts: 2355
Joined: 5/5/2005
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You've been given all good advice, and I can't add to that, but want to comment on the use of water while the bleach is in it.

Running your well for 24 hours straight seems excessive...if the purpose is clearing that gallon of bleach (once you get the water running) I would advise not flushing it out as quickly, but allowing it to sit in the lines/plumbing over the course of a few days, and using the water at a normal pace until you can't smell it. It will be fine to shower in, but not good for cooking.

And remember not to water your pets with it either, until you can't smell the bleach. My well repair guy just told me that it's not good for their little hearts (nor for your plants).

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 6:16:29 AM

Sanity

Posts: 22039
Joined: 6/14/2006
From: Nampa, Idaho USA
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If the water was running when you went to bed your problem shouldn't have anything to do with the water softener valves, as it sounds like nobody touched them. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a water system, especially an older water system. If you ran low on ground water and your pump ran "dry" for too long you may have ruined your pump. Or you may have an old rusted pipe coming from the well that blew out. There are a lot of possibilities. Is it an above ground pump, or a submersible?

How deep is your well?

quote:

ORIGINAL: camille65

I am hoping that someone on CM has experience with private wells.

Okay I got the inspection report back from my buyer. There is a bacterial problem with my well (ew, just a huge ew as I imagine 117 colonies of bacteria breeding in my water ew ew ew).

So I uncapped it (go me!) and as per directed I poured 2 gallons of bleach in. I waited 20 minutes then ran every tap cold water. I was supposed to be able to smell the bleach but didn't. I was told, run the taps for 24 hours and then all should be fine. Just to bypass the water softener which is another worry, my ex said he turned it off. I double checked with him 'its turned off even though the 'on' light is green and the 'pause' light is dark?'
He swore that yes its actually off.

Well um, its been about 15 hours and I got up in the middle of the night to pee. When I went to flush the upstairs toilet... omg there was no water. Then I noticed the sink and tub were not dripping. I went downstairs and only the kitchen faucet was still dripping and there never was a bleach scent.

Now I'm all worried at 5am. There should have been a strong bleach scent in the house and no one mentioned that I might run out of water.

Did I really run out, or is it just that my holding tank ran out? How can I tell without paying an exorbitant price to a well guy? I'm going to have to pay for the retest and thats all I can afford.

Please if anyone has experience in this, I need some advice. Hopefully when I wake back up there will be knowledge of wells compiled for me. Please please and thank you in advance.

_____________________________

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Post #: 10

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 6:18:50 AM

camille65

Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
Status: offline

I've been using bottled water for BarneyCat, plants and my coffee. I was instructed to let the bleach sit for 20 minutes then dribble my taps for 24 hours until no more bleach smell..... but I never smelled any bleach ever from the taps. Thats what worries me.

I'm trying to find out from the county offices how to get my water tested before the inspector does it. Apparently it isn't a huge problem but it lies in an area that I have no experience in.

Thanks everyone for the help, I really appreciate it.

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Post #: 11

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 6:29:58 AM

xXLithiumXx

Posts: 723
Joined: 9/2/2008
From: Hell, Kentucky
Status: offline

Putting 2 gallons of bleach in what could be a 500 or more gallon well, you most likely wouldnt be able to smell it, no matter how long it ran. And in actuality, the bleach should have sat for more than 20 minutes. So, I agree with the stated above.

Another thing to consider is that yes, you could have (since you mentioned it) some digestive problems due to the bacteria in your well.

If the pump went out, you can try calling around to have it rebuilt. If the well ran dry and you need water hauled in, its not a huge deal. We had it done once at a previous house and I think for like 3k gallons it was close to 150$.

Good luck.

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Post #: 12

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 6:51:37 AM

sub4hire

Posts: 6775
Joined: 1/1/2004
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I can't talk about your bleach issue. I can tell you when we bought this house we were running out of water. Our wonderful inspector wasn't exactly bright enough to catch on.

Anyway, it does not sound as though you ran out of water. In October of last year we put in a new well. Basically the last people who put one in did it so cheaply well the well was self destructing on us and that is why we were running out.

Anyway..the 24 hour thing is to prime the well. No idea why you would need to prime an already established well.
When my well guys left me last year. I went into the house and I had no water. Absolutely no water at all.
I called them back, etc. After trying a few things myself I came to the conclusion the water softener did it. After opening up ALL of the faucets for about a half an hour...the air in the lines began to go away...etc. Water was back. Apparently water softeners can become clogged.
So try opening up the lines...I mean the inside lines.

However, in all the haste of trying to get new water. Your pressure tank could have gone out. As others said it could be the breaker blowing. If you damaged your pump somehow it could be making your breaker blow. Which basically means you need a new well pump. You're looking at upwards of a grand to replace it. Depending on the size you want of course.
You need a well guy to check it out for you. If opening the faucets don't work..call the guy.

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Post #: 13

RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 7:39:24 AM

TahoeSadist

Posts: 176
Joined: 8/3/2004
Status: offline

It is entirely possible that the 2 gallons of bleach was not enough to overdose the water. The chlorine in it is consumed as it kills off the biologic contamination. The reason they want you to be able to smell the chlorine afterward is so you know that everything has been disinfected, i.e. there is still chlorine left in the water as it comes out of the tap. This doesn't help with the lack of water, but if you get your water back on, and still no odor, or better nothing shows on a chlorine test, then you may need to dose it again.

TS

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 8:38:41 AM

camille65

Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sanity

If the water was running when you went to bed your problem shouldn't have anything to do with the water softener valves, as it sounds like nobody touched them. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a water system, especially an older water system. If you ran low on ground water and your pump ran "dry" for too long you may have ruined your pump. Or you may have an old rusted pipe coming from the well that blew out. There are a lot of possibilities. Is it an above ground pump, or a submersible?

How deep is your well?

The well is 180 feet deep, there is no sump pump but something to do with a bladder. The bladder is new within the past year, the softener new within past 2 years. I just picked up a water sample thingie from the township and am running a sample down to the county offices.

The water is running again and it seems to be at full (okay its low pressure but normal low) pressure.

My worry is that I never smelled the bleach! I got regular Clorox bleach, nothing weirdly scented.

Jeez I hope this passes, that my water passes for this sale. I'm flying to Austin in 10 days to get an apartment and I have plans dang it that do not include repairing wells.

Thanks again for all the help!

ETA:
Hmm. The upstairs and far away from the well faucets are not running with full pressure. More than a trickle but way less than it should be. I sure hope that it just needs to regenerate or whatever it is that bladder thingies do. Yeah yeah I know all that tech-speak I do is dazzling.

< Message edited by camille65 -- 9/4/2008 8:41:58 AM >

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 10:43:45 AM

popeye1250

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From: New Hampshire
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Camille, I had the same problem with the well at my house up in New Hampshire when I went to sell it.
I was drinking the water the whole time and had no ill effects and the tap water tasted great!
The Realtor told me basically the same thing as you about bacteria.
He told me to call this well maintainance co. and they came over and put some chemicals in the well and then came back 3 days later and took a sample and sent it to the state testing lab in Concord and it came back a week later "OK" and that was it.
Total $95.
It's an easy problem to take care of so you shouldn't sweat it.

P.S. as per above give it a day or two to recover.
My well was only 15 foot deep and right on top of a spring so I could water the lawn all night and day and never ran out of water.

< Message edited by popeye1250 -- 9/4/2008 10:48:18 AM >

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 10:58:18 AM

Sanity

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From: Nampa, Idaho USA
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You should have smelled bleach initially, almost right away, and then it would have gone away within the first hour or two. Even if you didn't smell it though, two gallons of bleach is a big plenty and should easily have killed any bacteria in the system, and so I wouldn't worry about that part of it unless the test results come back bad.

One other thing that comes to mind is that you have to seal the shaft back up, where you would have poured the bleach in because part of what makes a deep well work is that there is suction generated by the pump that pulls water into the shaft from the underground water source. The shaft has to be air tight because your pump can't generate that suction if the shaft isn't sealed, and bacteria can also reenter the well through any opening.

Finally, double check any inline filters that may be clogged with junk that broke loose from shocking your system with bleach. Were your filters bypassed? If yes, there could still be a bacteria problem in them! If not, they're probably clogged now. Sometimes there can be moss-like stuff that gets killed and flushed through when you do that. And check the aerators on your faucets for debris, possibly just replace them.

< Message edited by Sanity -- 9/4/2008 11:52:38 AM >

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/4/2008 1:51:36 PM

Raechard

Posts: 3513
Joined: 3/10/2007
From: S.E. London U.K.
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Once upon a time we had these mysterious black sediments in our water supply. Back then the cold non drinking water was from a tank in the loft. We didn’t think much about this back sedimentary problem because we were only using the water for washing and not drinking. One day though we were cleaning out the loft and noticed the water tank wasn’t properly covered. Upon sliding the lid off of the tank we discovered a dead bird floating in the tank and numerous black chunks which were then dispersing into smaller sediments.

Yum.

We didn’t get a bacteria count on that but what don’t kill you makes you stronger they say.

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/5/2008 2:55:43 PM

Aneirin

Posts: 6121
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From: Tamaris
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Maybe in my old age I am getting a bit paranoid, but I do not trust the water that comes out of faucets. I filter everything I use for drinking, that is unless it is for coffee and then it is boiled. Now the water I have, comes from the UK's worst polluter, South West Water, the organisation responsible for the Camelford disaster;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/455871.stm

And recently I contracted a bug caused by cryptospiridium from the water which was polluted again, the water authority had publicised the problem on the radio, but I don't listen to radio, and rarely the tv. The message was boil the water, I didn't, not knowing, two weeks of hell. It was only when I googled cryptospiridium did I match the symptoms as a side line to finding myself a capable water filter for back country camping. I eventually purchased a wonderful MSR Miniworks EX filter, and it is excellent.

Since the cryptospiridium contamination, there has been another instance, an instance where the water is milky and smells distinctly like diesel oil. The water has a thin film on the surface, much like oil.

Last night I tried the MSR filter out on faucet water and what a difference it makes, the water squeezed through a ceramic filter and then through a carbon core, I am not a fan of drinking water, but the MSR made the stuff likeable.

All I can say, is hats off to the Americans that designed and produced that filter, they sure know their stuff.

Ironic though, here in the west we suffer polluted water, where in some countries they have little or no water. A future war perhaps, on the right to life.

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RE: Well well, well water is a problem - 9/5/2008 3:37:41 PM

camille65

Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
Status: offline

Well I'm pretty proud of myself. Thanks to a diagram Sanity sent I was able to figure out what goes where and I've begun to drain the bladder tank. As I was doing it there was sediment but I could also smell the bleach. So I am figuring that the problem lies past the bladder and in my filtration system.
I've gone through four filters today, all got very sediment filled within just hours. Thats when I stared at the diagram and realized to find the problem before the filters. Yay me.
Tomorrow I'm getting swimming pool chlorine and using that, then repeating the draining process and bleaching the filter housings.

Aneirin.. as I was running all of this water I began to think of those that have access to none. I pay no water bill, it just flows and god I am really lucky. Sure I've a temporary problem but its a strong well, in a good area reputed for deep wells and on top of a lot of gravel.

I'm also left wondering how much this has had to do with my auto immune problems, how much it has added to the base problems and compounded issues.

At any rate I think its going to run clean and clear, its just going to take a bit more work. Looking at the alternative, a bit of work is no big deal. I can't drink it until tested again but its okay for showering and I could boil it if needed so I'm damn lucky.

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