Bacteria in your water! Now what?

PLEASE NOTE - Parts of the process described below involves water and electricity. If you don't know your way around water and electricity, this posting is only a description of what a qualified professional should do to chlorinate a well.

My last post described the correct way to test water for bacteria to ensure that there are no false positive readings. Now you may have had a proper bacteria test done and it shows coli-form and/or e-coli bacteria in your water. What should you do?

This post assumes that you have your own well. If your home is attached to municipal water or a community water system, it is basically another person's problem, and the proper authorities need to be informed of the problem immediately so that it can be addressed before someone gets seriously ill. Call your town hall.

What you should first do is stop drinking your water or using it to brush your teeth or wash fruits and vegetables that are not going to be cooked. You can cook with bacteria contaminated water as long as it will be brought to the boiling temperature some time during the cooking process. You may also drink the water if you have boiled it first, but if you are washing the container (that you will be pouring the boiled water into) in the contaminated water, you may be recontaminating the water. Don't forget that your automatic ice machine is fed by the same contaminated water. Especially don't forget to instruct children and make sure they understand. Pets can also get ill from this water, so make provisions for them too.

What you need:

• Well chlorination tablets
• A wrench for loosening the bolts on the well casing cover
• Enough hose to reach from a hose bib to the well
• A "FREE" chlorine test kit
• At least 12 hours that you will not need to use the water (this means dinner reservations!)
• A basic understanding of plumbing and electricity so you don't injure yourself

Next you need to chlorinate your well. Well chlorination tablets work great, but if not available, a couple of gallons of liquid laundry bleach (UNSCENTED) will work well. If using tablets, drop 20 - 30 in (do not use the giant pool tablets, only use well chlorination tablets or liquid laundry bleach). This should be easy if you have a well casing that sticks above the ground. You may want to turn off the power to your submersible pump before removing the casing cover and inspect the wire for tears in the covering. If it looks good, turn the power back on.

*(Please note that if your well is buried, a stupid practice from the 1950s and 1960s, that is most likely the reason for your contamination. You should have the casing raised and then have the well chlorinated. Call a professional).

Attach a hose to the nearest hose bib that is fed by the house and well you are chlorinating. Put the other end of the hose into the top of the well and then turn on the hose bib. This accomplishes 3 things; first, it will agitate the water and help mix the chlorine into the well; second, if you have a low producing well, it will help your well to not run dry during the process; third, when the chlorine makes its way through the system and comes out the end of the hose, it well aid the process.

You may only need to run the water a few minutes or for half an hour or more. Occasionally test the water coming from the hose with your "FREE" chlorine test kit. ("FREE" means chlorine that has not attached itself to or oxidised any component in the water. This test kit will cost you money to buy.) When the "FREE" chlorine test shows that there is chlorine, rinse the inside of the well casing with this now chlorinated water. Rinse for 5 to 10 minutes, using circular motions to make sure you soak the entire casing from the top all the way down to the static level of the water in the well. Also rinse the well casing cover (inside and out) with the chlorinated water. You may turn off the hose and re-install the casing cover.

Go into the home. If you have a whole house carbon filter, you will need to bypass it, and you should replace the carbon, which can be a hot bed for bacterial growth. Run the water into the home by running every outlet, sink, tub, shower, toilet, cold water into the washing machine, and outdoor hose bibs that were not used in the initial steps. When all the cold water has chlorine in it, then run hot water taps for several minutes until chlorine can be detected there too. Run all the hot water outlets including the hot water side of the washing machine, and the dishwasher until you can detect chlorine in the hot water too. Throw out all the ice in your ice maker and let it start making ice cubes that you will discard in 24 hours (don't use any of them as the first couple of batches may have bacteria in them).

Now you have run chlorinated water everywhere in the home. Don't use the water for at least 12 hours, and if you can manage, 24 hours works even better. When you begin to use the water again it will smell like the YMCA for several days. It may also have a tendency to be discolored, especially if you have iron or manganese in the water. You can not get a valid bacteria test done again until the chlorine clears from the system. If after the above process you still have bacteria in the water, it is a persistent problem and will need to be addressed in a different approach. See my next post about Ultra Violet sterilizers.

Ted Mullen is a licensed water treatment professional in Connecticut. If you have water concerns or are in the greater Danbury area and would like him to speak to your group, please contact him at tedmullen@hotmail.com

Home sale cancelled due to incorrect water test technique.

Recently I was called out to chlorinate a well system. The home was for sale and there had been a positive test showing coliform and ecoli in the well water. The potential buyers (city dwellers not used to wells) decided to cancel the sale because of fear of contaminated water. I asked the home sellers if they had seen the test done and they told me how the home inspector had simply turned on the kitchen tap and filled a sample bottle which he then put the lid on and stuck it in his pocket. WRONG - don't do bacteria tests this way.



Here is what you need:

• A sterile sample bottle (preferably one you picked up from the lab that you will bring the test to)


• A pair of pliers and a small sheet of rubber


• At least a Bic type lighter (or in my case, I use a hand torch)


• A cooler

Find a metal faucet in the home, preferably one that gets used all the time (kitchen or bathroom). Run the water at that faucet for 5 minutes (20 minutes if the home has not been lived in for several months). Turn off the faucet and using the pliers and rubber sheet (to prevent damage to the surface finish) remove the aerator and gasket or o-ring from the spout. This is very important because this is the place where air and water meet and airborne splashes can bring bacteria to this point where it can fester. We only want to check for bacteria in the well, pipes, and filter system, not on outer surfaces.

Next, run the water another minute or so and turn off again. This next part is why it is so important to do this at a metal faucet. Sanitize the faucet spout by lighting the Bic lighter and heating the spout end (where the water comes out). If you did this to the aerator, it would melt it's insides, thus the reason for removing it and only sanitizing the metal part of the spout. I would make a circular motion under the spout for a minute or so, making sure to get the round edge well.

Get the sterile sample bottle. Turn the water on brisk, but slow enough so that it does not splash from the bottom of the sink and potentially into the sample or back onto the spout. Remove the lid and fill the bottle to the fill line. Place bottle in chilled cooler with ice or ice pack. Deliver to lab. Deviations from these instructions may cause a false positive test due to contamination of sample. How do I know? Before I chlorinated the well, I took a sample using the correct method. When the lab results came back, the test showed negative - in other words - no bacteria. It was obvious that the improper test method caused contamination of the sample. I suggest that when an inspection is done in a home you are selling you should watch the person testing your water to make sure the test is done properly. Print this post to make sure you have the information handy.