Need to shock well, what to do with water softener

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hans3121

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So we had to do some well repairs, and we needed to shock our well. Now, we bypassed the softener when we shocked the well tonight, but unfortunately the system regenerated last night, before we could shock the well, so there's potentially contaminated/dirty water... What do we do?
 

Reach4

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I would add some bleach to the brine tank. 1.2 fluid ounces of 5.25% chlorine bleach per cubic ft of resin. I would probably add some vinegar or citric acid too, but that is not the common thing to do. I am not sure how long I would have that sit. A few hours? Until the next regen?

It still could miss something. On the other hand, some people never sanitize their plumbing.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my writeup for sanitizing deep bottom feeding wells and plumbin using liquid bleach and vinegar.
 

hans3121

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I would add some bleach to the brine tank. 1.2 fluid ounces of 5.25% chlorine bleach per cubic ft of resin. I would probably add some vinegar or citric acid too, but that is not the common thing to do. I am not sure how long I would have that sit. A few hours? Until the next regen?

It still could miss something. On the other hand, some people never sanitize their plumbing.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my writeup for sanitizing deep bottom feeding wells and plumbin using liquid bleach and vinegar.


I had read that we shouldn't add bleach because it destroys the resin? But I suppose that small of an amount wouldn't hurt?
Can we manually run a regen after we add the bleach? Maybe let it sit awhile then run it? And I'm assuming we should keep the system in bypass until the well water clears up (it had cleared up after the pump installation yesterday, but then when we shocked the well, of course we got more silt again)?
 

hans3121

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Also, when we shocked the well, we had never heard of adding vinegar before. Is it too late to add it now? (We haven't yet flushed the chlorine from the system).
 

Reach4

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I had read that we shouldn't add bleach because it destroys the resin? But I suppose that small of an amount wouldn't hurt?
The problem with chlorine damaging resin includes a time factor. In my writeup, I suggest passing the chlorinated water thru the softener resin after the level had fallen a lot, but was still there.

The 1.2 fluid ounces per cuft of resin number I named above came from the Fleck 5812 service manual.

Also, when we shocked the well, we had never heard of adding vinegar before. Is it too late to add it now? (We haven't yet flushed the chlorine from the system).
Probably not, but you will want to be recirculating. How about the flooding volume? Its not too late for that then. Test strips will tell. A restaurant supply store may have the high range chlorine test strips locally.
Can we manually run a regen after we add the bleach? Maybe let it sit awhile then run it? And I'm assuming we should keep the system in bypass until the well water clears up (it had cleared up after the pump installation yesterday, but then when we shocked the well, of course we got more silt again)?
I used 2 gallons of vinegar ultimately. Both the bleach and vinegar get consumed while doing their jobs, as shown by the test strips. Calculations can only determine a minimum amount, but I think you need to measure to see if more is needed. The 2 gallons of vinegar were under $5 at Sams.

I used a big blue cartridge filter in my recirculation line. That is not normally done. https://terrylove.com/forums/index....-clarifying-water-and-more.65986/#post-490196 If you are pumping up sediment, you might consider buying a filter for the purpose.
 
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