South Carolina, 6" drilled well from 1985???, 3/4hp pump at 220ft deep 5yrs old, two 30micron filters in series, pressure switch at 38/50psi, 2 adults and a baby in the house. We use on average maybe 600gal per week which includes laundry days.
Six months ago I had well troubles, no water, very little water regardless of how much we conserved, etc. I had a well guy come out who stated we only had 0.5gal/min recovery and that we needed to drill a new $10,000 well. I'm as frugal as they come, so in an effort to save money I did a LOT of research.
I never realized wells require maintenance for the 9yrs I had been living here. That has rewarded me with what I now know as a serious case of iron bacteria with all the expected symptoms, two times worse than you can imagine and poor well performance in general.
Then (eight months ago) I come to the conclusion that the bacteria colony I have had plugged the pump input, screen and the rock fissures feeding my well. I used 1.5gal (as I remember) of unscented bleach in a 220ft well then filled my well with water to the cap from the neighbor's well. The water bled out, I assume into the water table, then I repeated filling, without bleach, dumping a total of several thousand gallons of water into my well over several days. All was good for six months, I can't say that we conserved water really, just had no problems. When I change the filters I still had the brown slime filling them.
This week we've had no water again. The pump runs without building pressure. I changed the filters, broke the filter housing so in the 5hrs it took to get a replacement installed I had water till it run out again after 12hrs. I did not detect any water with 125ft of string. We have had a crazy amount of rain this past 12 months. Yesterday the US Geological site says the water table is 49ft below here. I've done some more research, supposedly chlorine is 100% effective at 5.5ph (http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/) so I also dosed white vinegar. My PH kit states <6.0ph. I also dosed 1gal of chlorine into 300gal of water (filled to the well cap) and let it sit overnight. Tonight I added maybe another 150gal water to the well up to the cap and added another gallon of chlorine because there was no odor and my test key said <1ppm CL.
If you are still reading.....Am I insane and these exercises are useless??? Do you suppose biofouling might be the problem here? I don't know yet if I have recovered the flow this time but if so is there something I can do to permanently fix this iron bacteria problem? If so I can't find the solution on the internet.
Thank you for your time. Any help would be appreciated.
Six months ago I had well troubles, no water, very little water regardless of how much we conserved, etc. I had a well guy come out who stated we only had 0.5gal/min recovery and that we needed to drill a new $10,000 well. I'm as frugal as they come, so in an effort to save money I did a LOT of research.
I never realized wells require maintenance for the 9yrs I had been living here. That has rewarded me with what I now know as a serious case of iron bacteria with all the expected symptoms, two times worse than you can imagine and poor well performance in general.
Then (eight months ago) I come to the conclusion that the bacteria colony I have had plugged the pump input, screen and the rock fissures feeding my well. I used 1.5gal (as I remember) of unscented bleach in a 220ft well then filled my well with water to the cap from the neighbor's well. The water bled out, I assume into the water table, then I repeated filling, without bleach, dumping a total of several thousand gallons of water into my well over several days. All was good for six months, I can't say that we conserved water really, just had no problems. When I change the filters I still had the brown slime filling them.
This week we've had no water again. The pump runs without building pressure. I changed the filters, broke the filter housing so in the 5hrs it took to get a replacement installed I had water till it run out again after 12hrs. I did not detect any water with 125ft of string. We have had a crazy amount of rain this past 12 months. Yesterday the US Geological site says the water table is 49ft below here. I've done some more research, supposedly chlorine is 100% effective at 5.5ph (http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/) so I also dosed white vinegar. My PH kit states <6.0ph. I also dosed 1gal of chlorine into 300gal of water (filled to the well cap) and let it sit overnight. Tonight I added maybe another 150gal water to the well up to the cap and added another gallon of chlorine because there was no odor and my test key said <1ppm CL.
If you are still reading.....Am I insane and these exercises are useless??? Do you suppose biofouling might be the problem here? I don't know yet if I have recovered the flow this time but if so is there something I can do to permanently fix this iron bacteria problem? If so I can't find the solution on the internet.
Thank you for your time. Any help would be appreciated.