Will bleaching my well help restore its flow?

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hunch1784

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I just purchesed my first home 2 years ago. Since we moved in we have been having problems with running out of water. My well is 6 inches in diameter and is 64 feet deep with a static level of 15 feet deep. I had a flow test performed on it and it is only producing about 3/4 gpm. When the well was drilled deeper in 1982 it was flowing 2.5 gpm. I talked to a local well company and he advised me to try dumping a gallon of bleach in the well and then dump water into the well afterwards until the level reached the top of the casing and let it sit overnight. The bleach is supposed to eat away the dead bacteria built up on the sides of the well and hopefully restore the flow. But i was reading in the sticky about disenfecting your well the bleach is heavier than water and thought to myself that letting it sit overnight would not make any difference. The best thing for me to do would be to wash the sides of the well by recirculating the bleached water through the system. Would this even work to restore the flow or would it be a waste of my time? And does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix my problem
 

Valveman

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That is a good link to study. Also you could call someone who treats wells. I recommend Cotey Chemical Company. They can help you out. There are little things like lowering the ph before you add chlorine, that can really help.
 

Ballvalve

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I "fixed" a well with terrible iron bacteria using a ton of chlorine and major recirculation down the hole for several hours, along with filling all taps and outlets with the solution. Flush and repeat. That was 5 years ago, and the toilet tanks are still pretty clean. It was not a flow issue, but I would try it as a start anyway.

What PH would you reduce to and with what chemical?
 

Gary Slusser

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Chlorine alone can make the problem worse and might cause water quality, pump, drop pipe and power cable problems.

Well cleaning or rehabilitation uses both acidic and caustic along with a disinfectant and that clears encrustations and kills all types of bacteria living in or under the encrustations.

They usually reduce the pH to 2 for hours of agitation and then raise it to 12 for hours of agitation.
 

Valveman

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One of the problems with working on a well that is only making 3/4 GPM, is that it doesn’t make enough water to wash out all the chemicals. I have a well with the same problem. I used one of my Cycle Sensors to help pump out the well. It would shut the well off when it pumped dry, then I had it set to restart after 1 hour. This process was repeated over and over. It took about a week to get the chemicals cleaned out. And I did it like Gary said with acidic then caustic solutions.
 
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