Came home from a weekend of camping and now all of the water in our house is colored black. It is water from a well, another house beside it uses the same well, which is her brothers, and his water is also black. Anyone ever had this problem, if so what could it be and how to fix? Thanks

8/16/2009 7:43:16 PM

BigBlueRam knows a lot about plumbing

my guess, and i have no idea, but if you have a water conditioner that uses some kind of a charcoal system maybe something is broken? i know that in pool water black staining and coloration is usually from manganese, but i don't know why that would pop up all the sudden in your house.

8/16/2009 7:50:43 PM

check that^ and let it run a lot, put a hose on an out side spigot and let it got for a long while. more than likely its a mineral deposit broken loose. dont let it run through the faucets inside too long trying to flush it, you could over do it on the septic system. when the hose is running clear then flush the house, you may want to take the strainers off the faucets to get any little particles out. dont forget to run the washer to flush it.

8/16/2009 8:27:33 PM

If both of your houses are doing it, then it does some like an issue with the well.

According to the EPA website, you're supposed to call your local health dept. in case of contamination. This may not be contamination, but they might could point you in the right direction: http://www.ncalhd.org/county.htm

8/16/2009 9:58:30 PM

go get a water test kit, and dump a gallon of bleach down the well, then run the outside hose on both homes for a day or so
then dump another and run every faucet inside for a few hours to finish the flush
drain and fill the hot water heater as well

8/16/2009 10:04:34 PM

potassium permanganate in your water conditioner perhaps? do you have a faucet at the well to see if it's coming out of the well that color?

8/16/2009 10:15:47 PM

a gallon of bleach wont do anything, the household kind is way too dilute.

8/16/2009 10:16:16 PM

http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/faq/emerg.html

Quote :

" If you can't boil water, you can disinfect it using household bleach. Bleach will kill some, but not all, types of disease-causing organisms that may be in the water. If the water is cloudy, filter it through clean cloths or allow it to settle, and draw off the clear water for disinfection. Add 1/8 teaspoon (or 8 drops) of regular, unscented, liquid household bleach for each gallon of water, stir it well and let it stand for 30 minutes before you use it. Store disinfected water in clean containers with covers."

^ oh really? so i guess my use of it in the past, as well as ozone or iodine based purifiers with river water, have all be just a placebo to make us feel better?

8/16/2009 10:19:48 PM

yeah really, the epa publication you are quoting is referring to water that is in a container, not a well. disinfecting a well involves some math to make sure the dosing is of sufficent strength to do any good. Im still voting for a mineral deposit or some old ass piping with crud breaking loose.


here is how to disinfect a well:
http://www.ncwelldriller.org/documents/DisinfectaWaterWell_rev2007-6.pdf

8/16/2009 10:26:54 PM

1) do you know what type of well it is?
2) how old is the well?

you are pulling in shitty water from a different formation that the well wasn't drilled into is my first guess.

or there could be something wrong with the pump.

don't put bleach in your well.

8/16/2009 10:31:39 PM

^^^couple problems there chief, first a gallon of bleach is only going to treat a little over 6000 gallons of water. second, I doubt bleach is going to remove this sort of discoloration. third, your link tells you to mix the bleach in well; how do you propose tdiddy does this?

[Edited on August 16, 2009 at 10:33 PM. Reason : .]

8/16/2009 10:32:43 PM

The goal is to pull bleach up into your pump, either a submersible pump or a typical 'please prime me' above ground jet pump, and to allow the chlorine heavy water to flush your pipes. It helps if you DO have some sort of crap in your pipes beyond typical mineral deposits.

8/16/2009 10:38:13 PM

i will preface this again by saying that my knowledge is limited to pool systems, but sodium hypochlorite (bleach) would probably cause minerals to precipitate out and i doubt you want that happening in your plumbing. they make other oxidizers that aren't as alkaline that would be much better for disinfecting plumbing in the presence of metals or minerals.

8/16/2009 11:03:09 PM

8/16/2009 11:06:22 PM

/me grew up on a house with a well, and has bleached it twice, once after water developed a smell, and another time after the line got broken underground allowing ground water that was contaminated to siphon back into the well with organic material in it.

This is a deep well, with submersible pump, that was drilled in the mid 70's and still gives clean water, just VERY iron heavy.

You can either use blaech, for mild issues, or make a professional mixed chlorine slurry, and use it to remove bacterial issues in a well. Once again, this is IF a WATER TEST KIT says its bacterial not just sediment

Run a pot full, does the black settle out of the water?

8/16/2009 11:15:16 PM

I dumped some old motor oil in there while you were gone.
My bad.

8/17/2009 12:49:07 AM