Fellow well owners, do you shock your well? Alternatives? Off grid living.

[RealNeat]

It seems there must be a better way to control contamination in wells than to shock it with chlorine.

I have found so called water safe chlorine which is supposed to be absent of benzene and heavy metals but I'm still hesitant.

Most water around these parts turns up with some coliform bacteria. I'm not convinced it's the bacteria but rathe the indication that surface water is being contaminated by the usual industrial, agricultural and pharmaceutical substances.

Has anyone looked into this topic deeply or have any advice?

We have distillation and RO so I'm not super concerned about consumption ironically but rather smells, showering, dishes, laundry etc.

I want safe well water without unnecessarily poisoning the ground and playing reductionist games.

 

[I'm.No.One]

Typically, you would only shock your well if you're actually finding these bacteria and if you were getting contamination repeatedly its more likely because you have a cracked well lining.

Sometimes it can actually be from the well pump not being cleaned enough too after initial contamination.

With that being said, chlorine is pretty effective and has a pretty short half-life so would not be in your water system for very long.

If you have outside spigots with decent pressure, you can pump a large volume of water into various animal troughs to help flush the system of chlorine faster.

Within 48 hours or so there won't be any chlorine left in that water and it would be safe to use on gardens or give to your animals.

We do an in-depth testing of our well once yearly and honestly, it's more about checking the integrity of our well lining itself.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Have you thought about an ozonator?

 

[StephanF]

Way back, maybe almost 20 years ago, I attended a plasma physics and high energy density meeting in Monterey, CA. There was an exhibition and application of pulsed power were shown by Universities from all over the world. A German booth showed how an electric pulse can produce a shock wave in water that smashed the cell membranes of a sugar root, where the yield of the extracted juice was increased. Another booth, I don’t remember the country, showed applications of sterilization of orange juice. Again the tremendous pressure shock wave launched by an arc in water or juice would destroy the cell walls of pathogens but not impact the nutrients in the juice. It is a different way to ‘pasteurize’ fruit juice that otherwise would start to ferment or go bad.

I know that this technology is currently not applicable to wells but it is an interesting idea.

We bring some well water home and I sanitize it with a little amount of chlorine dioxide solution that I purchased from KV Lab in Florida. I keep the bottles in the freezer and have one in the refrigerator for such sterilization use.

Due to Henry’s Law, as you use the chlorine dioxide, the strength of the solution, originally at 3,000 ppm, diminishes. You see that with the coloring of the solution. So I increase the amount as the liquid level in the bottle decreases. Henry’s law tells you that the liquid keeps a balance between the amount in the liquid and the partial pressure of the chlorine dioxide gas above the liquid level. So by repeated opening, extracting some solution, and increasing the ‘air’ volume in the bottle, the concentration goes down successively.

Before using the chlorine dioxide solution, our 5 gallon water bottles would show algae growth after some time. That’s when I bought new bottles and started using the CDS.

 

[RealNeat]

Thanks for the tips, I've been researching and found h202 injectors and UV lights to be a easily accessible alternative. I may try that as the h202 may even dissolve some non bacterial contaminants (and endotoxins?). I also found this electric water softener to be very interesting.

iSpring ED2000 Whole House Water Descaler, Alternative Electronic Salt-Free Hard Water Conditioner, Reduces Limescale Prevent Deposits Build-up https://a.co/d/enSWjC1

I will probably utilize an ozone generator (probably an aquaculture oriented one) for the pool water, it's an above ground pool.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Thanks for the tips, I've been researching and found h202 injectors and UV lights to be a easily accessible alternative. I may try that as the h202 may even dissolve some non bacterial contaminants (and endotoxins?). I also found this electric water softener to be very interesting.

iSpring ED2000 Whole House Water Descaler, Alternative Electronic Salt-Free Hard Water Conditioner, Reduces Limescale Prevent Deposits Build-up https://a.co/d/enSWjC1

I will probably utilize an ozone generator (probably an aquaculture oriented one) for the pool water, it's an above ground pool.

Why H2O2 instead of ozone? Unless food grade, which is expensive, H2O2 will have added stabilizers that you will drink