Why is my well water muddy
Why Your Well Water is Discolored or Muddy. Explained
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so I get this question quite frequently
um people call they say they have
discolored water uh the water has been
clear for years and then all of a sudden
it's become dirty now the one thing that
I always ask the customer on the phone I
go
10 years ago did you have five people
living in the house and then now you
only have one or two
and very commonly they go yes our kids
were here we had three kids they're all
old now they've grown up went to college
they've moved out and now it's just me
and my husband why is my water yellow
it's yellow because you're not using it
as frequently as you used to the water
in the well is becoming stagnant and
that's promoting bacteria growth and
iron and it sits down there and it
multiplies and it just gets worse and
this video is a very very good
explanation for just that you've got one
person living in a house and the well is
50 years old and it's never been a
problem and he said that it was okay it
was manageable to deal with for a little
bit and then after about 18 months it's
just basically uh it's gotten worse so I
see this quite frequently and I just
wanted to share it with you so enjoy the
video
so we uh we took the lid off of the pump
house and we looked down here
at the well
and I notice that the casing is broken
right there
um see if you can pull that mesh out
we'll just let's see
oh my God they've cut it and flared it
open so they could camera it open I have
no idea why they did that
that is just blowing my mind
you never know what you're gonna see
when you get to a job sometimes that is
definitely a first for me I've never
seen somebody cut the casing and flare
it out that's not even the right size
wheels no that's that's five and five
eighths casing with a six inch well seal
that's why I sell the five and five
eighths well seals on my website now
because so many people can't get the
right size yep most people get the the
six and a quarter thinking that it's the
right size but it's not I think that's
why casings changed too many times over
the years okay let's go get the camera
let's stick it down there we'll run some
water and we'll see if uh if he's got
leaky casing
or if he's just got shallow casing and
it's letting in water you know right
where the casing meets the Bedrock but
we can uh we can drain water right here
at this so uh I'm gonna go get the
camera and stick it in there and see
what we find
okay so I've got my camera right here
and I'm gonna go ahead and start the
process of going down
see what we find
foreign
it's not draining fast enough
it's not draining fast enough what have
we learned so far
um we learned that the well makes a
boatload of water and I can't over pump
the well I can't get the water level to
drop down about no more than 50 foot and
then it kind of equalizes out so the
camera is kind of out of the equation I
can't see anything because the water's
so discolored but
um the well being 5 and 5 8 inch casing
tells me that the well is old now the
house if you look at the house the house
is new but we come over here and we look
at all this
that right there is an old cast iron
drain pipe so what that tells me is
there used to be an old home place here
and it was torn down the new house
they're trying to utilize the old well
that was probably punched by a old cable
machine probably in the 60s or the 70s
or something like that so it's a very
very old well now when we uh we stuck
the camera down there and I I didn't
show you that because we couldn't really
see anything when I tried to record the
screen just due to the sunlight but we
actually saw a spider
um I call it a hellgrammite but it's
like a long big centipede and it was
down there trying to bounce on the top
of the water and climb up the casing and
I could see it on my camera it's kind of
weird
um but uh yeah so the well is not
sanitary right now more or less because
it's got bugs in it but what it also has
is heavy heavy concentrations of iron
the water is actually yellow so what I
did I went ahead and I took this
I left the other partial bag in there
put a bag of pool socket in the well
and I dumped it right in there split and
what I'm doing I'm taking the garden
hose right now
from here and I'm basically circulating
the chlorine so I'm trying to wash off
the walls because there's a lot of like
iron build up on the casing walls and I
don't believe the well has been
sanitized in quite some time so we're
going to circulate the water for about
30 minutes and then I'm going to take
the garden hose back out and throw it
out in the yard and hopefully if we run
it long enough the well will actually
clear up if this has been used for 30
years it may need a liner the the metal
casing probably has rotted out at the
threaded joints and it's time to slip
plastic casing inside of it but uh we
have to make sure that we have 20 feet
above us to where we can stand pipe up
here
it's going to be kind of difficult to
put a liner in this well only because
we're working inside of this small Pump
House it kind of makes things a little
bit more aggravating and then the whole
deal with the casing flared out I'm not
too happy about that but it is what it
is so we're going to let this thing
circulate for a little while and then uh
see what we can get from that
all right we have let the system
circulate for about 20 minutes
so we decided to pull the hose out to
allow it to uh dump out the discolored
water out of the well and look how
discolored it is now it's a lot worse
than it was to begin with the uh the
chlorine really does a number on the
iron
and it helps to iron release to where it
can be pumped out
so now the ideal thing to do would be to
allow this hose to run for a minimum of
an hour just evacuating the well until
the water becomes clear
after about an hour or two if it still
hasn't cleared up
the idea would be to shut it off allow
it to rest and then come out here
tomorrow again and turn it back on and
let it do it again now you can do that
with this weld because this well
produces so much water that it doesn't
drop below 50 feet in the borehole
typically most Wells don't produce so
much water that you could leave a garden
hose run open-ended or it would end up
you know running dry but in this
situation the well is probably a hundred
feet maybe 110 120 because it's so old
they didn't have the capabilities of
drilling really deep so they uh they
basically hit a vein
uh up top the pump just kicked on um
they hit an upper vein which is high in
Mineral content and this is what you get
with high mineral content you get iron
you get manganese you get calcium which
is hard water you get all sorts of stuff
so because this well hasn't been
sanitized and who knows how long it's
had the ability to grow bacteria and
this is what you're seeing you're seeing
all the mineral build up and it's
changing the color of the water so we're
trying to do a whole lot of cleaning in
a short period of time so you see that
you see how it just cleared up
it's crazy how I did that just on camera
so it cleared up a lot considerable uh
compared to what it was about 15 seconds
ago it'll go back through a phase where
it gets dirty Brown again it's kind of
yellow right now
um
starting to get a little bit more
discolored but basically what that's
doing that means there's a fresh water
vein down below
and there's a dirty water vein up top so
a liner would fix that you go down and
you put your packer at the location
where the dirty water vein is
unfortunately we're not able to see
where that vein is
so what we would do when we push a
packer in a well like this as you push
the rubber boot through the metal casing
it has a specific feel to it so as you
press it down it slides a lot easier but
when the rubber Packer the boot when it
goes into the Rock borehole of the well
you actually feel that as you press it
down so what we would do we would slide
a liner in this well and we would do it
all off of field we would once we felt
it go from smooth to a rough transition
we would push maybe 10 more feet and as
long as it held itself then we would
clamp it off and we would put the pump
in it we would test it and we would see
that if the water cleared up then we'd
be good to go and we'd have to fill the
the uh in between the liner in with
cement and make it permanent but that's
why we wait we wait to allow the
customer to use the water for about a
month before we see men in a liner to
make it permanent because we don't want
to cut off the only water that the well
is producing and we don't know if
there's more than one water vein in this
well it's all you know hypothetical you
have to kind of use your brain and think
you know is there so much water coming
in only at one vein or is there multiple
veins you just don't know but you have
to make those decisions based on you
know a hypothesis so we're trying to
make the best educated guess that we can
with minimal information so what we want
to do first we want to try to clean the
well with chlorine and then if we can't
get the water to be clear then we will
proceed with putting in a liner you can
see it getting getting dirty Brown again
and see every time it gets dirty Brown
the stream is stronger and I say look
it's clear again so the pump was running
and then
the pump is shut off
it's basically getting water from down
below and then when the pump kicks on
it's starting to lower the water level
of the well it's bringing the dirty
water that's up top closer to the pump
so it gets dirty
then the pressure tank will store six
seven eight gallons of water
and it'll be clear and then the pump
kicks off the water level will raise
back up some fresh clean clear water
will get to it and then the cycle will
repeat
if you do it long enough as I have you
understand what's going on
but this is a really cool one to show
everybody
one second it'll be clear in the next
second it'll be muddy
so all you really have to do is just
treat the well with the high amounts of
chlorine and let it sit for a little
while and then Pump It Off
if you were to allow this hose to run
for a few hours there would be nothing
left but clean clear water
then if you let the wet the well sit
stagnant for a while
then it'll
give it the ability you know stagnant
water can grow bacteria so then you end
up getting the result that you have here
which is discolored water hey there it
is it's clear again
that's so crazy
which is dirty water mixing with clean
water
it might be one of the last if if there
wasn't two different veins and there
wouldn't be clear water and dirty water
so there's got to be two different water
veins
so there's got to be one that's feeding
it dirty and one that's feeding it clean
and it really needs a well liner in
order to separate those two
or we're just gonna sit here and Pump It
Off
for a little bit longer we've got one
more job to get to today and the Sun is
getting close to the Horizon we're
running out of daylight
so I'm going to call the homeowner I'm
going to tell him what we've got and
then depending on what he says I may
just let this run because he'll be here
in about an hour and a half and it's
about as long as it needs to run so uh
I'm gonna go ahead and wrap the video up
here hope you all enjoyed it thanks for
watching see y'all on the next one peace
so we're about to leave and I still got
the uh the hose running and look how
much clear it is now compared to what it
was earlier
sometimes Wells just need a little bit
of time or running
sitting stagnant not much usage
not much usage on a well will cause a
lot of problems so sometimes you just
need to go and run a lot of water out in
your yard
