hand bailing old well progress.

[Johnny Turner]

I Started hand bailing the old well at my grandparents house yesterday with the old hand bailer pail that was there .Only got 3 or 4 out before it started leaking pretty bad so I got some 4" pvc and made a new bailer out of a 3 1/2 foot piece. Yesterday the first couple bails I got with the old bailer had leaf matter and smelled bad but today the first 2 bails I got out where crystal clear no smell at all. After the clear bails today the water started getting muddy looking IDK but I did raises and drop the bail back in a few times hard so maybe I stirred up some sediment at the bottom?
Anyway I pulled roughly 32 or so gallons out today before I ran out of light I also marked my rope with a piece of tape and as best I could tell their was at least another 20 foot of water in the 6 " hole .( it has 6" casing at the top). Now they just had a piece of cender block on top the hole so I know some surface water did get into the well and it stayed that way over 15 years but I would think surface water in a hole that long would be pretty nasty stuff .But like I said 2 pails where smelly and nasty looking then I got 2 clear and the rest where muddy looking. I read online that muddy water in a well could mean it is going dry .Anyway tomorrow I will go check and see if any more water has run in .I marked the water lvl with a piece of electric tape on my rope so I`m hoping it has run more in by then.

 

[Valveman]

I read online that muddy water in a well could mean it is going dry.

Muddy water when you are pumping can mean you are pulling the water level all the way down. But muddy water when bailing is expected and just means your doing some good.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Johnny Turner]

Muddy water when you are pumping can mean you are pulling the water level all the way down. But muddy water when bailing is expected and just means your doing some good.

Thanks valveman that's good news maybe there is some hope for that well after all.I suspect it is still running how much water remains to be seen.

 

[Johnny Turner]

Ok so today I dropped the bail back in the well and the water lvl is the same as I left it yesterday because I marked the water lvl with a piece of black electric tape .So as far as I can tell the well gained none of the over 30 gallons of water I pulled out of it yesterday so I guess my dad is right it did go dry .

 

[Reach4]

Did you measure from when you started yesterday? Suppose it recovered immediately. That way it would also be the same depth today as it was when you finished later.

 

[Johnny Turner]

Did you measure from when you started yesterday? Suppose it recovered immediately. That way it would also be the same depth today as it was when you finished later.

I get what your saying and no when I started I did not mark the water depth on the rope .however I`m pretty sure I was having to drop the rope deeper to get water .But I`m not 100% on that because I know when we marked the rope after bailing a lot I pulled like 4 or 5 pails out and I was getting a gallon and a half a pail so that was 7 gallons or so and I was still hitting water pretty close to the tape marked on the rope.so it could be possible that I was pulling a gallon and a half every min and half but it was running a gallon back in before I got back down.So yeah thanks for that man I never even thought of it .I will bail it again when I can and see if that is going on.

 

[Johnny Turner]

Did you measure from when you started yesterday? Suppose it recovered immediately. That way it would also be the same depth today as it was when you finished later.

Well I bailed 20 gallons out today and it never moved from the mark .So that's great news I can`t believe I never thought of it recovering was pretty stupid of me .I timed how long it took us to get down to the water lvl and how long to get back up it was a total of 3 min to get down get water and then back up to empty out.My 4" pvc bailer is 3` 6" long the well casing is 6" and I eased the bailer down slow and pulled until I couldn`t feel any resistance on the rope it was about 25 foot of water to the bottom. so I know they are some mud on the bottom when I lowered the bail the first 3 where clear then I started getting mud where the sediment was mixing up in it.I figured I would get it cleaned out who knows how much mud is on the bottom. ty reach4 for your advice I thought it was dry .