Well Water

[TWINKLE_TOES]

ShantyBranch,

The Sept/October issue of "Backwoods Home" magazine #71, has an article which addresses this problem. Basically it uses a sand filter in series with a carbon filter and a Ultraviolet light filter. It's a "how too" article and shows the setup and identifies all the parts and suppliers. This may give you some ideas. If you can't buy the individual issue from their websight http://www.backwoodshome.com let me know and we can figure out how to get you a copy.
Al

 

[Phred]

Al,

UV is a great way to kill bugs. I think that chlorine may be a little better since it has a residual effect. If you hit the water with UV it will kill the bugs but they can still grow down stream from the UV filter. Cholrine hangs around, thats partly why most municipal water supplies use it.

Fred

 

[Wingnut]

I have to agree with Fred ...
Back in Alberta, the area I lived in was prone to rust ... the bacterial kind, in water. The saying was that any well you drilled would becoime infected within 5 years for a shallow well or 10 years for a deeper well. I had a 50 foot drilled well that was extremely rusty. When I bought the place, they had a chemical system online and it did a so-so job on the water ... water was ok to drink and use ... but your whites got more dingy every wash.
So ... I sprang for a chlorination system .... pellet feed system on the well that was tied to the pump ... pump ran, pellet machine ran. So, basically, constant shock treatment. The chlorine kills all the organics. Then, inside the house, I had an activated carbob filter ... actually, it was a tank that had 7 layers of media from pebbles down to sand and then activated carbon at the top.
Although this wasn't cheap ... $3k and copst about $100/year to run (averaging 2 50# pails of pellets a year and a filter change every three years) ... it was a lot cheaper than drilling a new well every 5 to 10 years.
In the 8 years I used the system (it should still be operating efficiently 3 years after I sold the place ... nothing really to break) ... the only problem I ever had was that once a buildup of chlorinated powder in the pellet machine stopped it from dropping pill sin the water (5 minutes to figure out and 1 minute to clean).
If I had an iffy well ... I'd do that all over again .... knowing that the water couldn't be safer.
By the way, the combination of the chlorine killing all the organics and the activated carbon pulling out all the dead organics made for astonishingly clean water ... especially when you saw the untreated slimy mess in the well!

too bad that common sense ain't

 

[heehaw]

i always figured water treatment systems used cholrine because it is the cheapest, not best, way to kill the bacteria; i have been on this well since 86; it was drilled in 84; it has lots of iron, or what the ole timers call copperous, because it turns everything orange or copper colored; and a strong sulfur smell; to combat these, i have a sand filter, which also aerates the water, and a water softener; i added a cholrinator several years ago, and promptly over-cholrinated the water; it had a bad, not cholrine, taste and odor, turn off the cholrinator and it was ok. so i backed off on the cholrine a lot, and it 's fine now.
i have to clean the sand several times a year, when i forget, we have no water, the iron stops up the sand enough to keep the water from going thru..and i add salt to the softener, and clorox to the cholrinator every 3-4 months. pretty minor maintence, and it beats the $45+ per month water bills we had for the short time i connected to the rural water system.
heehaw

 

[ShantyBranch]

Wow. lots of feedback - many ideas and opinions. Not sure what to do at this point. I did make some calls to the town hall and a guy is suppose to call me first of the week. He is with utilities dept. Thought I might get price / availibity on county water. But I am not to hopeful with that, mainly because I expect it to be cost prohibitive. My cabin is 1000 or so feet off highway and over railroad tracks!! Not sure if they have a line on my side of tracks.
I also want to wait on test results of my neighbors well, the guy I swapped with. He drilled a new well next to his house, his new place is even closer to cattle farm. So I am anxious to see what his results are.

I'm wondering if I am just getting surface water in the well?? Could the casing be shot? Or is surface water, in a raining period, getting into water supply just normal ?
I need to check depth, I have be told it is ~100ft.
Any suggestions on checking casing condition? I'm sure it is pretty old.

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

ShantyBranch

If the well is old enough it might not be cased. I know most of the old hallow wells around here (under 40') are not cased, and the well were I am at now (62') is not cased. Just a pipe pounded down in the ground with the pump attached at the top. New regs here call for all new wells to be cased.

SHF

 

[ShantyBranch]

Guess I need to get some kind of inspection of my well casing. Anybody have one of those sewer-cams I can borrow to do a little exploration with?

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Ran across website for the American Ground Water trust. www.agwt.org. A lot of info. on the site, but calling them direct got me even more help and info.