Treating and Testing a Well for Coliform Bacteria
There are a lot of homes in Whatcom County that rely on private wells as their primary source of drinking water. While Whatcom County boast some of the cleanest drinking water in country, it is important that you test your well for E. coli and coliform bacteria. Coliform bacteria will not likely cause illness, but it is a sign that there might be disease causing organisms within the drinking water system.
Whenever you purchase a home on a private well, you should test the water quality by performing an E. coli and coliform water test. If your test comes back positive for coliform bacteria, you should watch this video to learn how to correct the problem.
Coliform bacteria can be eliminated by “shocking the well.” To shock the well you will need a hose, some bleach, and a ratchet set. First, locate the well head and remove the cap with the ratchet. Next, pour bleach into the well. Now, run the hose into the well and turn the water on. Cycle the water between the hose and the well for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, go into the house and run all of the faucets and showers. This will run the diluted bleach solution throughout the house. Run the water through all of the facets for 1 hour.
The coliform bacteria should no longer be present. To retest the water quality, get a test kit from Avocet Lab in Bellingham and fill the bottle up to the line from the kitchen sink. Bring the bottle back to Avocet within 24 hours and wait for conformation. That is it. The process is actually pretty simple.
jual rumah said,
June 13, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
Most of my society use well as water sources. Preparing fresh water from water plant by the goverment is still a difficult problem for many reasons. So thank you for this common and valuable information.
Latrina Werks said,
July 21, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
How much bleach can I safely add to my septic system, without killing the anaerobic bacteria required for the system to function?
Ryan Martin said,
July 22, 2009 @ 8:24 am
@Latrina ~ I am not a septic expert, so that is a tough question for me to answer. I do know that you want to limit your bleach use as much as possible with any septic system.
Dave Stanford said,
May 19, 2010 @ 12:28 pm
This was most informative, I had a well engineer do the “shocking” and I was left with doing the water flushing. Knowing what the process was, helped me understand all that is involved. fyi: the well head was pretty much impossible to get at, so I left that to the experts. Thanks again for the video and words of wisdom.
Ryan Martin said,
May 19, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
@Dave ~ I am happy to hear that I helped you out.