Well water

My mistake got you confused with someone else. Check out pulling well pumps on U-tube they got a reel machine that will pull more then 500' in a couple of minutes. It's impressive. Removes alot of work, saves alot of time.

 

Oregan, I actually looked at some property there, on united country .com they got 488 acres next to a lake for 800k. I'm in Arizona sitting on the largest water table in the state, Average drill hole to water 18' average well depth 80'. People have wells that were dug by hand.

 

I use stainless at the well head and 1 inch schedule 80 PVC from there on.

 

Thanks for continuing this thread and I will be calling Dean Bennett Supply. Something is still not right. My toilets are turning light brown so I know now that I still have an issue. I really don't want to have to drill a new well, that is not in the budget.

 

I believe your well will clean up by itself, What I would do is run a hose to the bottom of the well with a piece of pipe about 18" long anf allow water up stir the sediment up and run the well for a couple of hours to clean the casing up. Just run hoses in the yard.

 

Arizona state law requires a well be no closer than 100" to a septic tank system . Maybe that will ease your mind. On the other hand the San Pedro river basin has high levels of nitrates/ ecoli after each large rainfall. Reasons are said cattle in the river basin area, or the large number of bats.Then we asked where they take their sample. The answer is from the overpasses where employees can easily access the river while it's running. Problem was that's where the bats are at night hanging from the overpassess. They agreed to change the location of sampleling after that. They had no clue there are millions of bats in this area. I really doubt it's an septic tank systems in your area. We don't cook or drink with the well water, we use bottled water. We are thinking of a reverse omomsis system.

 

I started this thread in September and we are nearing the finish-line of getting our well fixed. Other issues cropped up so this got bumped down the priority list. With great shame, I will confess that I never thought to care for my water like I do my septic, gutters, furnace filters and all other aspects of the house.

Our water has been tested. Total coliform, non portable: do not drink, do not bath in it.

Our house was built in the 60's. Our well head is in a cylinder block housing. The roof to our housing has failed. Our well head is the original from the 60's. Does not seal and has a hole in it. It is an ugly mess. We had a new submersible installed in 2011. Why they would leave a 50 year old well head on is beyond me. For over 3 thousand this company put in a submersible and duct taped the wiring together.

We never pulled the original records, we got one step away then what if our very strict county decided to apply new regulations to a very old well. My county is one that no one wants to deal with. Our well is 84 feet deep, we hit water at 18 feet. Currently our submersible is at 75feet. I have spent time talking to neighbors and have found that others in the hood also have shallow wells and a few neighbors never drink their water. Most people have filtration systems and softeners.

With the advice of the out of state well company and locating a decent company out here, we have a game plan. New roof with pitch on housing. Looking at non-toxic sealant to put on cinder blocks. Flush holding tank, water heater. New well head, verify casing is solid. raise submersible, shock/bleach the system. Wait two weeks. Collect water from facet plus closest point that we can from where it comes from the well, then retest. We are hoping at this point that our well will be potable again. Instead of immediately drilling a new well, these are the steps that we are taking in hopes that our system is fine. We are also researching what filtration system would be right for our home.

 

Is your well above, in grade, the septic system?

I would also burm the area around your pump house.

 

There is a distance requirement from septic to well here 100'. At 84' with poly pipe one could pull it by hand total cost of new assy less than 2k Dean bennet supply co. 1-800-621-4291 could set you up with everything you need. Look up submersible well installs on Utube. Most pump failures are a result of too small of pressure tanks, or improper installs. I use a large diesel driven air compressor to clean out all build up in the well casing. at 84' it wouldn't take long to remove 10-30 feet of mud /sand. You need to test the well after you have it cleand out and ran 20,000 gallons through it. You testing the current build up inside the well casing. It's going to be off the charts and look black as oil if it hasn't been used in a couple of months. Don't buy into the concept the well is puloted until after it is cleaned out and a couple of thousand gallons are pumped out. At 20gpm thats 1200 gallons per hour, let it run constantly for aday, and don't pump it through the system. Just disconnect the pump outgoing and route it into a field or something. Pouring chemical down a well site is a total waste of money and time.

 

It is in a 4 X 6 cylinder block house that is about five feet high. Since it is on a slope/hill only the front is exposed the rest is built into the hillside. I think they cut into the hill to make the housing so it is grade?.

 

He is asking if your septic is above or below your well. Can your septic seep down hill toward your well? Runoff? Or even saturation?

 

Hi Troy! I am glad you mentioned Dean Bennets, that place is a wealth of well stuff. We had actually bought a hand pump from Lehners but were having trouble figuring how to connect it to our well, we sent it back. Since coming to the monkey and you mentioning Dean Bennets, we now know that when we get our water drinkable again, we can go to Bennets and they can get us set up with a hand pump in case the power goes out.

Currently, or actually ever since we had our submersible put in we cannot run our water for long. When we had our jetpack we could run our water and it would stay clear. Since the submersible was put in if a couple showers are taken and a load of laundry is done, our water will start getting cloudy.

BTW- insulate the well housing or not? We always did but accommodating the insulation makes it harder to seal the top of the housing.

Oh, ding! Now the light is on, . My septic tank is higher then my well head. By my estimate they are 100+ feet apart. I can get a tape out tonight. Our septic is in great shape that I know of, we had it pumped out this spring.

I really don't even want to think that we have been drinking our own sewage.

 

that is a possibility, moto. your bugs could be some sort of run off, or seepage from your septic. that was (I think) the reason for the question. water always seeks it's lowest level.

 

Dean Bennet has a web site, one could do a lot of window shopping. A far as cloudy water goes, Cleaning the well casing out is a place to start. The more volume you pump out of it the cleaner it should be. If that doesn't work you might want to have a very large storage tank where sediments could settle out before it enters into your system, before for pressure tanks and switches. You may end up with multiple filters being used.

 

Thanks Troy, I will call my well guy up and add cleaning the well casing to the list of what we need done. He is quite an agreeable guy and appreciates homeowners input. The company that put in our submersible was not as receptive.

 

I'd insulate the well house and cover the exterior walls with block seal.

For now All bets are off for good water.
Now for other questions.
Where are your field lines?
How deep are your field lines?
How long are your field lines?
When was the last time the field lines were replaced?
Any Perculation Test lately?
Is your well pipe sealed with Bentonite ?