Bleach in Well?

[ning]

I've done the shock treatment occasionally for iron bacteria as well.
Something to realize, however - bleach will not penetrate sediment mats; you can keep a high bleach solution sitting in your pipes overnight, but if there's much sediment somewhere with bacteria in it (eg, bacterial mats), you won't kill it all. It's still a nice thought, though.

Re scented being poisonous vs unscented - I can't say if one's more poisonous than the other; my guess is that the chlorine is more poisonous by far than the scent.

After letting my well sit for a bit, I pump until a chlorine test kit (from a pool supply) doesn't show any color - after smelling chlorine for a while, I can no longer trust my nose to detect it in small amounts.

 

[shaeff]

This thread is from 2001, I'm pretty sure the OP got their answer.

That being said, I did the exact same thing after we bought our property. I located the old well, it was buried under 4' of dirt, uncapped. I bleached it, let it sit a day, installed water filters and a UV light and it's been fine ever since. It's only 80ft deep.

 

[Doofy]

Gathered water samples for all our schools and if we had a "hot" sample we would follow the chlorine protocol and re-test. Never failed to clear up the bacteria problem.