smo0thie
New Member
Hi everyone, my first post here. Any advise would be appreciated.
We moved into our new house last October and it’s the first time I’ve been on a well. Everything was working fine up until about a month ago when our water turned yellow-brown after a hard rain. I was surprised at this because we had several hard rains last fall and throughout the winter with no issues. Well, long story short, a build up of the surrounding soil and leaves (well house is built into the side of a hill) was causing surface water to run up to and against the well house and some of that water was finding it’s way into the well. There is a hole cut in the slab for pipes and electrical wiring to come through, and I am thinking that is where the storm water was draining and perhaps over the 40 years the house has been there, the water has tunneled down along the casing causing the problem. I have done some minor grading and that seems to have remedied the problem — until I went to replace the sanitary seal and shock the well (had a bacteria test done which came back positive). During the flushing process, when we filled a white bucket, the water again was dirty with sediment accumulating in the bottom of the bucket. I noticed the water that drained from disconnecting the plumbing was draining into the hole cut in the slab which again seems to confirm my suspicions that that is where the issue lies. So my plan is to dig out the gravel used to fill in the hole around the pipes and wires, fill in any tunnels as best I can, and fill in the hole with concrete. Should I take any precautions with the pvc pipe before filling it in? Should I try to install a small drain in this hole?
While doing my research, I also encountered another potential issue with the pressure tank set up. The well is a 50’ deep x 24” diameter bored well with a double pipe jet pump sitting on top of the concrete cover. It is not attached, just sitting on top of two bricks. On top of the pump, there is a small (5 gallon?) pressure tank attached to one of the pump’s ports. The pressure switch reads 30-50 under the cover, but when I run the water at the well house hose bib, the pump runs constantly and won’t shut off until I turn off the water. The attached gauge seems stuck at 20 psi. When I attached a hose bib style gauge it shut off at about 67 psi. Does this sound like a good set up? I don’t see anything that would resemble a CSV, so I was wondering why the pump doesn’t cycle with such a small tank. And shouldn’t there be a pressure relief valve between the pump and tank? I noticed they make tanks with a place to mount a jet pump, so that seemed like a possible solution.
Thanks in advance,
Jay
We moved into our new house last October and it’s the first time I’ve been on a well. Everything was working fine up until about a month ago when our water turned yellow-brown after a hard rain. I was surprised at this because we had several hard rains last fall and throughout the winter with no issues. Well, long story short, a build up of the surrounding soil and leaves (well house is built into the side of a hill) was causing surface water to run up to and against the well house and some of that water was finding it’s way into the well. There is a hole cut in the slab for pipes and electrical wiring to come through, and I am thinking that is where the storm water was draining and perhaps over the 40 years the house has been there, the water has tunneled down along the casing causing the problem. I have done some minor grading and that seems to have remedied the problem — until I went to replace the sanitary seal and shock the well (had a bacteria test done which came back positive). During the flushing process, when we filled a white bucket, the water again was dirty with sediment accumulating in the bottom of the bucket. I noticed the water that drained from disconnecting the plumbing was draining into the hole cut in the slab which again seems to confirm my suspicions that that is where the issue lies. So my plan is to dig out the gravel used to fill in the hole around the pipes and wires, fill in any tunnels as best I can, and fill in the hole with concrete. Should I take any precautions with the pvc pipe before filling it in? Should I try to install a small drain in this hole?
While doing my research, I also encountered another potential issue with the pressure tank set up. The well is a 50’ deep x 24” diameter bored well with a double pipe jet pump sitting on top of the concrete cover. It is not attached, just sitting on top of two bricks. On top of the pump, there is a small (5 gallon?) pressure tank attached to one of the pump’s ports. The pressure switch reads 30-50 under the cover, but when I run the water at the well house hose bib, the pump runs constantly and won’t shut off until I turn off the water. The attached gauge seems stuck at 20 psi. When I attached a hose bib style gauge it shut off at about 67 psi. Does this sound like a good set up? I don’t see anything that would resemble a CSV, so I was wondering why the pump doesn’t cycle with such a small tank. And shouldn’t there be a pressure relief valve between the pump and tank? I noticed they make tanks with a place to mount a jet pump, so that seemed like a possible solution.
Thanks in advance,
Jay