Putting Your Best Tap (Well) Water Foreward

With all the attention paid to water quality and sterility of brew water, I want to make everyone aware of what happens to well casings, in the course of a season of weather, that can foul an otherwise fine quality of well water.

Well driller fellers will bleach their OWN wells EVERY 6 months, to try and eliminate any possible infection. Submersible wells- the ones with the pump in the well casing, have a openings to the air to allow the water in the well to change height without 'hydraulicing' or trapping the water due to a lack of air to replace the level of water. A cap that has small mesh openings (molded in, if it's a plastic casing/cap, or large openings around the perimeter of the casing, with the gap coming from a larger ID cap, if it's a steel casing) and if even ONE ANT sticks ONE TOE inside the well casing, then algae ('algae bloom') and all sorts of stuff can grow inside the well casing, causing a reddish tint that can be confused with rust, or actual bacteria that cause health (and brewing) issues, due to the ant's contact with soil. It will friggin' stink some, too.

In the past, I had a house built and I had a well drilled to 187 feet and had awesome water. Trouble was, the casing had been pounded into soft sandstone, and it let LOTS of sand come into the house. Back then it was a 4 inch steel casing well, and due to cost, the new standard is a 5" PVC casing. The solution was to pound the the steel casing another 20 feet into the rock; which shut off all the water to well casing. I watched as the casing fell several feet thru the shallow aquifer (hence the soft rock). SO, they had to drill another 183 feet to find a new aquifer that could sufficiently fill the casing to a height that would feed the pump. The pump is located inside the casing, near the bottom, so about 40 feet deep now.

With all this going on in the front yard, I asked why well drillers have to bleach a well, and got this explanation. So now, every spring after the snow is gone and the bug activity starts, and after the summer is over and the bugs start looking for hiding places, I bleach my well.

Here's what I do:

I pull the cap off. Couple of bolts with nuts on plastic caps, a set screw on the steel ones. I take a decent five gallon pail and about a gallon or at least 3/4 of a gallon of regular old laundry bleach, and fill the pail the rest of the way with water. I pour it down the inside of the casing, careful NOT to pour into the center of the casing where a down pipe connects to the pump. Some casings have a knockout that directs you to bleach only at that point-off-center of casing. Splash some onto cap and replace onto the casing.

NOW, inside the house. If you have a softener, YOU MUST by-pass the softener by slapping a sliding valve to 'bypass', thus saving the media in the softener from the effects of the bleach. Bring the smell of the bleached well up to ALL faucets of the house and let sit overnight. I try to expel the bleach from the well by watering the lawn. The bleach will dissipate after about 5-7 days, of just normal use and will not effect you in the meantime. I make sure SWMBO knows about this and let her prepare for it. Laundry is suspended for a few days, and the affect in the shower is minimal-mainly just smell-similar to pool. When the smell subsides, slap the bypass valve back to 'on', and your water will be returned to it's best possible state.

OR, pay the well driller to do it and still have the same 'inside the house' things to deal with. Cost me about a buck, buck and a half.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: You WILL be changing the whole house filter after a few days. After that, about once a month like normal.