Well sediment problem.

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O

oilstinks

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Jan 25, 2008
588
western NC
I built a house where my mobile home was and my well sat unused for 2 years. Now that we are moved in I am having sediment trouble clogging all my fixtures including toilet valve. The toilet float valve looked as though it had something that looked like algae or crumbled leaves which is not possible (just describing). Most of the trouble is fine black sand. My Rinnai 94 water heater screen has to be cleaned daily or more. I had a 5micron charcoal filter cartridge which did not stop this stuff. I have a yarn wrapped style cartridge in fliter housing now and it is black after a day. Should I do a spindown filter of some sort. This is a pic in the bath tub after use. Thanks all.
[Hearth.com] Well sediment problem.
 
How deep is your well?
What type of pump? In-ground?
Possibly the well has silted in
can you rase the pick up (foot valve, or pump )
4 to 5 ft? If you can you may get out of the silt
 
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I do not know the depth but most are 300-500ft in my area.
 
Go to a Melt Blown 5 micron INDUSTRIAL filter cartridge and housing 22" long cartridge. They last a lot longer than the residential short filters and cost very little more.. Cumo and Pent-Air make them. Get online and get one.

I change mine monthly and buy them by the full case. String wound is garbage and so are activated carbon filters unless the activated carbon filter is DOWNSTREAM from the melt blown cartridge. Using an activated carbon filter4 as a primary filtration source is false economy as they are expensive compared to a melt blown or even a non treated pleated paper filter.

You might want to get a driller out there and clean out the well bore, sounds to me like it's silted itself from sitting.

H20 Distributors (online) and Pavel Water Filtration (online and landline) are 2 excellent sources for housings and cartridges, I buy from them both. Don't buy the stuff at the local box store, you pay out the butt and much less expensive from both the suppliers I listed.
 
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I use a Honeywell Brinkman water filter. SS screens are available down to 5 micron. Easy to back wash or buy the auto flush valve for the bottom.
Works great.
 
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Have you tried hooking a hose up to it and running it down/dry a few times? We had a old well at the place i used to work that we only used during the summer. I would have to hook up a forestry fire hose to the pump every summer and run it down a few times to clean it out or it would clog up my sprinklers and fill the bottom of the pool with sediment. We would hook direct to pump and bypass all the pressure tanks
 
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Bad LP said:
I use a Honeywell Brinkman water filter. SS screens are available down to 5 micron. Easy to back wash or buy the auto flush valve for the bottom.
Works great.
Click to expand...
Probably very expensive too. Bet I can buy cases of melt blown elements for what your cost. stainless screens don't work here anyway. The Ph of the water is not conducive for metals in the supply. Everything is plastic, PEX, including all the fixtures.

The well IS silted and needs to be flushed and not by recycling the water in the bore but by an external source. Recycling the water in the bore won't do squat except stir up the sediment in the bottom.

As an alternative, I'd pull the pump and measure how much water is in the bore versus the bottom of the hole and set the pump higher if possible. I haven't a clue what your drawdown is, but a competent driller can do all that.
 
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Years ago I filled a pool and it took 1200 or so gallons before it began pulling muddy water.
 
SidecarFlip said:
Probably very expensive too. Bet I can buy cases of melt blown elements for what your cost. stainless screens don't work here anyway. The Ph of the water is not conducive for metals in the supply. Everything is plastic, PEX, including all the fixtures.

The well IS silted and needs to be flushed and not by recycling the water in the bore but by an external source. Recycling the water in the bore won't do squat except stir up the sediment in the bottom.

As an alternative, I'd pull the pump and measure how much water is in the bore versus the bottom of the hole and set the pump higher if possible. I haven't a clue what your drawdown is, but a competent driller can do all that.
Click to expand...
I don’t consider a couple of hundred bucks very expensive compared to all the ceramic faces of my faucets getting chipped from sand/grit.
 
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For a c note you can buy 25 melt blown 5 micron elements. For me that is 2 years worth. Of course, what works for me, may not for you.

They have 1 micron elements if you want to refine the raw water that much, I don't.
 
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oilstinks said:
Years ago I filled a pool and it took 1200 or so gallons before it began pulling muddy water.
Click to expand...
Drawdown on any well differs by location, depth and the ability of the aquifer to replenish the bore. Whatever outfit drilled it or deepened it will know the GPH replenishment rate.
 
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SidecarFlip said:
For a c note you can buy 25 melt blown 5 micron elements. For me that is 2 years worth. Of course, what works for me, may not for you.

They have 1 micron elements if you want to refine the raw water that much, I don't.
Click to expand...
That would be worth not cleaning all the plumbing fixture screens. It has gotten somewhat better today. I have yet to have to clean any screen out.
 
If it sat for a while, it may just need to be run for a while. Hook up a hose and let it run wide open for a few hours and see if it gets better.
 
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That grit, easy to filter out. Don’t despair, you have lots of options.
 
Standard procedure is to let a well that has sat unused run just less than wide open until it clears. This would be be a hose bib running half to three quarters open and draining into the yard. We recently put a pump into a well drilled three years ago. The well man told me the above, and when I read the manual that came with the new pump it stated the same advice.

The couple of times I have have had a new well drilled, I have had to let it run until it cleared. Other than that, I do not know what to tell you.
 
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Just thought I'd post its getting much better. I may end up pulling the pump up a few feet, but I can go over a week before cleaning my on demand water heater screen.
 
When we moved into the house we are living in now the water was very murky due to the well sitting for 6 months or so, also our pressure tank was jam packed with mud and garbage. I totally rebuilt our well house, put in a new pressure tank and added three 20 inch filters. 30 micron 10 micron and a carbon filter at the end. If you ever need well stuff check out Aqua Science, they have pretty good prices.
 

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Just thought I would update on this. I can go a month now without changing the filter and almost zero sediment in bath tub and shower pan now. Thanks.
 
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