uneasily267
New Member
Hello everyone, I've looked around these forums and many other places online and haven't found much concrete information about this problem and hope someone here might know.
I have a very old hand dug well cased with bricks and a small roof (not sure when it was dug but I don't think it has been used in over 30 years). It is about 3ft in diameter and about 30ft deep. The water has never been tested but seemed fine for technical water, this is until some critter fell in to it (I only pulled up the tail)
I then pumped out a lot of the water hoping to clean it out, but when it went back to re-charge it seemed like it was not moving at all. With some very inaccurate measurements, I found it was moving but very very slowly. Maybe something like 0.025gpm?? Like 5cm every 6 hours.
I read that cleaning the well, especially one so old might increase the rate but I got conflicting information from the few people who are cleaning wells here. One said it was a waste of time if somebody doesn't go down there physically to clean it and the other said the opposite, of course both were insisting their method is best.
My questions are, is it even worth to clean it at all and could it actually increase the recharge rate? if so, for an older style well would it be best for someone to physically go down and clean it out? I'm leaning towards this because who knows what may be down there after so many years.
I will test the water very soon, but I also wanted to ask how much a small animal like dead squirrel can contaminate the water? I read this happens a lot (makes sense, right?) with open wells. Thank you for your help and please let me know if more information is needed.
I have a very old hand dug well cased with bricks and a small roof (not sure when it was dug but I don't think it has been used in over 30 years). It is about 3ft in diameter and about 30ft deep. The water has never been tested but seemed fine for technical water, this is until some critter fell in to it (I only pulled up the tail)
I then pumped out a lot of the water hoping to clean it out, but when it went back to re-charge it seemed like it was not moving at all. With some very inaccurate measurements, I found it was moving but very very slowly. Maybe something like 0.025gpm?? Like 5cm every 6 hours.
I read that cleaning the well, especially one so old might increase the rate but I got conflicting information from the few people who are cleaning wells here. One said it was a waste of time if somebody doesn't go down there physically to clean it and the other said the opposite, of course both were insisting their method is best.
My questions are, is it even worth to clean it at all and could it actually increase the recharge rate? if so, for an older style well would it be best for someone to physically go down and clean it out? I'm leaning towards this because who knows what may be down there after so many years.
I will test the water very soon, but I also wanted to ask how much a small animal like dead squirrel can contaminate the water? I read this happens a lot (makes sense, right?) with open wells. Thank you for your help and please let me know if more information is needed.
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