The best way to clean out a well?
 

It might seem simple, but it isn't. My plcace has an artesian well (I think that's what it's called - it is at the top of a hill!).
Last time it was cleaned was about 20 years ago, by my late father - who found all sorts of animal bones at the bottom. We used to drink the well water (it's an island, a few hundred acres, and I own it), but recently the water has smelt sulphurus. And also the water from it coms out with "bits" in it sometimes. Fine for washing in, but I would like to have drinkable water again.
It isn't a borehole, or a normal well - just a big, roughly dug pit about 10ft deep and 10ft wide, and I suppose about the shape of half of an American football.
I want to clean it so that the water is usable again, but firstly - there is no power on the island, so a power washer is out. I would dump bleach in it - which would sterilise it, but make it even more undrinkable.
It is nearly completely overgrown by brambles - I'd use weedkiller, but again it would poison the water.
I can't burn them off, as it is in a forested area.
Any suggestions? Think of it as a big, 100 year old pit in your back yard, full of skanky water. I have a pump, but it would take forever to empty it - also, is there anything I can do in terms of lining it with a new layer of concrete or something, that will still be permeable but keep the nasty stuff out?

Thanks,
JF.

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

Manual labor and lots of it. Chop the brush and drag it off. Shovel the muck out of the hole. Use a shovel and bucket. Shovel down to the rock bottom. Yep, it's a h*ll of a lot of work but it's the only way. Upside, once you do this you will appreciate the spring and keep it clean from now on.
Where is your island?

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

That's pretty much what I wanted NOT to hear, Mtnman, but suspected it may be the case. I'll have to drain it first, then use a semi-trash pump to actually empty it. Then shovel and bucket for a few days!
The island is on Loch Erne, Northern Ireland.

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

MM is right.

Its just going to take a lot of backbreaking work. There is no easy way to do it. But look at the sweat equity as an investment in a future of good clean drinking water for years to come.

BP

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

Oh - any ideas on a new lining? Because once it's clean and empty, I don't intend going down there for a good few years! Would plain mortar, sand/cement mix do?

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

By the way, in terms of flow, it has kept 7 people in drinking water for a month, years ago. Though to be honest I'd rather drink my own piss than the water which flows from it now! At least I know what went in to my body!

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

I live on well water now, it has strong sulphur content, the only way to eliminate that is with an aerotor and you dont have power to use one you say. I dont think cleaning your well will affect it, most likely the water table has changed and your getting the sulfhur content, it's not harfull to drink, acutually a bit on the healthy side.

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

For a hole that size, you might consider renting a backhoe. I have no idea what it would cost to bring one to your island, but even a small backhoe would save lots of otherwise back-breaking work.

Be careful about lining the hole with concrete. That might be viable option if you can identify a particular and narrow source for the spring in the process of cleaning it out. But some springs are fed through lots of seepage, so you could end up plugging the spring or diverting the feed if you're not careful. If a source can be identified, you might consider sinking a length of well casing and putting a concrete head on it. That would be the ideal solution for long-term, clean water.

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

Not an artesian well...that is a drilled well that the water spouts out of the drilled hole under pressure.....sometimes just barely, sometimes with LOTS of volume under considerable pressure. You have to drill into an aquifer ( water bearing strata ) that is under pressure by virtue of the water entering at a considerably higher elevation, yet the water remains trapped in the aquifer by impervious layers of rock above and below. ( yeah....I studied to be a geologist in a former life )

What you have is a hand dug well I gather. Common is area where you have a spring that barely comes to the surface or a very shallow water table level.

What I'd do if I were wanting to use it as a water source:

Clean the brush out around the opening, by hand.....do not spray anything you don't want to drink later.

Get your self a gasoline powered pump, and pump the water out and kept pumping for the next stage IF the water coming in is slow enough to allow you to do so. This will also allow you to see how much water is coming in to get some idea of the replenish rate, which will be handy to know in terms of what you can expect in the way of use.

Everything I'm going to say from here ASSUMES you actually HAVE a sub-surface source of water flow, and this is not simply a collection hole ( like a rain cistern ) for surface rain water. You can determine that when you pump it. IF you can empty it dry, and nothing flows in until the next rain, you don't have a "well".....you simply have a crude cistern.

Line the pit with a some type of brick, block, etc.....whatever you have there in the form of masonry building units ( not familiar with Ireland in that respect ). Lay the bottom few courses by leaving large gaps in the bricks that water can seep through.....once you get up 10-15 courses, lay the brick tight with mortar to seal from surface water. I would close in my opening area from what you have to, say, about 6' or so in diameter...you may want to reduce that size, as it will take a LOT of brick to come up 10'....maybe down to 4' in diameter.....depends on how small a hole you can work in. An alternate to this would be get a 10' length of fairly rigid plastic drainage pipe in 3-4' diameter, drill a bunch of holes in the first couple feet...then do the inner liner with a smaller pipe.....like 18".

Fill the bottom of the pit with course stone.....2" diameter or larger, so the water will penetrate....in the center of the new "well", stick a piece of 12-18" pipe, stand it vertically, with holes drilled in the bottom foot, or so to allow water from the rock layer to flow into the inner pipe. Put a foot or so of clean sand in the bottom of this pipe.

Bring the brick liner to the ground level, and the inner pipe up about 2' above ground level.....fill the hole with more rock for a couple feet outside the liner so not to block water flow. THEN, if you can get some "bentonite" clay ( check with well drilling places, assuming you have them there ), pour bags of it on top the rock OUTSIDE the liner to seal the rock from surface water.....this stuff comes in dry in bags, and when it gets wet, it swells and makes a GREAT water tight seal.....put 6-12" on top that rock, then backfill the rest of the hole with dirt. IF possible, I'd pour a concrete cap over the area that used to be the hole up to the inner liner that is sticking up.

Now you have a nice, lined well, with an inner liner. Fashion a top for that inner liner to keep out surface water, critters, leaves, etc. You can run a pump line into the inner liner to draw water, OR, if this has enough elevation above where you are going to use the water, you need to take a supply pipe out of the inner liner down a foot or so off the bottom and bring it out horizontally as you build the liners. Without seeing this, it's hard to say how to feed it.....but IF you can use a gravity feed, you sure should.....saves all kinds of pump/power problems.

It's a LOT of dadgum work.....being your own water company always is.....ask me how I know....:D

Re: The best way to clean out a well?
 

Andy, thanks! That's about the most comprehensive answer I could ever ask for. It's not a "rainwater" well, it fills naturally. I thought an artesian well was one that was up a hill and still filled - whoops, wrong there!:D
It was dug and made around 70 years before I was even born, stone walled, and when I get the chaance to go there sometimes the water smells bad - yet often a month later it smells fine.
I can certainly get bentonite clay, and I can certainly keep it dry - hell, I've run it dry at times! So basically I should drain it as you say (it is a siphon system, gravity fed)all the crap at the bottom, then line it the way you described?
The land is totally free of pesticides, it's an "Area Of Special Scientific Interest", which is a fancy way of saying "yu spray nothing, do nothing, apply for a licence even to paint your house". Which of course I don't, I'm not going to spend 6 months wrangling with some idiot civil servant just to put on a coat of paint! I just paint it every two years, f*ck the stupid rules they have.
Actually, given the way you have described, I might just hire some Polish labourers, and have them dig a new well beside the old one to your specs. Provided they are kept in food, vodka and peat for the fire, they work for �3 an hour - $6 I think at the minute. And they work HARD, as long as they get their half hour tea breaks on the dot of ten in the morning, and three pm in the afternoon. They'll get free accomodation as well.
But many thanks, Andy, for your advice - I might even post pics of what is at the bottom of the old well, and the new one being dug! I'm starting to ramble now...

Thank you,

JC