One well, two houses-one water has coliform, one does not - HELP, please!

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Blackberries

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We tested our water by the county over two months ago which indicated there is coliform (not E-Coli) in our water. Since we share a well with our neighbor and it is on their property they had the well shocked. We retested our water, twice, and still have coliform in our water. The neighbors tested their water a few weeks ago and it came back as negative for both coliform and E-Coli in their water. When the well was shocked we bypassed the water softener in our house and have since kept it off; they do not have one.

We are waiting for a plumber to look at our layout in order to buy a Sanitron UV light for our house. However, we just cannot figure out what may be the problem and if the UV light will be the solution if bacteria is entering the water system some other way between the well and our property. Is this a possibility and if so, where?

Has anyone had this situation before? Thank you!
 

Valveman

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You can get a positive test for that by just not having sterilized the faucet where you got the sample. I would carefully take another sample to test.
 

Blackberries

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I tested three times, each time following the directions, including spraying the faucet inside and out with a bleach solution and then letting the water run again after that.
 

Reach4

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So sanitize. Maybe a re-shock (sanitize) all of the way from the well, but this time have the disinfecting solution go thru your pipes also.

If the neighbor will not go along with that, use a filter followed by UV. If the power goes off, I am not sure what happens. Does the flow of water get shocked, or do you resanitize your plumbing after the power is restored.

Is this a shallow well?
 

Jeff H Young

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No expert on sanitizing but chlorine kills it and its not coming from well. you might have dead legs (runs of pipe ) that are infected or don't know what your doing, too weak? not enough time? Getting it in all the areas of piping? but you aren't killing it from the sound of it.
 

Blackberries

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Thank you.

Yes; when the neighbor shocked it a few months ago we were all on the phone and we had the bleach coming through our pipes and let it sit before flushing the bleach out.

The well is not shallow; over 600 feet. We drilled it deeper several years ago.

Dead legs? How do we determine that? Use a back hoe and dig it all up? We are about 300 feet from the well head through forested land. :( Our homes were built in 1977.

We are waiting for a plumber to give us an estimate for a UV light; had one from a local company who only does UV lights/water softeners. Our concern is that the bacteria is located somewhere after we would have the UV light (i.e. water heater) and then we still have a bacteria problem. Once we have a clean test we will shock the water softener and retest again.
 

Reach4

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You could recirculate water after a small pump. When you get the light installed, you can get a boiler drain valve installed somewhere before the light. Then run a pH adjusted chlorine solution out of your faucets and potentially back in. I discuss adjusting the pH in my sanitizing writeup.

You want to avoid putting much of the sanitizing solution into your septic tank. So think that through.
 

Jeff H Young

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Dead legs long (or not so long branches that are capped off and never used) could be within the home or underground I suppose.
If you can't get potable water to the home you need to at least figure out if the water out side where main enters is clean. If that's good then its inside your problem. Just a few ideas No advice on finding dead legs in the underground but if its clean at the well and dirty 300 foot away try thinking of something, might need to run a new 300 foot line ( no I'm not suggesting you do that) but you should get the idea site conditions vary, as do solutions
 

Jeff H Young

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Blackberries, its of interest to us how you go about investigating and resolving this !
 

Blackberries

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So we had our local Culligan install a UV light (Viqua) and a filter before that (This was recommended by several sources.). They did this in a timely manner (Compared to the plumber and other repairmen we have contacted for various projects lately.), the representative/technician was knowledgeable (We have done quite a bit of research in this process.), answered all of our questions, made sure our water softener was sanitized, up and running, the cost was in line with another company's but one-third what the plumber/ordering the unit our daughter recommended (Sigh...), and was a positive experience. We have since had a negative coliform test via an Amazon kit and one sent to the state department of health. We are happy with how it finally ended up (Except for this unexpected/not fun cost!). We would definitely recommend Culligan and sort of wish we had gone this route sooner (We were three months on bottled water.), but realize that we probably learned a lot and were better able to evaluate and therefore think we are better off with what we did purchase than if we would have done something earlier.
 
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