Well water and weed control?

[pennwalk]

We bought this place about a year ago. We are firmly in the middle of the suburbs. Oddly this house and the one next to it are still on wells. City water is available but pretty horrible and way expensive to hook up to. Our well tested good for the FHA array and for hydrocarbons. The neighbors have recently had bacteria in their water. Ours still tests OK. We are filtering sediment, nutralizing the acidity in the water, softening and sterilizing with a UV light. What else are you guys doing to insure the safety of your well water? Is it OK to use chemicals on the lawn or does it end up in the well? Are there chemicals that are safer than others?

Chris

 

[TonyV]

Some folks will give there wells a dose of chlorine once a year to head off any problems. After adding the chlorine directly to the well, the system is then flushed by turning on each of the taps, on at a time, starting with the tap furthest away from the houses' inlet.

...Tony

 

[bczoom]

I do what Tony said.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Is it OK to use chemicals on the lawn or does it end up in the well? Are there chemicals that are safer than others?
)</font>

Chris,

I would avoid spraying right next to the well but I've been told that chemicals in your well water are probably from someone miles away.

 

[slowrev]

Is it OK to use chemicals on the lawn or does it end up in the well? Are there chemicals that are safer than others?

How deep is your well ? If very shallow ie under 75 ft or so then it is more likely that surface applications of chemicals will wind up in your water. I would never use chemicals right up next to a well as they coud possibly work their way down around tha casing and into the well water.

Sounds like you are doing a pretty good treatment on your water now. The annual chlorine treatment mentioned above is a good idea with any well .

Ben

 

[RedRocker]

I'm a new well owner too, how do you go about doing the chlorine treatment? My well is about 195' deep I was told.

 

[bczoom]

RedRocker,

Do a search for "bleach" going back about 3 months for details.

Basically,
Dump a gallon or so of bleach in your well.
Bypass any/all water conditioners.
Open the faucets in the house until you get a bleach smell at each.
Close the faucets and wait an hour or 2.
Run the faucets again until the bleach smell is gone.

A couple notes:
You may get some residual bleach smell for awhile. We plan on doing it right before Mrs. Zoom wants to wash a bunch of white clothes so that'll use up a bunch of residual water that may have the bleach smell.

You can do (or not) the hot water tank as well. Personally, I shut if off and clean separately.

Brian

 

[HomeBrew2]

I've never done any treating (just sediment filtering) at all on two properties in 26 years. Nor has anyone I know in my area. I'd probably test first to see if you have any real need to treat ...

 

[Highbeam]

Our local jurisdiction requires a 100' well head protection radius. Supposedly no septic systems, livestock, or other potentially contaminating liquid may be in that area. This is to protect the aquifer as much as your particular water supply.

Nasty stuff from your well can also, and usually does, come from some other source of contamination miles away. Somebody's failing septic, buried fuel tanks, dumping of chemicals, or an unprotected well casing.

Keep testing, tasting, and sniffing just in case but people rarely die from well water with your level of treatment.

 

[pennwalk]

I don't know how deep the well is but my neighbor said his was 125'. I do know that the pump is down in the well. The neighbor said that he thought that it didn't matter what you did to your yard because we are tapped into an underground river but that sounds like a myth to me. People around here don't give ground water a thought. I saw a cleaning lady this morning come out and dump her bucket on the lawn. Do you think it was simplegreen?

Chris

 

[pennwalk]

Thanks for the bleach istructions. The water treatment guy gave us instructions for bleaching the inside plumming in the event the bacteria tests came back positive. Fortunatly the tests came back negitive and now we have the UV light. My wife works for a civil engineering company and they do a lot of water treatment work. Her boss told her it would be smart to just put the UV light in and then we wouldn't have to worry.

Chris