Craig Engleman
New Member
I'm looking for some advice in regards to a well having bacteria in it.
Background: The well was constructed in the 70's and is a 6" steel casing that I've recently converted to using a pitless adapter and submersible 1.5HP pump. I'm using the well with our new home that was just constructed; we've been living there about 1 month. Prior to living in the house, I installed the pitless adapter on the casing and installed the submersible pump. I ran the plumbing underground through a hole I drilled in the basement wall and set up the well pressure tank. The pressure tank is a new Flexcon FL 82 gallon equivalent tank, which I bought to hopefully account for the increased load on the well that comes with having 2 1/2 baths and a larger home than what has previously used the well. Once the pressure tank was set up I shock chlorinated the system and had to just run the bleach out of the water with a hose connected to the pressure tank because the plumbing in the home was not yet completed. I have not shocked the well again since the plumbing was finished and connected to the pressure tank, or since I installed a water softener. This well has seen my wife's great grandmother have a house on it using this well, then her uncle using it connected to a trailer, so we have a decent idea of it's history and it hasn't ever had any problems. I'm told it was well constructed. When I hooked it up to our house, I decided to replace everything (pump, tank, fittings, etc.) as it had previously used a jet pump with a steel pressure tank inside a big ugly well house that would have been right in my front yard.
It took me a while to complete testing for bacteria in the water because I had to send it overnight to another city. Anyway, I just got the test results back and the results were positive for coliform (>200.5) but showed no signs of E. Coli.
My question then is do you think shocking the well again and letting it sit in the household plumbing may correct the issue? I understand that shock chlorination will only kill the present bacteria and does not do anything to correct the source of the problem. However, my thinking is that since the well had been unused and undisturbed for several years before I used it and since I didn't have an opportunity to shock it with everything set up, that maybe I just jumped the gun and was guilty of trying to shock it too soon to be effective.
Also, we did run into one problem using the well--one night after bathing my son, my wife taking a bath in our whirlpool, and then me taking a 3rd bath in the whirlpool, we had a problem with running out of water. It took nearly a day for the well to recover. My thinking was that we pumped enough water to get the static water line slightly below the pumping level where the pump was located and then had to wait for the well to fill up enough above the pump to be used again. Since that time, we haven't had any other issues, although I have made a point not to try to use enough water for 3 baths in a short period again. The well depth is about 45 ft with the static water line being about 21 1/2' above. I originally put the submersible pump in about 35 ft (or 10ft from the bottom). As of yesterday, I lowered it a few more feet to try to prevent future problems, since I knew I would need to shock the well again anyway. I was curious as to whether pumping the well dry (or below the submersible pump) that maybe that could have led bacteria formation as well.
So, does anyone have any advice? Should I consider looking into UV or chlorine treatment systems, or just wait to see what the next set of test results tell me?
Background: The well was constructed in the 70's and is a 6" steel casing that I've recently converted to using a pitless adapter and submersible 1.5HP pump. I'm using the well with our new home that was just constructed; we've been living there about 1 month. Prior to living in the house, I installed the pitless adapter on the casing and installed the submersible pump. I ran the plumbing underground through a hole I drilled in the basement wall and set up the well pressure tank. The pressure tank is a new Flexcon FL 82 gallon equivalent tank, which I bought to hopefully account for the increased load on the well that comes with having 2 1/2 baths and a larger home than what has previously used the well. Once the pressure tank was set up I shock chlorinated the system and had to just run the bleach out of the water with a hose connected to the pressure tank because the plumbing in the home was not yet completed. I have not shocked the well again since the plumbing was finished and connected to the pressure tank, or since I installed a water softener. This well has seen my wife's great grandmother have a house on it using this well, then her uncle using it connected to a trailer, so we have a decent idea of it's history and it hasn't ever had any problems. I'm told it was well constructed. When I hooked it up to our house, I decided to replace everything (pump, tank, fittings, etc.) as it had previously used a jet pump with a steel pressure tank inside a big ugly well house that would have been right in my front yard.
It took me a while to complete testing for bacteria in the water because I had to send it overnight to another city. Anyway, I just got the test results back and the results were positive for coliform (>200.5) but showed no signs of E. Coli.
My question then is do you think shocking the well again and letting it sit in the household plumbing may correct the issue? I understand that shock chlorination will only kill the present bacteria and does not do anything to correct the source of the problem. However, my thinking is that since the well had been unused and undisturbed for several years before I used it and since I didn't have an opportunity to shock it with everything set up, that maybe I just jumped the gun and was guilty of trying to shock it too soon to be effective.
Also, we did run into one problem using the well--one night after bathing my son, my wife taking a bath in our whirlpool, and then me taking a 3rd bath in the whirlpool, we had a problem with running out of water. It took nearly a day for the well to recover. My thinking was that we pumped enough water to get the static water line slightly below the pumping level where the pump was located and then had to wait for the well to fill up enough above the pump to be used again. Since that time, we haven't had any other issues, although I have made a point not to try to use enough water for 3 baths in a short period again. The well depth is about 45 ft with the static water line being about 21 1/2' above. I originally put the submersible pump in about 35 ft (or 10ft from the bottom). As of yesterday, I lowered it a few more feet to try to prevent future problems, since I knew I would need to shock the well again anyway. I was curious as to whether pumping the well dry (or below the submersible pump) that maybe that could have led bacteria formation as well.
So, does anyone have any advice? Should I consider looking into UV or chlorine treatment systems, or just wait to see what the next set of test results tell me?