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Well, Well, Well...

I'll be the first to admit that I love well water. No added chlorine, no heavy metals, no monthly bill...

But recently our well pump gave out. We figured this out when the water stopped flowing during showers. Not a good thing to have no water on the farm. The animals get thirsty. We get stinky.

We hired a well repair guy to put a new pump in for us. He needed to pull all the well pipe up first, remove the old pump at the bottom of the well (more than 100 feet down), put the new one on, and put it all back like it was.

He advised us that the well was looking kind of slimy down there at the bottom. He didn't have time right then (and neither did we, as it was 6:00 a.m. on the day we were leaving for a much-needed vacation), but he advised us to have our well blown out.

Okay...fast forward 3 or 4 weeks (during which we drank water toted from my parents' house) and we're ready to blow the well out.

Again, he pulled up all the pipes, one by one...


And then prepared to blast air (using a giant compressor) down into the well. Why do you suppose he's standing way back away from the pipe like that?


Ah, I get it now. He knew what was coming...


It was a fairly long process with the water starting out brown, turning to the awful black you see above (at which time I was quite certain I would never drink well water again), and progressively getting clearer and clearer. We had an irregular Old Faithful geyser going there at the end--never knew when or how high it would blow.


After things looked nice and clear, he put everything back together. He chlorinated the well the next day, hoping to kill any lingering bacteria.

And now we're good to go. At this point, some of you might be very glad that you drink city water. Just go google "water treatment systems" and see how you feel about it when you're done reading.
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Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 31, 2009 at 1:00 AM

    I'm going to ignore the black sludge and continue to be the only member of my family who still drinks the well water in this house. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlwenSeptember 2, 2009 at 8:15 PM

    One birthday after we were first married, I went on a field trip to the water treatment plant with my husband and his night chemistry class.

    I'm knocking on wood our well is all right - we are stimulating the economy enough right now without having to do anything to the well!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LonaSeptember 2, 2009 at 8:32 PM

    I neglected to mention that the black was actually water that contained very fine minerals. I had to ask (always curious), and so the well guy took the time to show me. It was much finer than beach sand.

    My drinking glasses always look cloudy, and NOTHING I ever do helps with that. After looking at the very fine minerals, I suspect that my glasses are etched.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ValSeptember 4, 2009 at 12:44 AM

    Hi Lona,
    Glad to hear the well problem could be fixed. Good water is hard to come by these days!

    I've had so little time on-line this summer, so enjoyed catching up on what you have been doing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. PamSeptember 7, 2009 at 10:32 PM

    I have to admit that black sludge picture was pretty nasty, but I'm so glad you guys were able to get that done and that you have nice, clean, pure water again. VERY pure! (it beats city water any day)

    ReplyDelete

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