Filtering Water

So my well has some issues.  It's an old bored well, i.e., wide and shallow.  As I've noted previously, there's often sediment in the water (actually, there's always sediment, but sometimes it's a noticeable problem despite nominal one-micron filtration).  The refurbishing done on the well last year was intended to mitigate the periodic sedimentation problem, but it has become apparent that when there's heavy rain in a short period of time, that can cause water to enter the well bore from the bottom fast enough that it stirs up sediment.  My location got about 24 inches of rain in the first 2 months of 2020, including 6 inches on one day.  So I've gotten a couple of bouts of stirred sediment.  The picture of the dog bowl shows what it was like when I wiped it out during a particularly cloudy time.

Another issue is bacterial contamination, also as previously commented upon.  Although guidelines say that filtering water through a certain depth of soil (this source suggests 10 feet), in actual practice it seems that they are still susceptible to contamination even if deeper.  I had an inspection of the casing done, and it looked pretty good all the way down to the 40+ foot bottom.  Nonetheless, I have had recurring bacterial contamination issues, and chlorine shocking is a major pain.

Ultimately, I'll probably drill a well, that is less likely to have issues.  In the meantime, I have set up my Berkey.  I got a Royal Berkey a few years ago, but had never used it.  I was not sure it would really work.  One can find all kinds of claims and counterclaims about the black Berkey filter elements.  Berkey itself says they have silver in them, which is helpful, and various lab tests are available (others question those).  So I set it up, primed the filters (a challenging task when the source water is known to be contaminated), and then ran a test. 

The filters worked: no bacteria.  However, when dumping turbid water into the top, it does clog up the filters fairly quickly--very quickly, actually, depending on the degree of turbidity.  If you have visions of using pond water in a Berkey and drinking what comes out, that might work out okay in terms of purity, but get used to dismantling and scrubbing the system frequently.

The filter element at the top has been cleaned, and the bottom hasn't (yet).  I didn't use the paper towel to clean; I used a scrubber sponge.  A lot of silt is still visible at the very bottom of the filter; I'm not cleaning there because I don't want to detach the element from its base.  That would basically ruin the filter.  This degree of fouling happened within just a few gallons when the water was bad.


Otherwise, the filters work okay, although don't take the throughput claims of Berkey too seriously.  Even when primed, they won't filter anywhere near as fast as suggested, unless the top reservoir is kept topped off.

This picture shows what the top tank looks like almost 24 hours after filling: it has processed most of the water, but not all.  I don't fill the top reservoir to the absolute top, and am getting about 1.5 gallons per day through the system with one refill per day.  It's faster when the elements are first cleaned, then eventually slows to where not much gets through the elements at all (maybe a half gallon per day or less), at which time they need to be cleaned again.  There's room for two additional filters, which would speed things up, but the same cleaning issues would remain.

So it does work, but it's not exactly the most convenient way to get water when compared to just turning the tap.  My well does have contamination issues, but most coliforms aren't really harmful, and I'm not having any GI issues when showering in what my well offers up.  Nonetheless, a more permanent solution is forthcoming.

Sediment, Continued

As I noted a while back, the water from my well has sediment.  A lot of sediment.  The filter I was using previously, a one-micron wound string unit, worked pretty well, but some clay got through.  My filters are mostly nominal one micron, not absolute: the difference is explained here, in a document by the University of Nebraska Extension Service.  Essentially, with a nominal filter, some particles larger than one micron will get through--the standard indicated in the publication is 85% of particles with the size of the filter rating.  That being said, clay particles can be smaller than one micron: the Nebraska piece indicates they they can be as small as 0.2 microns.

I do have an 0.5 micron absolute filter cartridge that I may try sometime.  For now, I'm getting good results with nominal 1.0 micron filters.

The water is pretty good, without readily visible sediment, as I noted before.  Dishes and white clothes look okay to me, although with time they may look sandblasted (in the case of the dishes) or red-tinted (for the clothes).

That being said, as with the toilet tank, evidence of what's getting through can be found.  The picture shows what happened when I wiped out the detergent dispensing tray from my washing machine.  Even though the water flow rate is pretty high, unmistakable evidence of clay can be found.  A reverse osmosis filter could remove even more, but that would require a much larger filtration setup--multi-stage--that might impact throughput too much...for negligible gain.

Sediment Filters and Old Plumbing

I have a well update.  When I noted previously that I had sediment that was coming through despite a (nominal) one micron filter, I was wondering if I'd need to get even stronger filtration or a multistage filter system.  I started researching them online.

I think I just wasn't running the water enough after changing the filter.  I swapped out a couple of filters and finally let it run for a while as Benjamin Sahlstrom suggests.  The water may be a bit fouled at first after changing the filter, but it soon clears.  It seems that all is well, although there is definitely sediment getting through:

The red in the picture above is fine silt, which settles to the bottom of the toilet tank (several months' worth).  I have tested my filtered water and found that I have about 13 ppm of silica.  That's definitely higher than most public water systems would have, but not all--see, for example, the water quality report for Lenexa, KS: 10 ppm silica, range 2-17 ppm; recommended federal level 50 ppm or lower.  The main problem is that the silica will probably cause components in the dishwasher and washing machine to wear faster, and to some degree it may accumulate in the water heater--though the latter can be flushed.

Over time, the sediment does add up.  Below is what an Aquaboon one-micron wound string filter looked like after about 4 months (with a new one for comparison).

It looks worse than it actually is.  I was wondering if I had lost water pressure and so changed it; the new filter showed that it hadn't significantly impeded flow yet, even though it looked completely silted up when it was in the housing.  There was a fair amount of sediment in the bottom of the housing, but that doesn't really matter.

Even after the well was refurbished, water coming out of one of the outdoor taps--i.e., unfiltered--was dirty-looking. Much of that may have been attributable to some of the supply fixtures--galvanized steel and, for two outdoor hydrants, cast iron:

All of that is now replaced (with new galvanized in the case of the hydrants), and the water is looking much better.  There's still some cloudiness, but it is unfiltered, after all...

Refurbishing the Well

As I noted in June, I had issues with the well.  There was a lot of sediment and testing showed that it was contaminated with bacteria.  The casing seemed to be allowing runoff water to penetrate the well bore, which would account for both the sedimentation and bacteria.  Ground water filtered by soil is suitable for drinking; rain puddles are generally not.

The well company came out to do the sealing and backfilling.  The floor of the hole below was covered with cement, then bentonite, further limiting water penetration immediately adjacent to the well casing.

The outcome of the work seems hopeful at this point: the water is looking decent, although there haven't been any heavy downpours since the job was done.  I did a follow-up qualitative bacterial test (the quantitative one from UGA costs over forty dollars, so I'm satisfied with qualitative for the moment).

 I used one of the Industrial Test Systems coliform tests.  The culture medium, when dissolved in the sample, makes it look like a urine test.  If no coliform bacteria are present, that's how it will stay.

 If, on the other hand, coliform bacteria are present, it will turn blue-green.  Above is how the sample looked at 24 hours, sitting on the kitchen counter at about 79-80 degrees.

 Later, it became pretty obvious.  The label further notes that in the presence of
Escherichia coli, aka E. coli, the sample will fluoresce blue when an ultraviolet (365 nm) light is shone through it.

It looked pretty fluorescent and blue to me; E. coli it was.  So this was disappointing but not necessarily unexpected.  I did shock the well with chlorine bleach in June after the first test, but there had been rain since then that had silted everything up--so a new influx of bacteria-contaminated water was almost expected.  Alas.

I also got new measurements on the well (24 inches in diameter, about 16 feet of water at the bottom, equaling roughly 375 gallons; see: this calculator...basically, the volume in cubic inches or feet can be estimated using pi x r squared x height, then divided by 231 cubic inches or 0.1337cubic feet per gallon [7.48 gallons per cubic foot]).

UGA and other sites recommend adding enough bleach to get to about 200 ppm of free chlorine; I used 6% bleach so adjusted my amount accordingly and added about 1.5 gallons, diluted with water before pouring it in so I wouldn't risk damaging pump wiring or anything else).  See also this guide from Canada.

I then ran the bleachy water through the whole system, into the pressure tank, water heater, and out every fixture in the house (of which there are not many--kitchen and bathroom sinks, toilet, tub/shower).  I returned the next day and started pulling chlorinated water out of the well.  UGA and everyone else recommends, "Rid the system of the remaining chlorine by turning on outside faucets, one at a time, and letting them run until you no longer smell chlorine."  That's easier said than done.  There's some concern about dumping heavily-chlorinated water on plants and in my case, we're talking 375 gallons (although some at the bottom is inaccessible because it's below the level of the pump).

So far, I haven't seen any indication of plant trouble, but I have only poured water on grass.  Mostly I have run it into a stock tank for 24 hours to let the chlorine dissipate, then poured it out.

So the well seems to be fixed. I've also flushed out a lot of sediment from the pressure tank and water heater that got in there before the reno; hopefully all I'll have to deal with now is a little sand here and there.  The purple vial above is the coliform culture from the First Alert water testing kit (ITS also sells one that looks pretty similar).  It started off and remained purple; it turns yellow in the presence of coliforms.  That's mildly encouraging.  While I wouldn't expect any bacteria in the well at this point, I drew the sample from the kitchen faucet, so it shows I successfully got chlorine throughout the system.  Now it should stay negative.  A subsequent follow-up was still negative, which was more encouraging.  Now there are just the lingering silt issues...below is what's coming out of the tap after passing through a one micron nominal filter.

Well Water

Well, well, well...  I have a bored well that is about 45 feet deep, with (I think) about 15 feet of water at the bottom.  That nets out to around 270 gallons.  The soil is in many places clay-like, and I have noticed some sediment in the water before.

I'm just returning the well to service, and this is what happened when I turned the water on:

This is a problem (especially so given that it's after filtration with a nominal 5-micron filter).  Outside, filling a stock tank looked like this:

My initial assumption was that the submersible pump was too close to the bottom.  So I had a well man out to look at it, and drew him a bucket of water to demonstrate.  It wasn't cloudy.  There was some sediment, but it was mostly clear.

Before this, I'd gotten a couple of water tests done.  It passed on minerals, failed on bacteria.  No E. coli, but plenty of other coliform bacteria.  The test results noted that could be caused by a number of factors, including surface water contamination.

That's exactly what the problem is.  The well guy diagnosed it fairly easily, but the symptoms were telling: cloudy after rain, fine when it's not raining.  The good news is there's a fix.  The bad news is that it'll be fairly messy to do.  Alas.  It involves digging around the concrete liner to about five feet, sealing, and backfilling with bentonite.  Part of this all will involve demolishing the well house and moving all of the plumbing underground--which will eliminate the danger of freezing pipes.

Hopefully after it all I'll be back to normal well sediment issues, which are not insignificant but nothing like what you see above.  I might need a better filter than one that's nominally rated at 5 microns (nominal = average, more or less, meaning some pores are larger than 5 microns).  This publication from the University of Nebraska indicates that clay particles can be 0.2-2.0 microns.

My filter is a pretty basic 10x2.5 single cartridge model (shown here gloriously silted up).  Culligan's best filter is a nominal 1 micron, but there are other 10x2.5 filters out there that claim to be absolute 1 micron (absolute means the filter should stop over 99% of particles over 1 micron versus maybe 85% for nominal filters).  Finer filters are more prone to clogging, perhaps...but I have an abosolute 1 micron filter cartridge to try.  If necessary, there are further steps that can be taken. There are multistage filters that can go all the way down to an absolute 0.2 microns if necessary (albeit possibly with a hit to water pressure that's already not very high...).  I'll see how things look after the well is refurbished.