Clearing muddy well water

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mithras

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I have a deep well (400ft) with a submersible pump and a recovery rate of about a half gallon a minute. It works fine as long as we're a bit careful with our water use. On Tuesday however, one of our toilets was flushed and left, but did not close the flush cycle properly and as a result kept on flushing until we noticed a pressure drop on another tap and found the continuously flushing toilet. Easy fix on the toilet valve, but my well was run down near the muddy water at the bottom. The water is lightly turbid and we've switched to bottled water for drinking, but are using the water for other normal household things and are trying to wait it out to clear. However, this seems to be taking a long time. It's now Friday.

Is there some simple way that we can clear the water in the well stack and restore the clarity of our well water? I have heard that if you slowly run the water on a continuous basis into a waste area (not into your septic tank) at lower than the recovery rate the water will gradually clear. Does anyone have experience with this or other ways to handle this problem?

I should note that we do not ever experience turbid water in normal use.

Thanks for any thoughts you may have.
 

headude

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I had a similar problem. Consulted my well guy that put the well in (been doing it for 50 years so figured he would have the answer). He said to run the spigots outside for a day. Well, that is fine, but then you cycle your pump on and off continuously. I did not want to burn out a pump; that IS expensive. I also consulted a specialist in well filters, the really expensive ones that filtered minute particles. He was actually helpful and provided some clues to further test the water and other components of my system before I went and spent a fortune on special filters. Long story short, from that input and my mediocre understanding of engineering and flow rates I found a protocol that completely fixed my well water in about 2-3 hours. My well by the way was at 419' with my pump at 380'. Anyway, the process is compiled in a small book now. It worked for me and it only cost $37. Wish I had found this all out before I spend the hundreds of dollars on professionals coming out to look at my pressure tank (2 years old) as well as my other components. http://howtofixyourwell.com
 

Valveman

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I assume you are the one who wrote the book and will get the $37 if I order one, because you didn't say how you solved the problem. The fact that you didn't know to open enough faucets to keep the pump from cycling on/off while cleaning the well says a lot. You can't clean a well up while the pump is cycling on and off. The cycling on and off actually stirs the well up even more.
 
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