I had my wife call our local water guy (small town, was the guy who is the rep for our water softener), to find out what type of resin our water softener used and get pricing (I like to buy local if I can).
He didn't think the resin was due to be replaced, but said he would come over when he returned from their trip as they were on their way out the door.

He did ask if we had shocked our well with bleach since we moved in (just over a year ago).
My wife not having the experience I have had with our well and water system, didn't get too much info about this shocking the well. Maybe she assumed I knew about it.

So.. With a well that has high iron, what cause, effect and/or benefits does adding bleach directly into the well have?

I had read somewhere that using bleach with a water softener will negatively impact the resin in the water softener. If this is true, how do I address this if I shock my well with bleach?
What is general procedure of doing this shocking?

 

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What were the lab results on the last water test? The only reason you would need to treat the well would be if you have a failed test with a high bacteria level.


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I've never lived on a well nor had a softener but I can't see any purpose for bleach other than sanitizing, as Halton mentioned.

 

That was my thoughts as well.
I'll have to dig up the lab tests when I get home. The ministy of health here does free testing for bacteria which the previous owner did every 3 months (have her records) and I've done every once and a while with nothing found.

Our main issue has been high iron from the get go. Having an older system that sat without use for 6 months before we moved in didn't help either.

 

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You should have it tested every three months.....especially since it's free.

I registered with my township......they send me an automatic update reminder via email


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Automatic email would be a nice thing. Our town is so far in the stone age I'll have to setup my own reminder. The previous owner did test every 3 months. Would be a good idea for me to do the same.

 

In addition to harmful pathogens a harmless type of bacteria that you might want to chlorinate to reduce their numbers is rust bacteria.
This type consumes iron and leaves behind a slimy rust colored residue.

The difference between dissolved iron and rust bacteria is that the rust bacteria residue will be slimy in areas that stay wet like water filters.

We have rust bacteria and find shocking our well once or twice a year helps quite a bit.
If you do shock your well don't just dump a bottle of household bleach down the hole.

Many folks go way overboard and too much will do more harm than good.
You need to estimate the diameter and depth of your well so that you can determine the volume of water the well will hold.
You would add household bleach while dumping water so that the water you add will be slightly greater than the volume of the casing.
This will ensure that the entire casing will be dinfected along with a small area of the aquifer around the casing.

A professional will use a water tank and volume of water that will fully replace the water in the casing and premix bleach to the correct dosage.

Most resin can handle a certain abount of chlorine and you can always bypass the softener if there is a concern.
A more important question for him to ask is if you have used a resin cleaner which you should be using if there is any rust at all in your water.
Being in rural Canada a good supplier for resin cleaner is Home Hardware.

 

Mitch, I have a weekend rental cabin, and if it stays empty for over a couple of weeks, once you turn on the water, hot or cold, it smells awful. It is not the zinc anode, but a similar smell. It is a bacteria that goes away with a mild treatment of bleach in the well.

 

In our previous home we would shock the well every spring as we would get sulfur bacteria that would make the water smell like rotten eggs. This would clear it up in no time.

Thanks Greg for the info about rust bacteria (iron bacteria). I am pretty sure we have some of that as some places have that brown slime. I think I will shock our well next spring.

 

I have had a well for the last 30 years. Once a year we dump in 2 quarts of bleach directly in the well. Run all faucets til you smell bleach. turn it off and let it stand 4 hours. well water has no treatment like city and this sanitizes well and all pipes. Bleach goes away pretty quick we run faucets a few min and no more smell but no bacteria.

 

Two quarts of household bleach would be in the ballpark for a 4" well that is 100 feet deep.
"Dumping" disinfectant down the well and running water until you smell it in the house does not guarantee the whole well is disinfected because a foot valve can be quite a bit off the bottom of the well and you are not displacing any water at the bottom of the casing.

If you are disinfecting a well as a maintenance measure with no existing problems then it likely does not matter but if you had a harmful bacteria problem you would have to add a serious amount of water to disinfect the casing and aquifer in the area of the casing bottom.

Click image:

Image courtesy of alberta government

The image shows where you want the disinfectant to go.
There is a volume estimator in the above link and the text book method of adding disinfectant is shown in the image if you have a condemned well or boil advisory order on the water.
A simpler way if you don't have to get too serious would be to mix the required amount of disinfectant in 20 liters of water, pour this in the well then add the required amount of water with a garden hose.
Just measure and time the flow out of the hose to get the correct volume and make sure you leave it for at least 8 hours.

 

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@ GregH

Is there a definitive test for this "rust bacteria".....and is it truly harmless?

I never considered shocking my well because my lab results always come back 0-0-0

However.....I do have an obvious rusty slime buildup in my whole-house filter.


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The best way to clean a well is to do as many have said - put about a gallon of home use chlorox into the well casing. But I need to make sure that this is the chlorine type of bleach and NOT the color safe bleach! One of my clients made that mistake .. . . Wells with a large resident water volume may need more.

It is now most helpful to wash down the inside well casing with bleach water. This is easily done by running a hose from any faucet and putting the flowing end of the hose into the top of the casing. Let it run for a few hours circulating the bleach water. This will circulate chlorinated bleach water down the casing and will sanitize not only the water at the well depth, but the entire casing all the way down.

I move the hose a bit every half hour or so so the entire well casing gets washed down.

Then, open every faucet in the house, flush toilets, run showers, run dish/clothes washer and let them run until you smell bleach. Do not forget any lines as old water will have bacteria and can back contaminate. Best to do this on a weekend when you are gone as bleach can sit in all lines and decontaminate them.

This resuts in a VERY clean system that is entirely decontaminated. Just pouring bleach down the well doesn't clean the inside of the casing and this results in later contamination.

 

Dont add bleach unless you have a bacteria issue. If you do you will oxidize the iron and get tons of rusty water up that will take days to clear.

Ask me how I know......

 

GregH,
Thanks for that info. The water guy that is coming by has been servicing this area for a very long time. Odds are, he was the one that installed my softener back in 87. The benefits of being a small town, he described exactly how my system was setup (minus the changes I made since we moved in).
I'm going to wait for his visit and see what he says.

Funny, the only advice the previous owner's wife gave us was to never, ever use bleach for house hold cleaning.

For iron/rust stains (toilet, sink), I've been using a product called Pro Link bowl cleaner which is 23% Hydrochloric Acid. It reacts instantly to the stains. Not being up on my chemistry, I am not sure if this would assist in identifying if this is a rust bactiria or iron. I suspect iron to be honest.

 

The most simple way to determine if you have rust bacteria is to inspect the insides of a portion of the plumbing where the flow rate could slow down.
The best place is the insides of a whole house sediment filter that is before a water softener.
Another place would be inside the inlet connection on a water softener.

If you rub a built up rust deposit with your finger and it feels slimy it will be rust bacteria.
Dry feeling rust deposits in these slow moving area would most likely be dissolved iron.

The slime you are feeling is the waste products from the rust consuming bacteria.

 

We have iron in our well water too, and shock the well with bleach every few years. There's two types of iron, dissolved and suspended if I recall right ? One will make the black slime in the back of your toilet tank etc etc.
If you have iron in your resin bed, Mike, you might be able to clean it up by using a maintenance dose of Super Iron Out (or similar) mixed with water and added to the softener just before a regeneration (add it to the float tube inside the salt bin if you have a tube).
If you have to change out resin (we did when the softener was about 15yrs old), its not a bad job.. just make dang sure you release the internal pressure in the resin tank (remember its a vessel with its own valve system via the softeners rotating operational valve)

 

A better chemical would be H2O2 or hydrogen peroxide. This can be bought from well suppliers. It is not harmful for pipes and actually cleans all organic matter including in your well casing. It is also used as a metered dose for sanitizing water from the ground.

 

I know that hydrogen peroxide is used as a disinfectant but have no knowledge of it being used for what we are talking about here.

The one thing for sure is that any mention of use relating to water treatment is for 35% strength, compared to 3% commonly available along with it having to be the food grade type.
There are several references to it being used for pool and spa disinfection but I was unable to find where drinking water disinfection is an approved use other than for municipal treatment for oxygenating the incoming water.
Nor could I find specific dosing instructions for well disinfection from any reputable source.

There are a few vested interest sites out there that promote it but folks should get proven facts before using it.