How to treat a well with alot of iron , that plugs your pump & hose?
October 28th, 2009 | 
Author: Well is 118 Ft. deep with a 1/2 H.P. submersible pump , that draws water to a trough to water cattle. Some suggest to shock the well with acid & or chlorine. Need some suggestions. Thanks Jim
I have had the same problem for our animals here on the farm. We changed to a new submersible pump with a plastic hose connected to the top of the pump. We lowered it down so it sets 1/2 way between the top of the water level and the bottom. We attached the other end of the plastic hose to a water bladder and put 40lbs. of pressure on it. Then we ran a short pies of pvc pipe to an outside facet. Our water here has so much iron in it, it stinks. This should help with some of the problem.we do shock the well one a month with pool chlorine to remove build up in the tank and the piping. We pour 1 cup in the well, run the water till we smell it and let it set for 24 hrs. the next day we run the water till we don’t smell it any longer and we are done. this just cleans out the pipes and keeps the iron build up to a minimum.
Posted in Submersible Water Pump
Call the Culligan Man
or your local Well drilling service
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If its actually plugging up your hose and pump… are you sure its iron? You may have a lime problem. We did… we could let a garden hose run for 15 minutes and have a pile of brown silt where we let it sit. Come to find out, it was lime. It could plug up a whole house filter in less than 2 minutes, hehehe.
You can get a test kit from your local county health department, and they can tell you what it is for certain, and may even be able to give you some tips on how to remedy it.
If it is lime… you’re probably going to need to drill a new well, or redrill that one, to get down past the lime pocket. You might get away with adding pea gravel to the bottom, to act as a ‘filter’ depending on where your pump sits in the well, and the actual water level.
I’d suggest testing the water, talk to someone at the DNR (they keep track of all the wells drilled, and may know what others are doing in your area that might help), and even have a well driller come out to look at it.
Good Luck
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iron? wow thats alot of iron. i dont think shocking the well is going to stop iron the only thing i can think of is a deeper well
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how old is the pump in the well? is the supply line (in the well itself) old galvanized or steel pipe? My point is, how do you know its not something in the distribution system? I’ve seen some pretty bad water with high levels of dissolved iron for drinking water purposes…its only a problem when the dissolved iron gets oxidized.
Adding chlorine will just make the matter alot worse because it will oxidize the dissolved iron and that’s what you are seeing is the red (oxidized) iron. The key is to not oxidize the dissolved iron…(the cattle don’t care if the water has iron in it). A new pump with all plastic piping should not cause the iron to oxidize and should easily get it to the trough. Adding anything to the well is not effective because you pump it out soon after you add it. The only time you add anything to a well is for drinking water wells that need disinfecting.
If this were a home application, then the water would need softening to remove the excess iron.
Check the supply system for old, rusty components….
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I have had the same problem for our animals here on the farm. We changed to a new submersible pump with a plastic hose connected to the top of the pump. We lowered it down so it sets 1/2 way between the top of the water level and the bottom. We attached the other end of the plastic hose to a water bladder and put 40lbs. of pressure on it. Then we ran a short pies of pvc pipe to an outside facet. Our water here has so much iron in it, it stinks. This should help with some of the problem.we do shock the well one a month with pool chlorine to remove build up in the tank and the piping. We pour 1 cup in the well, run the water till we smell it and let it set for 24 hrs. the next day we run the water till we don’t smell it any longer and we are done. this just cleans out the pipes and keeps the iron build up to a minimum.
References :