How to disinfect your well water - Shock chlorination 

This is an excellent video! It’s very thorough and easy to follow. I love how you are walking us through step by step.

We use to drill wells up here in ohio for 30 years. We use to use hth swing pool pills. We would drop 12 pills in well let sit for half hour. Then circulate water with garden hose in to well till you smell chlorine. Then go inside do something to every place you can get water. Let sit 24 hours. Run garden hose till you can't smell chlorine. Do same thing inside. If you want to help septic tank heat water to110 degrees take half cup of yeast add to hot water. Let set for 15 minutes then flush down toilet. Everything he said is true we did it a little different.

Got my water test results back today. Negative for e-coli but positive for coliform. We've had a ton of rain the last month. I'm surrounded by pasture land. Going to shock my well tomorrow just like you did. Many thanks.

If you have PEX tubing for your water lines inside your house, turn off your water heater and let it cool before chlorinating your well. They say PEX tubing will last 50 years, but exposure to hot, heavily chlorinated water can damage the tubing and may significantly shorten the life of the tubing. I haven't experienced or seen this, just something I read about using PEX tubing.

Interesting. I appreciate folks like you who make these videos. I had mine shocked just because we never knew when it was last done thanks to not being the original owner. Turns out our water was already fine (pulled a sample for testing pre-treatment), but I wanted to do it so we knew. I wasn't quite clear on how to flush it all out afterwards though.

What about the affect the bleach could have on the pressure tank bladder - which is made of rubber?

Next life l'll marry you

Thanks , Great info ! I am also having the same problem in W. Colorado at my survival training tipi camp , 7,000 ft. in canyon .No cattle, no homes near , well 7--9 yrs old , seldom use water. Only for firec safety. Students bring bottled water. ( probably the problem. I should max flush a couple times a yr. no doubt. ) There are no openings in my system for critters, etc. My hand pump gives me crystal clear, but Lab says it is NOT. The elec pump gives me red , rusty water. I have been max flushing well 24 hrs a day ! I will try your idea. Thanks! Mtn Mel , Ret USN SERE/VN.

Thank you so much for taking the time to make such a detailed video, this really helps a lot! Many blessings 🙏🏽

Great video. I would recommend adding the water to the bucket before the bleach so if it splashes up it's diluted

Septic tank question can you add a chemical like ridex back into your tank?

You might want to check out dechlorinators instead of draining your toilet tanks. They sell them to aquarium and pond owners. A few drops in your tank is all it would take. I use a cap full to dechlorinate a 55 gallon garbage can full of water for my backyard nature pond. Supposedly just letting the water sit for a day or two will cause the chlorine to evaporate, but that pertains to normal chlorinated tap water and I am not sure how effective that would be for the high concentration you use. Your charcoal filter also does the job. I hear that pool chlorine (12%) is better due to lack of additives used in laundry bleach. There's more in that stuff than just scent. A friend of mine has a pool cleaning business and he told me that years ago which made me want to comment just to share that tidbit. It might be more expensive, but you are fastidious in your work and it seems to be something you would want to investigate. Love your channel by the way. I am always happy to see new content from you. You have a nice presentation style that is very appealing to regular guys who just want to learn something in a relaxing and informal manner. Stormy Sounds is right about your potential, but YT is full of click bait which makes it hard to compete. I would love for you to take us on a tour of your property and share your long term plans. I find it very interesting. I also like hearing about and learning from your past experience in the tool trade. Your drill sharpening video was fantastic. It is great to learn from a person with years of experience in any field. Thank you for your hard work!

Thank you for sharing how to do this. I'm reviving a well and this info is very helpful.

That was a great video. I have to do this to my well and now I am confident that I can do this correctly! Thank you!

We have a well that feeds our spigots outside. Been dealing with a lot of iron bacteria sludge since our new pump was installed and this video has been tremendously helpful.

Where do you buy the test kits? Also where do you check your water from the sink or from the well opening?

Fantastic, factual presentation. Easy to follow. I have had wells and treated them myself for over 50 years. This is the most complete and factual presentation I have seen. Great job.

I did this to my well that smelled like rotten eggs...amazing transformation back to great water. thank you!

Here in 2022. I am also on well water (and septic tank) for 35 years now & I have never heard of shocking wells before. I live in the Willamette Valley here in Oregon (Pacific Northwest). We don't have animal farmlands nearby, they are probably at least a couple miles away, probably even more like 5 or 10. Our water also has iron bacteria but probably not coliform. We use the well water only for washing dishes, hands & showers. We stopped using it for laundry maybe 2 decades ago, but I may restart that although only use it once a month on average for the laundry. However, for potable drinking & cooking, we buy bottled water & also bring in ~10 gallons or so of city tap water in empty gallon jugs every other week from our second home at another town an hour away to this home with well water. We have not tested our water in decades & we have never had whole-house filtration (we used to have one faucet filter long ago) & our water softener broke 2 decades ago, so yeah we have been using straight unfiltered well water for that long. It's been ok, we haven't gotten sick, we're trying to save money, but it does stain the toilets & stuff, but I clean the toilets & the faucet grills every once in a while. Anyway this is nice new information for me & it makes me wonder if this is necessary or unnecessary in my scenario/situation. I am planning to get a whole-house spin-down filter trap to catch sediment/sand which we also see that in our water, so that at least that does not bog down the septic tank of accumulated sand over time, which again now has been 35 years, so I have to wonder what the potential dwindling of space volume that our septic is at now due to sand, which hopefully is still ok too.

Hi Pete Ash here from Queensland Australia. This is No. 100 of your RU-vid Videos. I have been watching all of them from the beginning. Keep up the good work 👍

I'm in Florida and I have well water and I've been reading and studying and watching videos how to disinfect my well I called up a couple of well companies that specialize in well water and they want $300 to come out and disinfect my will... Well well I went to the grocery store I bought some Clarox went to the pool store And bought some shock I'm doing it myself.... After everything that I did and follow the instructions on the video my water is beautiful smells great looks great all is good I will be doing this once a year you bet you're sweet as I will you'll take care now and listen to this man he knows what hes talking about.. God-bless and happy drinking well water again

Wow. In Texas your pressure tank can be outside. Guess I've been living in the north country too long.

Your presentation and procedure are exactly how it should be done. Really excellent video, excellent presentation. Refreshing to see an internet video with correct worthwhile information. I treated water for thirty years in that time I seen all kinds of wrong ways to treat water. Thanks!

Best video explanation I've seen on this. First time using well water and its been 5 months of combating the iron bacteria after a really bad Florida flood. This video saved our butt! Thank you

Nice job with the wireless microphone so the audio is excellent. Also great job with the info.

Great information and detailed procedure! My only question is: Now that we have meticulously and painstakingly sterilized and sanitized our entire well water system from end to end, exactly why are we re-installing scanky, old, contaminated used water filters back into our system?

Excellent video. More totally complete than I have seen it before. We have been doing ours for many years and are also on a septic system so that was good information others may not think of. Excellent! TY

And after about fourth or fifth spigot your nose is saturated with bleach, all the spigots smell like bleach, regardless of if there is bleach in the water :)

Thank you for the great info. + Question: I have purchased a house cross country. I won't be able to move in for a year. Should I do this when I visit or should I just wait till next year. Granted I will only visit once till I move next year. Hope this makes sense and any advice would be appreciated. 👍

Should this still be performed every year if water is filtered through a UV light?

Thank you sir.

Thanks so much. Just got a new property and put in a well. Had it tested and it was contaminated. Now I can do the job myself.

Thank you so much for this wonderful video! I’ve been dealing with sulfur for 5 years. I’m going to follow your instructions, which were very clear. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Use tablets instead of liquid, it sinks down further into the well, liquid just sits on top. In fact, even better than tablets there is stuff you can buy online that is a powder to put down there.

Im impressed with your water pressure. You must have a good pump huh?

Some recommend mixing the bleach with white vinegar to control the pH for optimal cleaning. What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks Pete! The video was VERY helpful. And no b.s. either.

from where I'm setting, you are missing a lot of well casing with the bleach mixture and it is not getting sanitized..JMO

we just put 2 gallons in our well every spring. just dump it down why dilute it. run it until you can smell it go to bed and the next day let it run for 15 minutes and go on with our life. and just dont drink it for about a week.

When you're running the inside faucets, etc. when the bleach is in the lines, how do you prevent that water from going into your septic?

Amazing these people disinfect the well but never the distribution system.

Thanks I just did this a week ago and used more shock than I needed. Such a pain in the ass. Your video is great so thanks again.

Thank you for that side note about bleach and septic tanks. Had no clue

Great video, very informative. Keep up the good work!

Anything special to do for electric water heater?

My well has a pump, and a person can climb down into the well, like 7 or 8 feet. Is it okay to just dump a few gallons of bleach water right into the well housing?

How far away from your well are the surrounding properties with livestock? We have a couple of small cattle ranchers about 3000' feet east of our well and nothing but a national park north and west and forest south of us. Npt sure if that puts us in the clear from contamination.

My well is close to 100 years old. There are no records of who dug it, it’s depth or anything.

Hi thank you so much for your video do i have to bypass the bladder tank for this ??

thanks for sharing I'm going to try it this way.

Great information I did not have an idea about water wheal but I will do that on my property on my cabin thanks .

Won't the bleach kill the grass? How often you do this?

👍👍😊😊

I definitely learned something in this video. Thanks for sharing.

No professionals seem to be that precise. Its always either one gallon or two.............

It's been a bit of time since the video was made but thankyou for the information.

Life saver, English isn’t my first language and I understood so “well”😊 ready to disinfect my water as a pro. Thanks for your time.

I own a house I bought a few years ago, it was built in 1994. As far as k know the previous owner never shocked the well. I'm getting the water tested this week and I might have to do this. We are in central BC Canada and my well head is a 6 inch metal pipe with a lid bolted on, not sure how deep it is. But will probably need a lot of bleach.

Wow! Thank you for this great video Pete!! Just had well deepened and tested positive for Coliform. Will be using your method. Getting tired already 😀

Should mention unscented bleach at beginning alot of people dont watch whole video but great info

I forgot to put the hose in there to recirculate the water. Is that really going to mess things up by not doing that?

Thank you so much for this video I needed it

My well is 200’ but they said the water level was 130’. Does that mean it’s 130’ down before I hit water or there’s a column of water that’s 130’ high? 70’ from the surface? Thanks for any advice

According to the pros I had come out today, you are using way too much bleach. They only used 1 cup of bleach for my system (in TX, 4" pipe, 220ft well). I asked why not use a couple gallons and they said if you use that much, it will keep coming back. If you use just a little, it somehow prevents the smell from coming back almost indefinitely. Who knows....?? Just figured I would share. They just finished so if I think about it, I will jump back on and comment on results several months from now.

Thank you for the video very informative walkthrough

I have coliform. They are flushing it today.

Thank you so much for showing me how to do this step by step! Thanks to your video I feel a lot more comfortable with having to do this myself.

Could this be done to a shallow well about 30ft deep? 3" casing. Just circulate the well without sending it into the house? Do I let it sit for 24hrs before I begin to flush the well?

Dont attempt unless you watch whole video

Just re-watching your video to refresh my mind for another treatment. Again, thank you fellow Texan; you have done a great job explaining the procedure clearly. Well done.

Bleach in water softner???? You destroy the resin!!!!! But all you told us you have right!!!

how do you chlorinate?

Great video, THANK YOU!!! I am a new home-owner in michigan, new to well water so this is great info. My wife been freaking out about this kind of stuff.

What about 'testing the water for bacteria' after doing this, isn't that the only way to make sure all bacteria and E coli is killed? Heres what happened to me, after we had some flooding in my area where the river water got over my well....*** last week a company came & disinfected my well at a cost of $350 which included water testing by a different company, sadly to say the test came back positive for a bacteria I can't spell & E coli, so he wants to come back tomorrow to disinfect the well agin, at another cost. I let the solution sits for 24 hrs, he didn't do exactly what you did, but let water run down the drain inside, he didn't bother doing the furtherest spit cot from the house..... I am going out to buy a new garden hose because my old 2 yr. old hose was used, and he used some type of powered chemical, not liquid bleach. Which back in 2008 there was flooding, & back then the ppl used 2 gallons of liquid bleach & the water tested normal, but not this time.

very informative. I appreciate the measured pace of explanation. I don't process as quickly as I used to.

What about the reverse osmosis line?

We are almost ready to close on our new home and it has a well. Water smells like sulfur. Will shocking it get rid of that?

I'm glad to see you rinsed the casing after bleaching. Bleach will rust out casing and if you have a pitless adapter, good luck getting it apart in 10 years. Great video.

Thank you best explanation out of all the videos!

Great video...well done

Also from all the videos I watched this said you shouldn't allow chlorine it to get into your water softener container because it can damage the components. And I would just shut the water lines off to my toilets to keep chlorinated water from going in there in the first place and that's why they say have jugs of water for flushing.

Just shut the valve off to the toilet in the first place so the chlorinated water doesn't go in there. And if you need to use it that's why you have water and big jugs like my empty cat litter jugs.

Outstanding. 2x a year? I guess I'm one with the junk in water. 20+ yrs and didn't do once. Our water is clear and good but yes black iron bacteria in toilet tanks. What can I say? Seems though, the real bacteria is in d.c.

You’re so great!

Great video, best info I have watched on this subject .... Thank you!

Really appreciate all the care and info you put into this video! I'm not sure what's going on with my well yet, just want to be prepared and glad I came across your video. My water was left off for about a month and lines drained (living elsewhere and winterized the lines to not freeze). Now the water gets a weird webby looking growth in it when left to stand over night in the sink. I'll be taking a sample to get tested, and don't really know if I'll be able to get this process done if I need to, but need to do something!... Freezing temps don't make it nice. Any recommendations? Thanks again!

Sounds really disgusting

Great video

I live in northern Washington state. We are on a well newly drilled within the last 3 years. Our well is roughy 480ft deep. How much chlorine/bleach should I use to shock my well?

Hi all, I have a new well and the water is slightly salted. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks

I don't bother because I and my animals don't drink my water. I am thinking about doing this but I'm a little freaked out about the wildlife in my yard , honey bees that seem to live in my shed wall , which would be flooded , frogs and things and my septic tank. I also buried my cat last year and Dog 6 ft from my well who are secure in boxes but we're injected with uthinasa. I had to burry my dog in February and that was the only place I could by the side of my house near the well because the ground was not completely frozen. I now worry that it could pollute my well. Apparently the uthinasa they inject in them is toxic for over a year. Not good, just a heads up for others who have to burry a dead pet, make sure they are in a good box and deep down so any wildlife can't dig them up or else they will be poisoned.And probably not good to burry them beside your well...lol

What if you have a underground storage tank with the well which is what I have. Is it the came process? Or do I have to put bleach in storage tank as well. I think it's a 2000 gal tank and my well is 500 feet deep. Thanks

I believe I'll do something a bit different. ie put a drain pipe with a shut off just before the septic tank. Allow all the bleach water to flow out there until it's clean. I'm old and carrying all those 5 gallon buckets around seems a bit much. Think Jandy diverter valve.

How did people live off their wells before we had bleach? Did they ALWAYS have to boil?

Hi all, I have a new well and the water is slightly salted. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks

My concern that it turns commode light orange n dark orange in some places. I sits in white plastic bowl overnight turns bowl iron orange

Good job we are having to get a UV system because of our cattle 💩

I myself I would use brass ,stainless steel or plastic no copper black pipe or galvanized

If you did get Bleach into your Septic Tank,? How do I correct the Septic tank again, After the bleach killed of the Bacteria that was in the Septic tank,? is there any way to rejuvinate the Septic etc.?

GOOD