Chlorine removal

[Vanman]

It appears that I will have to pull my well pump to make some repairs in a few days. I can hardly wait it will be so much fun.

After any disturbance to a well you are supposed to disinfect it with bleach. Has anybody here done this and if so what did you use to neutralize the chlorine? We have 200 gallons of water aging capacity so I won't need to treat for chlorine for two to three days. By then I might not need to treat it. I have not had to treat water for chlorine since I was a teenager back in the dark ages well before the turn of the century.

[Sandip]

Seachem Prime?

[brewmaster15]

It appears that I will have to pull my well pump to make some repairs in a few days. I can hardly wait it will be so much fun.

After any disturbance to a well you are supposed to disinfect it with bleach. Has anybody here done this and if so what did you use to neutralize the chlorine? We have 200 gallons of water aging capacity so I won't need to treat for chlorine for two to three days. By then I might not need to treat it. I have not had to treat water for chlorine since I was a teenager back in the dark ages well before the turn of the century.

Gary, I had to do this about 10 years back .. what I did was Just run the water from the outside hose for about 30 minutes and tested for Chlorine using a pool test kit... The well was pretty much clean of chlorine after that 30 minute run.Obviously its going to be different for everyone depending on various factors, but I have pretty decent flow here.

al

[Vanman]

Thanks. I have a great well so it should not take long to clear it of chlorine.

[brewmaster15]

How did you make out Gary?
Al

[Vanman]

We pulled the well Friday morning and poured a gallon of bleach in before we replaced the pipe, cable, safety rope and spool at the top of the pitless adapter. I am still using stored water for water changes that I have reduced to 30% twice a day from 2/3 twice a day. Our water still has a faint odor of bleach even after running and dumping water for about three hours at 10 gallons per minute. It was not as big of a job as we thought it would be and only took about an hour and a half. We learned an expensive lesson a couple of years ago when I called a well company to fix a problem. They fixed it the same day I called with a no water problem, but it was very expensive. I have learned very much about wells and well maintenance from YouTube in the past couple of weeks as well as from the local plumbing supply company.

Our well is 120 feet deep with the pump at 100 feet. It had thin wall PVC pipe. I replaced it with black poly pipe as it is much easier to pull out the next time which I hope will be in several years.

We bought a pool chlorine test kit to use when we can't smell chlorine any longer and a bottle of Prime to use if needed.

Did you do your own well work ten years ago when you had to bleach your well?

[brewmaster15]

Mine is a funny Story.. though at the time I wasnt laughing. We bought the house and had the pump in our basement.. We were told the well was fairly shallow and shown by the seller a marker about 25 feet from the house for where the well was.We lost water but the pump was fine so I figured it was the well itself that was an issue... Our water was always strong.. to lose it completely I figured it was a bad foot valve... so I went to the spot where the marker was and dug down looking for the well cap.. cash was tight.. I dug by hand. And dug and dug. ..6 feet down I hit concrete. Finally I thought. Widened the hole and cleared off the concrete.It wasnt the well cap. It was a block of poured concrete. The water line went in from.the house and then out again. The previous owner was a mason. This was how he "fixed" a cracked pipe.I was furious and exhausted by then.. We ended up renting a digger and had to rip up the whole yard from the house to replace the pipe and find the well. The well is actually 60 feet or so from the house. We pulled out the pipe and it was actually 100 feet down.. not shallow at all.

At that point I had it.. called the well guys and paid to have the pump moved from inside the house to the yard.It was expensive but glad I did.

In my house ..thats how the DIY stuff usually works .. one day projects usually take days as the guy we bought it from built it himself... he was a good mason...he was a really bad builder.

Al

[Vanman]

That makes my problem look like a minor inconvenience, which it really was. My microwave stopped working, for the fourth time, and a torsion spring on the garage door where my wife parks her car broke, right after the well problem. I have ordered the part to fix the microwave and will order the spring for the garage door in the morning. We bought a small counter top microwave to tide us over a couple days ago. Two is one and one is none..........

[LizStreithorst]

You would not believe all I have gotten done because although I don't want to do them, doing them is better than fixing the electricity.

[Vanman]

No detectable chlorine so WC is back to normal, 2/3 twice a day.

[Raul-7]

Be careful, a lot of cities use chloramine not chlorine due to it's much more stable chemical structure.

I recommend anyone with tap use Seachem Prime just to be safe. It neutralizes both the chlorine and ammonia.