Open/uncapped well and contamination?

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tartrazine

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I'm going to be replacing the pump in my 160ft well soon. Hopefully without professional help. Since I'm doing this myself, I'm not sure what I'll find when I pull the old one up, and how long it will take.

I'm wondering how much I need to worry about contamination during the process while leaving it open or letting everything lay out in my yard? Basically, it's apparently standard to disinfect after installing a new pump regardless, so should I just try to keep debris out as much as possible but otherwise not worry about it?

Thanks.
 

Reach4

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I am not recommending that you pull your own pump.

After pump work, you will have junk in your water. You will want to pump for quite a while ( 2 to 24 or more hours?) after things go back together. This water should go out of the outdoor spigots that are not fed via filter or softener. This can be combined with the sanitizing maybe. I ran my recirculated water through a big cartridge filter . Most people will just do the flush onto the ground followed by the sanitizing.

After you or well pro changes the well, you should disinfect your well and plumbing. http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/index.php/maintainance/disinfection-and-testing is my favorite procedure. You want to take steps to not expose your softener resin to a lot of chlorine, but you do want to get a little chlorine to the resin. You also want to minimize putting chlorine into the septic tank. Everything else, including your hot water heater, can take a fairly high chlorine level. So when you are getting chlorinated water into the water heater, you can run that outside to a ditch through a hose. When you feed water to the faucets in sinks, dishwasher, RO filter, washing machine, just do enough to get adequate levels of chlorine to those places, and stop running the water through those. When you are clearing out the chlorine the next day, run most of the chlorinated water to the ditch. I maybe over-worried.

If your casing is large enough, you can drop some of your chlorine down the casing pellets made for the purpose. The advantage is they sink to the bottom and hit the area below the circulation. I have a 4 inch casing with a 3.75 inch pump, so I could not drop the 3/8 inch pellets to the bottom. I used liquid chlorine bleach and hth brand "shock 'n swim" #3 (calcium hypochlorite 47.8%) granules, which is sold for pools. The granules are much smaller than the well pellets, but I hoped some of the granules might make it past my pump that is set down 140 ft. I compensated for not getting pellets to the bottom by circulating much longer. Once the circulation water is at high level chlorine, wash the sides of the casing and the pitless.

I would get some high-range chlorine test paper such as Hydrion Cm-240 Chlorine 10-200 PPM.
Consider some pH test paper such as Hydrion (O67) Urine & Saliva pH Paper 5.5-8.0. I found that it took a few seconds to get the color I expected rather than the right color being instantaneous. I did not test against standard solution however. The range is low enough to tell if you have added enough vinegar, and it is high enough to check common pH levels after the well has been purged of the chemicals. You can get by without the test papers, but I think it greatly improves the confidence that you have the right levels even reaching through the water heater to the faucets.
 
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Ballvalve

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I'm going to be replacing the pump in my 160ft well soon. Hopefully without professional help. Since I'm doing this myself, I'm not sure what I'll find when I pull the old one up, and how long it will take.

I'm wondering how much I need to worry about contamination during the process while leaving it open or letting everything lay out in my yard? Basically, it's apparently standard to disinfect after installing a new pump regardless, so should I just try to keep debris out as much as possible but otherwise not worry about it?

Thanks.

Yes keep the debri out as much as possible. I have rolled out a few hundred feet of 3x plastic to lay the pipe string on - assuming poly pipe. You dont want any dog shit or rats dropping down the well at night. Use liquid chlorine and recirculate it for a long time after you reset the pump. I think there is a sticky post here about that.
 
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Craigpump

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Hot tip

Mix chlorine in a bucket with some water and wash the pipe and wire off with a rag as it goes back in then add some chlorine to the well when you're done.

We do it all the time.
 

VAWellDriller

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I do that too Craig, but I chlorinate the well with pellets when the pump is out; before I install the new pump.... then everything that goes in; gets dipped in chlorinated water
 

Boycedrilling

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I try to not set pipe on the ground. On new installations the pipe comes off the pipe rack or off a 20 ft flatbed trailer.

If I'm pulling an existing pump, the pipe either goes onto the trailer, or onto sawhorses. The wire gets rolled onto a spool as ir comes out of the hole.

Sterilene goes in the well before the pump goes in the well. On some jobs we've mixed a chlorine solution and put it in a pump up weed sprayer and sprayed chlorine solution on the pipe before installing it.
 

tartrazine

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Thanks for the responses. To clarify, I have city water for the house and this is for the outdoor faucets. So it's a no-rush project, and I don't have to worry about softener or water heater.

I will probably put in new pipe to the new pump, but if I do end up laying the old stuff on the ground and then put it back in, I'll give it a chlorinated rag wash as it goes down.
 
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