I have a well that's 100 feet deep and about 45 feet of water in it. I read the instructions that came with my uv light for disinfection wrong and put in way to much bleach. Like a whole gallon. Now the water is orange. I keep trying to flush it out, by don't seem to be making any headway. Other than letting the water run, is there anything I can do? Also, how do I know if the water is safe to use because of the bleach being way to strong?
Thanks Mike

If your wife's hair turns a different color when she showers, your in big trouble ...
Don't ask me how I know ..

ive done it for 35 yrs..it will be fine....mine is 160 ft and i dumped 1.25 in it,,,3 days or so of using it...run bathtub full etc.....it will be fine

I would flush the well until the bleach smell is gone.

You need to keep the water run to flush out the system and you have iron in your water that is why it is the color you have.I use a gallon of bleach to kill the bacteria out of it. and just flush it out.till you have no more taste in the water or if you have a pool tester check the chlorine and flush till it show no more in it.When I had work for a well drilling outfit years ago that is what we use on the well is just plain bleach.

if u have pex plumbing or plastic pvc i recommend u let it sit in the pipes awhile and water heater to wipe out the rust. I personally dont flush mine right out,sort of defeats MY purpose. I have never bleached hair treating a well.

West River Rouge just curious were you advised to leave the bleach in your system because of the pvc or pex pipe.

read above

OK I got it just your opinion.

ive done it both ways for 35 plus yrs on my farms.....i left it sit in the pipes etc depending on rust scale etc....My newer house has all plastic pipes and water heater builds up rust so i flush the heater once every 2 and let bleachwater soak my pipes......it helps immensly,for a time,best solution is a whole house filter

very common around here in Missouri to bleach your wells - my last well driller who fixed my pump did mine and carried it on his work truck

The orange is from Iron...not the bleach. Let it run into the weeds a couple of days. You might need a softener and whole house filter for the color and taste to improve.

Yeah, I was going to mention that the water being orange didn't have anything to do with the bleach. And a gallon isn't too much, it'll be fine. Health Dept instructed me to add a gallon of bleach to my well, run all faucets until I could smell bleach, then let it sit for 24 hours. If you don't get it into all areas of the system, you can still have bacteria that don't get killed. After 24 hours run all faucets until you no longer smell bleach.

Nothing you can do but flush it.

I'm glad you posted this. It reminds me that I have to chlorinate my well again. I agree with what most everybody is telling you, BTW.

dilution is the solution to the pollution.

Bryce

We have extremely hard, insanely high iron and manganese in our well and often get the rotten eggs bacteria smell, about every 2 months. Bleach works great but make sure you don't leave it in for more than 24 hrs and run the outside tap (or any taps) until it is gone. Bleach will heavily damage non pex lines if left in and cause leaks. One thing I have started doing is drain my hot water heater every 2 months along with my pressure tank, and I haven't needed to shock my well for over a year. Bleach is HIGHLY corrosive so be cautious with the amount of time it is left in.

Just wondering if you put a couple gallons bleach in your systems do you have to worry about your bugs in your septic system. Or not enough bleach to do any harm to the good bacteria?

At least in mine, it's not strong enough to cause an issue. But I only use a gallon, and I empty my outside faucets onto the ground before going inside, so most of the bleach goes into my driveway. The water smells only slightly stronger than pool water.

Thanks guys. I've been trying to flush it for 4 days now. Slowly getting better. When I first did it, it looked like chocolate milk coming out of the hose. nasty. If I can get past the deal of the iron settling out in the cold water tank if you don't use it for a few hours, I'll feel better.
Mike

8 drops of bleach purifies one gallon of water.There is roughly 456 drops in an ounce.456 divided by 8 = 57.One ounce of bleach will do 57 gallons of water.

LOL! A red or a blond take your pick. LOL

Wouldn't you want to avoid flushing the chlorinated water into your private sewer?
Instead using the outside spigot with a garden hose?

I don't know maybe it's fine?

Depends on how old she is. Some times the water has nothing to do with it.

4 days of flushing? I just bleached mine at the cabin last weekend. 1 gal bleach in well, run hose from spigot to well to mix, run faucets n flush toilet till you smell bleach. Stop, let sit 24 hours (or 12 hrs if time crunched), run hose down drive until bleach smell is gone, run taps till bleach smell is gone. My water stayed orange for 2 days of steady use. I would say to keep flushing. It will clear. Good luck n let us know.

good point,,,some of the bleach water will go into your septic system, or through it. we dump the bleach down the well, then run each outside hydrant or spigot til we smell the bleach, and turn them off. then run each tap in the house til you smell it, and turn those off. now every line in the place is soaking with bleach. wait the suggested time to let it soak. next run the hydrants/spigots til the bleach smell is gone. (this will dump most of the bleach water out onto the ground and keep it out of your septic tank.) this should flush out the lines from the house to the well. last thing run each indoor tap til the smell is gone, and your lines will be clean. bypass the water heater/conditioner if you can. lots of gunk, black bacteria and rust will come through the lines, and out the indoor faucets, so maybe remove the aerator screens from the indoor taps.

I don't think that flushing the toilet and running water to get rid of excessive bleach is a good idea if your on a well. Chances are you're also on a septic system and the bacteria necessary to make your septic operate properly will be severely disrupted. If you're not on a septic system you're OK. Sorry to be redundant, I was typing while the above was being entered.

Good points. I considered the septic system, but wanted to be sure all lines got as least some bleach so I flushed the toilet about half a dozen times until I smelled bleach in the tank. This is 3rd yr. I've done this. I do get my system pumped and lines jetted every other yr. Seems 300 bucks is good insurance for this service. No problems yet. Fingers crossed. Sorry, not wanting to hijack thread. Does the original poster have a septic system along with a well?

Do all wells contain bacteria?,..I ask this because there has been decades upon decades of well water serving its purpose
of providing drinkable water?,at least we assume that.

No, some are fine. But there’s no way to tell except to test the water, or getting sick. Mine has always seemed fine, but has failed the two times I’ve tested it.

How many of you'all draw from Ag areas?

What were you trying to accomplish with the bleach?

Bleach is used to kill harmful bacteria, basically treating the water similar to city/county water. SOP for those with wells or cisterns.

Might be SOP for some but certainly not all. I have had well water all of my 70+ years and have never treated one.

It's SOP whether you do it or not. It's how contaminated wells and cisterns are treated.
BTW, how often do you test your water? I've never had any health issues either, but both times I've tested my water, it has show harmful bacteria levels. Its one of those things that's not a problem, until it is. Personally, I've decided to prevent a problem rather than wait for one to happen.

The very first thing I would do is have my well tested, go to your local health dept. and get a test bottle BE VERY careful when pulling the sample, the #1 reason water sample fail is because the sample was not taken properly. The cost is cheap. Ask for a fecal coliform test bottle. Once you open your well the well should be treated. You can save yourself a lot of work and problem by just testing the water. You local health dept. will be glad to help. Not sure the cost of have the sample tested, I think it is less that $20.00 dollars.

Keep it simple

The only place i ever heard of doing this was on here. Have never heard of anyone doing it around here.

I do mine every spring. Full gallon and flush. Never had any problems.

I've been living on well-water all my life, sixty years. Never once treated the water with anything. Chlorine is poisonous you know...

But then I drank water out of the creek and hoses too.

HAHA, me too Lugnut!

Where i hunt, the CCC Camp guys built stone spring houses across the foot of the mountain, along the "fire trail" they built. I stop and drink outta them every year even if i'm not thirsty. lol

One time in W.V. i was dragging a deer out and came to a creek so i stopped to take a drink. After climbing back up the bank, i saw some guys from Fayette county that hunted where we do. The one was burning up and went for a drink.

When he came back up, he looked at me and asked how i knew the water was good that i drank from it. The look on his face when i told him i had no idea if it was safe was priceless!

Told him i was always told if it went across two stnes it was ok. Next morning at the parking area, i asked him if he shat himself yet, as i did? I got the same look again! lol.

Good fella's them guys were. his buddy even threw in a couple jabbs during this, knowing i was messing with him.

well water around here generally has an off-odor to it, and people say that's just minerals in the water. whats causing the odor is usually the black bacteria that's growing in the well casing and pipes, and water lines through out the house. shock the well with bleach/chlorine and youll see, and smell, what comes out of those lines. I don't want to ingest that crap. some of it is harmless, and other is poisonous. theres a reason that city water wells are all chlorinated. fyi, my well is 110 feet deep.

An update, Last night it ran clear for about 5 minutes then went back to orange. Today all orange. There is a fair sized dip in the line from the well to the cold water tank. Thinking maybe it's all built up in the line. Also, just to clarify, this is just used for showering and doing dishes and toilet, not for drinking. I was getting a brown coloration that why I used the bleach. Thanks for all the insight. Hoping it soon straightens up. Half afraid I'll turn orange using the shower, lol.
Mike

if you turn orange, maybe you can run for president next term. no offense intended,,,im a trump supporter. just couldn't resist.

Lol. that's funny, I am too,

Orange water makes me think iron is problem. Pipes rusted?

I agree with Adam, the orange water is just the bleach cleaning your pipes. The first time I used bleach in a former home it took quite a while to clean the pipes. The second time the orange water was substantially less.

The water should have cleaned up a long time ago. Just let it run. As long as your well test ok, do not open it up to allow contamination into the system. The bleach you used from the store has a very low % of chlorine its around 2.5% - 5%.

How does the water look today?

Invite a couple women over for the weekend. Guaranteed to run a few thousand gallon through the system.

I stopped using Chlorine entirely because wifey didn't like the smell for a few days.
I now use Hydrogen Peroxide. Just regular brown bottle 3%. I'll dump 6-7 quarts down the well cap and let it sit for an hour or two.
We normally have stinky water, but after I do this the water is totally odorless. The odor comes from sulfur, iron, and manganese reducing bacteria. The H3O3 kills the bacteria and breaks down to H2O and a single O. That extra Oxygen attaches to the gases produced by the bacteria and precipitates the minerals back into the water.

I've also been using a Calmat unit instead of a traditional water softener. It worked instantly and has been flawless. NO salt, no flushing, zero maintenance, and it keeps the minerals in the water (it just disallows them to form deposits).
Hard water deposits totally disappeared from appliances and dishes come out of the washing machine crystal clear. They used to be so cloudy from hard water that I had to scrub glasses with a steel wool pad to clean them up.
Highly recommend the Calmat unit.

Well , no pun intended, it' still colored. I should of said before but this is at a camp new to me. I shined a light down the well, and there is a 4" sewer and drain pipe liner in it down about 10' below the pitless adapter with a 1/2 hole drilled about every four feet. I'm thinking all this red stuff is trapped between the two pipes. Any suggestions other than keep on a flushing every day?

Fairchild, Never heard of a Calmat unit, I'll have to check into that, thanks