Recent questions & answers on how to shock or disinfect a drinking water well or how to solve problems when shocking doesn't work or of lingering bleach odors.

This article series explains how to shock a well, when, why, and exactly how to chlorinate a drinking water well.

FAQs on How to Shock or Chlorinate a Well-6

Recent questions & answers on how to sanitize a well, posted originally at WELL CHLORINATION & DISINFECTION - be sure to see the procedures and advice given there.

On 2018-10-08 by (mod) - sanitizing spring water

Nicole

Because spring water sources are normally going to include surface runoff it is not possible to assure that the spring water is always safe and potable.

If that's going to be your primary water source you might want to plan on installing a water treatment system and you certainly would want to test the water frequently.

On 2018-10-08 by Nicole

Hi everyone!
I’m purchasing a home and after doing a water test, I’ve discovered high Coliform levels.

My first reaction was to have the spring well directly tested but it seems to be fine. I know the home has sat for approximately a year without water running so I’m guessing it’s coming from my pipes. Any thoughts on how to fix/manage this?
Thanks everyone

On 2018-09-20 21:13:45.393314 by (mod) -

Lynne,

Thank you for asking a really great question - ultimately I'll post your question and our reply on an appropriate page in our water softener article series.

Take a look at WATER SOFTENER OPERATING CYCLES - how water softeners work - at https://inspectapedia.com/plumbing/Water_Softener_Operation.php

You'll see that true water softening means REMOVING minerals, principally calcium and magnesium from the water supply, using an ion-exchange process that occurs inside the resin tank of the water softener. Removing minerals helps prevent scale formation that clogs pipes and leaves a white smear on dishes and that prevents shampoo from making a nice lather.

Salt-free or "no-salt" softeners (pseudosofteners in my opinion) are appealing because of the no-salt to buy, no maintenance to perform promise.
But let's look at what these products can do - and can't.

There is a variety of products claiming to provide salt free water "softening". Some of these are snake oil - that is they don't really do anything much to the water. I'm thinking of magnets sold to be put on water pipes, for example.

Other no-salt water softeners may use a replaceable filter cartridge and may be just fine for buildings where the water hardness is not great and where the volume of softened water needed is not much. You'll need to clean or replace such cartridges on a schedule depending on water use.

Still other salt-free "water softeners" that do something to the water are nevertheless not removing minerals from the water. Some of these approaches cause minerals to form crystals that remain in the water supply but that may reduce scale formation. That will reduce scale formation int he building plumbing system but it will not stop it.

Bottom line, in my OPINION, we can get a clue about what to expect from a "no-salt" or "salt-free" water softener from the observation that calling the product a "water softener" is itself deceptive.

On 2018-09-20 by Lynne

Is there a water softener that you don't have to use salt? If so, does it work as well?

On 2018-09-03 15:44:13.654288 by Anonymous

We did get a full report, but I'm not sure what's ok and not ok. The report told us the different chemical levels, but they also said it was "satisfactory"! There is still a musty smell and taste to the water.

On 2018-09-02 00:24:11.045751 by (mod) -

Lynne

Before buying and installing treatment systems to improve the taste of your water you should ask the lab about additional tests to identify what is in the water.

On 2018-09-01 15:39:40.103741 by Lynne

We had our well treated with bleach 4 days ago and then had our water retested and they said it's now free of bacteria, but it still has a funky taste! Our water was amazing for drinking for over 40 years, but now I have to buy water for drinking!
Is there any other treatment that can be done to hopefully get our amazing drinking water back?

On 2018-07-17 20:54:01.606754 by (mod) -

Donna

From looking at Clorox's description of splashless bleach, it appears to be a different viscosity bleach to simply splash-less. It should still dissolve properly in water, though it may be extra important to wash down the well casing sides and pipes after pouring this or any bleach directly into a well.

I also didn't see that the usage quantity and thus the strength of the bleach is functionally different from standard bleach.

I did see that it uses a different fragrance - but then you need to wash any bleach out of the water supply system after shocking a well - fragrant or not.

If you used the proper quantity of bleach and if you run bleach through all of the plumbing fixtures you are sanitizing the system and then will flush it out normally.

About running the hot as well as cold water faucets when sanitizing a well or plumbing system, that makes perfect sense - in fact some hot water systems are extra prone to growing bacteria.

The longer the system sits the more-effective is the disinfection. And of course if the bleach-to-water mix ratio is wrong (too weak) the whole treatment will be ineffective no matter how much wait time is allowed.

Watch out: WHEN you run bleach solution INTO a tank type water heater, like an electric, oil, or gas water heater that has an actual storage tank (that is I am excluding tankless coils and demand water heaters), THEN flushing the bleach OUT of the tank can be troublesome and take some time.

We can have the same trouble when chlorinated bleach-water enters a water pressure tank.

If you have trouble flushing the system to get all of the bleach and fragrance OUT of the system you may need to empty those tanks and then re-fill them.

On 2018-07-17 20:42:24.854917 by Donna

We accidentally used splash less bleach to shock our well. Didn't realize it until we got foam in the inside facuets. Also ran the hot water faucets because some other web sites said open both hot and cold. Just did this so letting the system sit now. What do we do? Will we damage anything? Thanks

On 2018-06-08 13:15:50.391204 by (mod) -

Bleach itself? Why would that be?

However if you're well shocking procedure includes washing down the size of the well casing with a garden hose That includes your bleach solution that washed down process might be release soil or rust or other debris from the upper portions of the casing.

On 2018-06-08 13:00:55.162288 by Mike

When you shock a well with bleach,doesn't that release a lot of debris in the casing?

On 2018-05-21 22:22:21.818248 by (mod) -

Chris:

A "maintenance dose" of chlorine or bleach into a well is not a good idea in my opinion.

First: your dose will be too dilute to have any useful effect - if you don't reach sufficient bleach concentration in the water it won't kill bacteria that may be present

Second: repeated bleaching at a functional concentration in the well may lead to corrosion problems in plumbing or health problems for building occupants

If there is a persistent bacterial source that you can't fix - for example if it's in the supplying water table - then you need a permanently installed water disinfection system.

On 2018-05-19 14:14:24.556419 by (mod) -

MIke

Perhaps the chlorinated water has been diluted in the house by the contents of the water pressure tank and water heater, or you didn't run water long enough inside, or you didn't use a sufficient amount of bleach.

On 2018-05-19 12:57:27.616823 by mike

I shocked well and have strong bleach smell from hose but no sink in house why ??

On 2018-05-19 01:22:43.336956 by (mod) -

Susan

Let's start by reviewing the calculations involved. How did you compute how much bleach you actually needed?

On 2018-05-19 01:09:35.615932 by Susan

We have shocked our well twice because we didn’t ever smell chlorine. First time we used almost 2 gallons. No smell. We drained the pipes in our house and through the outside facet. We used 3 gallons of bleach and then ran the water for 30 minutes . We still did not smell chlorine in it also did not test on test strips . So we just left as is for 15 hours. What went wrong?

On 2018-05-14 16:20:53.633698 by Chris

Thank you for your informative shock procedure and your FAQ section! I have an additional question: is it possible to do a "maintenance dose" of chlorine every month or so, like a cup or pint? We have a bored well, and it showed bacteria again in just a few months. The water quality office said this is a common occurrence for bored wells, and they mainly recommend chlorinators (which one guy said would be $2000 to install!). When I asked what people did before chlorinators, is when he mentioned knowing of people who put in maintenance doses of clorox. But I'd like a 2nd opinion on that. Thanks again!

On 2017-12-09 16:29:25.319449 by Anonymous

Thanks, Danjoe. So, not knowing how deep the well is, I should just dump a lot more chlorine?

On 2017-12-09 by (mod) - never smelled nor found chlorine after we shocked the well

Rees

"a full gallon" is an arbitrary amount of bleach. The amount you need depends on the quantity of actual water in the well when it is at rest - the static head.

Details are at PROCEDURE & QUANTITY of BLEACH NEEDED to SHOCK A WELL

https://inspectapedia.com/water/Well_Chlorination_Shocking_Procedure.php#ShockTable1

Watch out: if you don't use enough disinfectant the well is not sanitary

Watch out: if you use too much disinfectant it can be difficult to flush the disinfectant, bleach, etc. out of the water supply

On 2017-12-08 by Rees

My water never smelled like or tested positive for chlorine after 90 minutes of running a faucet, even though we put in a full gallon.

We poured it down the vent pipe, since the wellhead would be difficult to remove (due to age-related rust), and it took about 15 minutes for it to drip through a funnel.

Do we need more chlorine? Or is the chlorine not making it into the well?

...

Continue reading at WELL CHLORINATION & DISINFECTION or select a topic from the closely-related articles below, or see the complete ARTICLE INDEX.

Or see these

Recommended Articles

• WATER WELL SAFETY & SANITATION, 6 STEPS-EPA
• WELL CHLORINATION & DISINFECTION
• WELL CLEANING PROCEDURES to address clogged well screens, blocked foot valves, or debris in the well bore.
• WELL DISINFECTION PROCEDURE, POST FLOODING
• WELL CONSTRUCTION INFORMATION SOURCES

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WELL DISINFECTION FAQs-6 at InspectApedia.com - online encyclopedia of building & environmental inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice.

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