Well Water

[Anonymous Poster]

Both Ecoli & Coloform are real nasty little bugs, that have been responsible for many deaths recently. My wife's an Infection Control Practitioner, who deals with such maladys, and the word is DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!!! If you injest these bugs, and are succeptible to them, plan on several months of hospital time, or a dirt nap.
Situations like bathing or hand washing probably won't cause infection, since both bugs infect the body by injestion. Bottom line, these are some real nasty little bugs, distilation should kill them off, but be sure your still is working 100%.
You can get more information by calling the Infection Control Practitioner at your local hospital. Usually, that will be a RN with advanced education and training in the field of preventing the spread of infection. You also might want to contact APIC, that's the professional association for infection control, www.apic.org

 

[heehaw]

according to the health dept here, unless you put chlorine in the well, run it till it comes out ALL the faucets, and let it set for 24 hours, PRIOR to taking your water sample, almost all wells will test bad. put the chlorine to it an test it again, i bet you'll be surprized how improves. if you want a real scare, go test the source of your city water..
heehaw

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

ShantyBranch

How deep is the well? If it's a shallow well, then shocking it may not be enough. The aquifer that the water is drawing from may be contaminated. (Surface water). If it is a deeper well, then chlorine it and try running the faucets, etc. We have a lot of wells here that are only about 30 feet deep. We also have a lot of lakes. A 30 foot well anywhere near one of the lakes is likely to be drawing lake water, since it is feeding off the aquifer that feeds the lake. I've seen people with water that smells like fish (bet THAT would test great). Sometimes their water will smell during certain seasons, or after a heavy rain, or sometimes always.

SHF

 

[ShantyBranch]

Well I am not sure of the depth, I just got the place.
I guess I can use a string a some weight to check that, huh?

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

ShantyBranch,

That's how I did it, but there's a thread with depth finding information. We discussed it around the start of the month. Try searching on wells. There were a lot of different methods discussed and as I recall, there was one better than the old string thing.

SHF

 

[ShantyBranch]

I tried to follow the lab instrcutions. All they said was to burn the faucet where the sample would be taken from: to kill the germs on the fixtures I suppose. Any then took the sample straight to them.
But I did not do any shcoking to the well prior to the test, I might try the chlorine shocking this weekend.

 

[Hillbilly]

You do not plumb it up, it is a small unit with a 1 gallon resevoir on the bottom, you take the top part of which has a fan and set it aside and fill up your gallon resevoir(tank) which heats the water and put the top back on which has the fan.After plugging it in simply push a button on the side which starts the distiller heating and the fan running,it then boils the water and the steam leaves the resevoir and is condensed buy the fan on the top pulling the air across a coil and the steam condenses back to water and drips into a 1 gallon plastic jug that comes with the unit,it takes about 6 hours to boil the water out and it is collected in the jug and automatically shuts off when done distilling,I might add the water drips through 2 small bags of charcoal which is included which they say "polishes" the water. It is completely portable,it is about 14" high and 7.5" across at the top. You could go get water out of a mud puddle or a creek/river and it will clean it up,it removes so many impurities it is often difficult to get the ice out of an ice cube tray. It has a list that tells the % reduction of contaminants IE: bacteria,virus, cyst,barium reduction 99.99% chromium 97% copper 99% fluoride>99% lead 99% mercury96% nitrate >99 selenium 99 turbidity 75 % other contaminents reduced aluminum 62% bromicide> 99% calcium98% chloride 99% iron 95% magnesium99% silver 94% sodium 91% sulfate 99% sulfides 89% zinc 99%.
Like I say if you are just after drinking water this is the way to go,I have been using them for about 10 to 12 years + or - .
It is very good for anywhere you have access to 110 voltage.This is the easiest way to go and will clean the water the best and hassle free.

 

[Hillbilly]

I have brushed my teeth from a water jug when I had too.

 

[Hillbilly]

One time my father had been watering our Angus cattle from a hand dug well with a hand pump,he noticed the cattle had not been drinking the water,he removed the top and looked inside at the well and found a dead opposum floating in the water.

 

[RichZ]

I used to work in a water pollution lab for the NY state dept of Health. There are many variations of E. coli. They are intestinal bacteria that all mammals and birds have, that are actually beneficial in digesting food. The problem is each organism has its own strain of E. coli living in its intestines, so when you consume E. coli from another organism it will make you sick. Each strain is different, and some can make you very seriously ill, even kill you. This is nothing to fool around with. To do nothing is dangerous. As has been said before, water is easily consumed accidently, how about showers, or forgetting and using it to brush your teeth. The suggestions made before are excellent. If your well is shallow (100 ft. or less) the odds are good that it will keep getting contaminated by your neighbors cows. If it's a deep well, try shocking it. I gave a detailed description of shocking in one of the recent threads on wells. If shocking doesn't work, then you have only two choices: a treatment system, or digging a deep well that hopefully goes into a cleaner aquifer.

Rich