Need help! Very dirty water from new well

We are in a new house and the well is just under a year old. It's around 100 feet deep into decomposed granite and old moraine deposits. Our lot is situated at the base of hills that head up into the mountains. The water that's come out of the well has never been clear. At times it's tolerably cloudy (kind of a whitish, milky color), but occasionally it's been very murky. We've noticed the water quality has decreased during heavy rain and during the spring snow melt. My wife and I have lived in our house about 11 months, but we are often away for work and travel a lot, so maybe our well has probably received less than 6 months of use. I haven't talked to anyone else in our neighborhood who's had problems like this, but most wells here are much older.

Recently, the water has taken a significant turn for the worse and is now very dirty - borderline muddy. You can see a lot of sediment in the bottom of the toilet bowl. If we run the well for 12 hours or so (through a hose from a spigot at the well), then the water will become much better but only for about a day before it gets worse again. We've ordered a high capacity whole house filter, but I'm afraid that will be a band aid fix to a larger problem and that we'll constantly be replacing filter cartridges.

The well was drilled by a guy who has a good reputation and does most of the wells around here. However, he wasn't much help and said he really hadn't run into this problem before.

Any idea what is wrong with our well? Could it just be a new well cleaning itself our or is there a more significant problem? I have no idea where to start troubleshooting. I've heard of problems with the well shaft collapsing, with cracks in the casing, etc. but I'm afraid of the cost to have someone to look for a problem they may not find.

Thanks for any help you can offer! We're about at the end of our rope.

I've attempted to answer some of the questions below:

Type of pump?
Submersible___yes_____
Two wire (no control)________
Three wire (control box)___yes___
Wire Size_________ Wire Length________
or
Jet Pump (above ground)_________
One or two pipes down the well___1_

Size of Pump?
Motor Horsepower?____3/4______
Pump Model #______________
Date Pump Installed____9/2010______

Pumping from?
Cistern tank___________
Pond, lake, river________
Water Well______x______
Depth of well_____100'_____
Depth to water_____?____
Pump Setting__________
Pipe Size_________"
Drop Pipe Material
PVC____x____
Steel_______
Poly________

Well Recovery Rate_______gpm
Well Casing Diameter___8____â€
Rock Well__________ Sand Well__________ Other______________
Date Well Drilled_____9/2010_______

Well Casing Material
PVC________ Steel_____x____ Other_________


Pressure Tank?
Bladder or diaphragm tank (one pipe to tank)___x_______
Size or model of tank____________
Air charge in top of tank, with pump off and water drained_____normal_______PSI
(check with car tire gauge)
or
Plain Hydro Pneumatic tank (two pipes to tank, one in and one out)_________
Size of tank________________

Pressure Switch Setting?
On 30, off 50 ________
On 40, off 60____x_____
Other_______________

Pump Control Method?
Cycle Stop Valve model #_________
Variable speed control #__________
Pump Start Relay (sprinkler timer, no tank)__________
Manually turned on and off____________

Pump Protection
Cycle Sensor_________
Pumptec_____________
Low pressure cutoff switch (lever on side)__________
Other_______________

Filters or Softeners_____no_________
Before or after pressure tank_______
Type of filter___________________
Bypass available________________

Water Used For?
House Use____x___ Number of baths____1___ Number of People___2_____
High Flow Showers_______gpm?
Plus/Or
Irrigation with timers__no______
Irrigation with hoses____no____
Heat Pump______gpm?

First off, a garden hose on a spigot will not allow a fast enough flow for you to overpump the well. Generally, to clear the well you want to pump the water faster than it will ever be pumped afterward. You don't say what GPM the well is capable of nor what GPM your pump can do.

On some wells the turbidity increases when the level in the well is drawn down. If the well is drawn from at a slower rate it may stay clear. Unfortunately on a conventional pump and large tank combo, the pump runs flat out as it refills the tank and that pump GPM rate could cause turbidity. Overpumping the well to wash out the fines and open up the aquifer to increase the well GPM is one way of clearing up turbidity. It does not always work.

Selecting a lower GPM pump or holding back the pump GPM with a ballvalve is one possibility. Matching the pump draw to the consumption with a Cycle Stop Valve is another. Of course, if you out-consume the well's recovery rate, the level drops and turbidity may increase. Pumping at a much reduced rate into a large non-pressurized holding tank and then using a second pump in the tank is another consideration.

Any chance he didn't put the casing into the rock far enough and your getting surface water filtering down through the ground and coming in around your casing?

@Brokersdad: Thanks for the response. I don't know the answer to that. I've been thinking of hiring someone with a camera that can be dropped down the well. Could this answer your question or identify other problems?

StanleyMan said:

It's around 100 feet deep into decomposed granite and old moraine deposits.

Click to expand...

By that definition, it is a mud well, not a rock well so there would be no seal to bedrock.

Brokersdad said:

Any chance he didn't put the casing into the rock far enough and your getting surface water filtering down through the ground and coming in around your casing?

Click to expand...

There is no mention what the driller encountered along the 100 feet of depth. If they drilled through gravel or other pourous material, they should have been using a bentonite slurry to seal the walls of the borehole and in so doing, seal the casing to the borehole.

LLigetfa: thanks for your help! I'm going to call the well driller tomorrow, clearly I need some more info. I'll report back...

Thanks so much for the help folks.

I've taken a closer look at it, and when the water settles in a bowl for a while, an extremely fine yellowish-white sediment collects on the bottom. It definitely concentrates at the bottom, but still seems slightly suspended in the water. When I pour out the water and attempt to keep the partially settled sediment in the bowl, it has a slightly slimy feel. I have noticed some small grains of sand on other occasions, especially in the toilet bowl.

Also, I talked to the driller today. He is a good guy does want to make it right, he just seems at a loss as far as what the problem is. Here are a few more details:

-The well is 108 feet deep in entirely decomposed granite. It is steel cased full depth with perforations the last 18 feet or so. He hit water at about 90 feet.
-We have a 3/4hp submersible pump with a flowrate of 15gpm.
-He said he put in "literally a ton" of bentonite grout and felt he did a better than average job of sealing it. He was quite confident the well was not leaking down the casing.
-He also said he thought it unlikely the casing was cracked ("never had that happen") although I'm sure every driller feels that way.
-He suspects the fine sediment is decomposed granite flour, as he hasn't run into too much clay around here.

We've run the pump for about 12 hours on two separate occasions. Both times the water became much better (but still a slightly cloudy, whitish, milky color), but only for about a day before it returned to being very cloudy/very dirty.

The driller is suggesting running the well through the frost-free spigot at the casing for 24 or more hours, making sure we're not running the pump dry. It hasn't run dry after 12 hours. He's out of town now, and if this doesn't clear it up then he'll come take a look. He said he could drop a more powerful pump down and run it hard for a while - this would be fairly quick and easy. He said he could also surge the well, but this would require removing the pitless adaptor, which would mean digging a 7 foot hole. As a last resort he could sink the well 10-20 feet deeper.

Does this shed any more light on the situation? Does his approach seem reasonable?

Sometimes you have to run it hard for several days to clear it up. Using the frost free is a good idea as it will let out all 15 GPM. If that doesn't work a larger pump to clean the well might help. I wouldn't give up yet.

valveman said:

Using the frost free is a good idea as it will let out all 15 GPM...

Click to expand...

A 15 GPM pump may be capable of more than 15 GPM depending on the size of the spigot. The spigot at the well may or may not allow the max the pump can produce and probably not if you attach any length of hose to it.

When I was over-pumping my mud well to clear it up, I used a 1" ballvalve to regulate the flow and at the end of the process had it wide open.