Heavy Sediment in Well Water, Need Advice Please

[Tim Doyle]

Hi all, new guy here. Bought a new to me house about 18 mos ago and there's a long-ish list of shortcomings that I'm working on. One of the big items is the plumbing. Its a double wide mobile home, built in 1988 and as such everything is old...still works but its old. Old grey poly water feed pipes for example. My water has always been a bit sulfury and sedimenty, but its been very usable until recently.

We just put up a pool, I tossed the garden hose in to get a little water in the bottom to gauge exactly how level we got it (luckily we did a good job) and ordered a water delivery. Went to work putting the ladder together and unfortunately forgot the hose was running for about 2 hours. Shut the hose off, knowing from past experience at another house that I may have drawn the well down too low and stirred up some sediment.

Later that night as the toilet water began to get silty I knew I was right (this was Sunday evening), but it was near the end of the evening and in the last experience when this happened to me, letting it sit overnight tended to settle out the bulk of the sediment. Unfortunately this hasn't happened here. Looking for advice before I throw in the towel and have to call for help.

The main line coming in from the well has two canister water filters, this are the 2.5" typical low cost filter canisters you can get anywhere. I usually have one with 5micron media and the second one with charcoal to help reduce the sulfur smell...these filters are the first thing in line coming in, which I believe is an incorrect configuration as I'm basically filtering all the water that goes into the pressure tank, right? After the canisters there is a silver UV canister, the UV part of which has failed so its basically just a canister now as I've unplugged it from the wall. After that it goes to the pressure tank, a typical blue air bladder cylinder which, remarkably enough still seems to have a good bladder and holds its air pressure properly. Pressure tank goes off the the house plumbing. See first photo for a visual...pipes are definitely a convoluted mess.

The silt over the last few days has gotten progressively worse, not better which strikes me as odd. Right when I noticed it I opted to change the filters, putting in 5 micron media in both to try to catch the bulk of everything coming in. Oddly enough though, they aren't getting plugged up, I still have good water pressure at all the taps and the well feed line seems to work properly. I recently replaced the two old canisters with a pair of cheapies from Lowes, $20 each, there is no bypass function, they just run the water through the media...I've double checked the installation, they are definitely in the right direction and I am definitely using proper fitting media.

The toilet bowl is muddy looking, cannot see the bottom of the bowl at all and its brown like the silt is dissolved dirt, which I would expect the two canisters to catch a lot of and eventually to clog up with mud if its coming in THAT silty. This has led me to think that maybe I've got a silt problem in my pressure tank...if the water has has sediment for the last 32 years and the tank is that old, why not? So today I shut off the house feed valve from the tank and the pump feed into the tank, got out my 5 gallon bucket and drained it with a hose until the low pressure switch cut it off. Filled it to full pressure and repeated for a total of about a half dozen times...water was still coming out cloudy so I'm not really sure if I've found anything or just an exercise in wasting time...if the low pressure switch cuts off the output from the tank, is it still leaving water and therefore sediment possibly built up in there? The spigot I used is the one under the pressure control switch in the second photo. The buckets I took out were grey and cloudy, didn't seem like air bubbles...there was a smell of sulfur but it was not crazy strong. There were larger chunks floating on the top after it settled some, under a magnifier they look like they may be rust...I'm talking about bits maybe a quarter inch long...far too big to ever have passed through my filters. I'm kind of stuck on having stirred something up inside the house, I keep looking at the pressure tank as the culprit..could be the UV tank though, I'm not sure what the inside of those things looks like, but I imagine it would be an easy thing to remove and just replace with a couple elbows and some pipe if that is a good idea.

So apart from a top down rebuild, which I'm not ready to do just yet, does anyone have any suggestions I can investigate? Is the pressure tank silt a valid theory or am I likely chasing my tail? I know the water filters are in the wrong spot but until I do a major plumbing reno, there's nowhere to relocate them to right now as the system is unfortunately located in my daughter's closet.

Is there anything I can check at the well itself? Its an unknown depth, pump is an unknown age...is it possible there is a screen on it that might have fallen off? Or can it be raised a bit to possibly pull it out of the sediment right pool of water and into a cleaner part?

Am I doomed and need to get that plumbing reno started now?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tim Doyle]

Update, based on advice in a PM here I have removed the filter media from both canisters.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[The lowly grunt]

Hi all, new guy here. Bought a new to me house about 18 mos ago and there's a long-ish list of shortcomings that I'm working on. One of the big items is the plumbing. Its a double wide mobile home, built in 1988 and as such everything is old...still works but its old. Old grey poly water feed pipes for example. My water has always been a bit sulfury and sedimenty, but its been very usable until recently.

We just put up a pool, I tossed the garden hose in to get a little water in the bottom to gauge exactly how level we got it (luckily we did a good job) and ordered a water delivery. Went to work putting the ladder together and unfortunately forgot the hose was running for about 2 hours. Shut the hose off, knowing from past experience at another house that I may have drawn the well down too low and stirred up some sediment.

Later that night as the toilet water began to get silty I knew I was right (this was Sunday evening), but it was near the end of the evening and in the last experience when this happened to me, letting it sit overnight tended to settle out the bulk of the sediment. Unfortunately this hasn't happened here. Looking for advice before I throw in the towel and have to call for help.

The main line coming in from the well has two canister water filters, this are the 2.5" typical low cost filter canisters you can get anywhere. I usually have one with 5micron media and the second one with charcoal to help reduce the sulfur smell...these filters are the first thing in line coming in, which I believe is an incorrect configuration as I'm basically filtering all the water that goes into the pressure tank, right? After the canisters there is a silver UV canister, the UV part of which has failed so its basically just a canister now as I've unplugged it from the wall. After that it goes to the pressure tank, a typical blue air bladder cylinder which, remarkably enough still seems to have a good bladder and holds its air pressure properly. Pressure tank goes off the the house plumbing. See first photo for a visual...pipes are definitely a convoluted mess.

The silt over the last few days has gotten progressively worse, not better which strikes me as odd. Right when I noticed it I opted to change the filters, putting in 5 micron media in both to try to catch the bulk of everything coming in. Oddly enough though, they aren't getting plugged up, I still have good water pressure at all the taps and the well feed line seems to work properly. I recently replaced the two old canisters with a pair of cheapies from Lowes, $20 each, there is no bypass function, they just run the water through the media...I've double checked the installation, they are definitely in the right direction and I am definitely using proper fitting media.

The toilet bowl is muddy looking, cannot see the bottom of the bowl at all and its brown like the silt is dissolved dirt, which I would expect the two canisters to catch a lot of and eventually to clog up with mud if its coming in THAT silty. This has led me to think that maybe I've got a silt problem in my pressure tank...if the water has has sediment for the last 32 years and the tank is that old, why not? So today I shut off the house feed valve from the tank and the pump feed into the tank, got out my 5 gallon bucket and drained it with a hose until the low pressure switch cut it off. Filled it to full pressure and repeated for a total of about a half dozen times...water was still coming out cloudy so I'm not really sure if I've found anything or just an exercise in wasting time...if the low pressure switch cuts off the output from the tank, is it still leaving water and therefore sediment possibly built up in there? The spigot I used is the one under the pressure control switch in the second photo. The buckets I took out were grey and cloudy, didn't seem like air bubbles...there was a smell of sulfur but it was not crazy strong. There were larger chunks floating on the top after it settled some, under a magnifier they look like they may be rust...I'm talking about bits maybe a quarter inch long...far too big to ever have passed through my filters. I'm kind of stuck on having stirred something up inside the house, I keep looking at the pressure tank as the culprit..could be the UV tank though, I'm not sure what the inside of those things looks like, but I imagine it would be an easy thing to remove and just replace with a couple elbows and some pipe if that is a good idea.

So apart from a top down rebuild, which I'm not ready to do just yet, does anyone have any suggestions I can investigate? Is the pressure tank silt a valid theory or am I likely chasing my tail? I know the water filters are in the wrong spot but until I do a major plumbing reno, there's nowhere to relocate them to right now as the system is unfortunately located in my daughter's closet.

Is there anything I can check at the well itself? Its an unknown depth, pump is an unknown age...is it possible there is a screen on it that might have fallen off? Or can it be raised a bit to possibly pull it out of the sediment right pool of water and into a cleaner part?

Am I doomed and need to get that plumbing reno started now?

Thanks in advance.

You need a manganese green sand filter for the sulfur if no sulfur found in water . Then a stenner chlorinator pump and a large possibly 120 gallon contact tank then a backwashable carbon filter maybe a cubic foot worth then to maybe the house or a softener then house. That would solve your purity issues. Due note this depends on what's in your water. There are other filters for all applications. But without the proper filter what's in your well is in your house. Most of the time a chlorinator set up and a sediment filter ( garnet stone , swirl tank or many other options). Is more than sufficient to solve that. Or soda ash for the murky water. I know it sounds like alot. But do the research, you can make well water like bottled water.

 

[Tim Doyle]

Thanks lowly grunt. Thats all likely to be part of my long term plan, which invovles tossing out everything I have now and moving the water equipment out of my daughter's closet and into my master bathroom when I remodel that bath. Unfortunately this issue is more immediate and came on right after I had an extended use of the hose. I suspect I've simply drawn the well down too low and its taking longer than I thought it would to recover..and unfortunately recovery is bringing a bunch of silt with it.

 

[Reach4]

Update, based on advice in a PM here I have removed the filter media from both canisters.

As a test, I presume. You need a 5 micron filter before a UV sterilizer. I am not saying that you need UV.

What did the test show?

 

[The lowly grunt]

Thanks lowly grunt. Thats all likely to be part of my long term plan, which invovles tossing out everything I have now and moving the water equipment out of my daughter's closet and into my master bathroom when I remodel that bath. Unfortunately this issue is more immediate and came on right after I had an extended use of the hose. I suspect I've simply drawn the well down too low and its taking longer than I thought it would to recover..and unfortunately recovery is bringing a bunch of silt with it.

For short term they have sediment separater

 

[The lowly grunt]

They are around the size of your current filters but spin the sediment out and you can just drain and blow it out every couple days.

 

[Tim Doyle]

I removed the filters at the suggestion of another member here, V Scott, who indicated he felt they should be removed permanently since filters between the pump and pressure switch could throw pressure readings off and potentially cause a rupture in a pipe. I can replace the filters at any time, should I?

The UV filter element is dead. It was making a popping noise and I could smell an ozon-ish smell from it so I unplugged it awhile ago and have not yet sought a replacement element. I'm not ruling out replacing the element or the whole filter assembly if necessary, but a water test probably is the sensible way to approach that before I invest much into it.

The residue in the toilet bowl is very much like a very fine mud, not granules. The water is murky but I'm able to see the drain at the bottom of the toilet bowl now and I couldn't before I started today's drain and fill adventure. Maybe I pumped some crud out of my pressure tank today and it actually made a difference, it doesn't make sense to me that removing the filter media would have an impact of lessening the density of sediment I see in the toilet bowl...or maybe the well is just getting back to its recovery point.

I'm starting to feel that the problem is most likely that I just ran the hose too long and drew that water table down too far and it stirred up a bunch of sediment and I've just got to wait it out. We're using bottled water for cooking and drinking and the coffee maker for the time being, I'm considering picking up an under sink filtration system, but I'm not sure if that would be effective.

Can I get tighter filters than 5 microns and run them safely in the setup I have at present? Would moving to 1 micron in at least one of the canisters help address this? At least in the short term and help save my shower heads and washing machine (we're not using it right now, but would like to)?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Tim Doyle]

They are around the size of your current filters but spin the sediment out and you can just drain and blow it out every couple days.

Something like this? Swap it in for the first filter canister I would guess to take out as much sediment as possible?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/ISPRING...-GPM-1-in-MNPT-3-4-in-FNPT-WSP-50SL/309483330

 

[Tim Doyle]

Uploaded two photos of a 2 quart pitcher. First photo is 8:49 last night, second photo is 8:42 this morning. I do not see any significant difference...there appear to be air bubbles stuck to the sides this morning, I honestly cannot say how much was there last night, but zooming in on last night's photo I see no air bubbles on the glass. Not sure if this is useful info or not, but here it is.

Wife needed to run the wash this morning so I have reinstalled the 5 micron filter in the first canister, second canister is still empty. There were some rubbly grits in the canister when I opened it, odds are they were there yesterday when I took the filter out as I did not rinse the canister, just removed the filter media, made sure the threads were clean and screwed it back together.

I opted to order a pack of basic 1 micron filter media off Amazon last night, it was only $14 for a 3 pack so if its not a good solution I'm not put much. I'm hopeful just using a finer filter will help reduce the cloudiness.

 

[Reach4]

Uploaded two photos of a 2 quart pitcher. First photo is 8:49 last night, second photo is 8:42 this morning. I do not see any significant difference...there appear to be air bubbles stuck to the sides this morning,

Try setting your pitcher in a steady place, rather than moving it about between photos.

 

[Tim Doyle]

It was. I grabbed the first shot on the dining room table and very gently moved it into better light this morning. It was not agitated at all, looked just like this after sitting for 12 hours.

 

[Reach4]

Trying the 1 micron filter may be effective. If so, you would probably want bigger sumps and cartridges going forward. If the problem is colloidal clay, cartridge filters are not going to filter that out probably.

We just put up a pool, I tossed the garden hose in to get a little water in the bottom to gauge exactly how level we got it (luckily we did a good job) and ordered a water delivery. Went to work putting the ladder together and unfortunately forgot the hose was running for about 2 hours. Shut the hose off, knowing from past experience at another house that I may have drawn the well down too low and stirred up some sediment.

It may be that developing the well by pumping it dry, at full flow, repeatedly for a few days may help. There are devices that can detect that you ran dry (they monitor the current), and turn off the pump for an interval that you program when the well is running dry.

It may be that a new well would be a good investment. That would depend on local conditions. Do neighbors have good wells, or are they sharing your experience?

 

[Tim Doyle]

To be honest, I'm not sure of the state of my neighbor's wells...I'll have to see if I can find out.

Thanks!

 

[tico007]

I removed the filters at the suggestion of another member here, V Scott, who indicated he felt they should be removed permanently since filters between the pump and pressure switch could throw pressure readings off and potentially cause a rupture in a pipe. I can replace the filters at any time, should I?

The UV filter element is dead. It was making a popping noise and I could smell an ozon-ish smell from it so I unplugged it awhile ago and have not yet sought a replacement element. I'm not ruling out replacing the element or the whole filter assembly if necessary, but a water test probably is the sensible way to approach that before I invest much into it.

The residue in the toilet bowl is very much like a very fine mud, not granules. The water is murky but I'm able to see the drain at the bottom of the toilet bowl now and I couldn't before I started today's drain and fill adventure. Maybe I pumped some crud out of my pressure tank today and it actually made a difference, it doesn't make sense to me that removing the filter media would have an impact of lessening the density of sediment I see in the toilet bowl...or maybe the well is just getting back to its recovery point.

I'm starting to feel that the problem is most likely that I just ran the hose too long and drew that water table down too far and it stirred up a bunch of sediment and I've just got to wait it out. We're using bottled water for cooking and drinking and the coffee maker for the time being, I'm considering picking up an under sink filtration system, but I'm not sure if that would be effective.

Can I get tighter filters than 5 microns and run them safely in the setup I have at present? Would moving to 1 micron in at least one of the canisters help address this? At least in the short term and help save my shower heads and washing machine (we're not using it right now, but would like to)?

Thanks for the help!

Owning a house with a low yield well and recovery problems I'm familiar with what you're experiencing. It definitely could be over pumping the well filling the pool. When the pump started to run dry the RPMs increased, creating turbulence and agitating sediment at the bottom of the well. Which is somewhat normal. This can also happen when you completely run out of water and the pressure tank throws up a bunch of sediment. It's a good opportunity to get that out of the well before it settles again or clogs your pipes the screens of your faucets and appliances. I would turn off the house and attached a hose at the valve near the pressure tank and run it outside into a 5 gal bucket on a medium or a speed that doesn't make you run out of water. Watch the water in the bucket and when it's clean reattach the house.

 

[Tim Doyle]

Update for the group:

The water has been slowly clearing of silt over time, to the point where with 1 5micron filter in place it was nearly back to its normal state. Received a pack of 1 micron media filters and put one in the second filter canister and the water definitely improved from there.

A full R&R of my water system is on the planning boards, to be done with a second bathroom reno project and I will be implementing a full testing and remediation plan at that time.

Thanks for all the help guys!