Well point clogged?

[Onion69420]

So I'm on a shallow jet well, it's not uncommon in my neighborhood, however, most people are now on city water.
Water pressure has never been great in the 11 years I've owned the home but this summer it's gotten worse.
The filling time on the tank is slow, if I run the hose I get 30 seconds of pressure then it will drop down to the point of a trickle and I have to turn the water off for a minute until the pressure comes up.
If I run the shower I cant run a sink or a dishwasher.
Last year the pump took a dive so I replaced that and the holding tank.
My neighbor says the well point has probably gotten clogged.
The problem is that my city will not allow for a new well nor will they allow any underground work on an existing well. Its crap. I dont wanna pay 10k to hook up to city water and then also pay the water bill.
Is there anyway to clean the point from above ground? Please dont advise shotting a .22 down the well shaft...even though I did do this in an old trailer I own up north with some sucsess.
Thanks

 

[Onion69420]

As a reference, if I run the tap on the laundry tub my pressure drops from 50psi and will hold at 10psi never going higher until I turn the sink off

 

[bud16415]

Assuming everything after the well is working properly it sounds like you are getting water steady just not in the volume you require. Given you are not allowed to work on the well and establish more flow about the only thing you can do is put in some storage. Add a tank that can fill slowly when you are not using water and will allow you to pump from it in high volume.

We did this at my sisters cottage as her water supply is a artesian well that pretty much is about 2 PSI. It would take 20 minutes to fill the toilet and forever to wash the dishes let alone take a shower. A 200 gallon tank did the trick now she has 50PSI when she needs it and when she doing the rest of her life the tank refills.

 

[Jeff Handy]

Can you rig up a long metal rod to try to poke down around the bottom of the well?

You could then add a brush or something on the end, and spin the rod with a drill or a crank handle.

Just a goofy idea.

 

[bud16415]

When we built my nephews house there were two wells on the property old home burned down. A modern well 6” casing and 80’ deep and an old dug well about 12’ deep with a dead critter floating in it. We cleaned out the critter and picked the modern well to supply the house. It worked ok for a couple years and started running slow, so he ran a pipe from the old well to the new one about 400’ slightly down hill and when he would run out he was filling the new well from the old. He noticed that when he filled that 80’ pipe to the top it seemed to back flush the clay that was clogging the well and it would run good for a month or two. Now he has an above ground pool 4’ x 30’ out by the old well and that old dug well has no problem filling it so we clearly picked the wrong well. In the fall he drains and takes down the pool so he has been draining the pool into the pipe to the new well and sets it to drain such that he keeps that 80’ pipe full. Now that he is doing that the new well works perfect year round.



So there is something to back flushing if you can get some head pressure going.

As a side note they drink bottled water that comes in the 5 gallon jugs. It would be kind of expensive to switch wells at this point. I keep telling him he needs to build a well house over the old well but it still has this old wooden cover from 100 years ago. The pipe from the old well to the new one is above ground and the pump he uses there is like a swimming pool pump low pressure the other well has a high pressure submerged pump.

 

[bud16415]

There is always the dry ice method.

 

[Jeff Handy]

Safety First! Haha!

 

[oldognewtrick]

There is always the dry ice method.

What could possibly go wrong doing this?

 

[tomtheelder2020]

Iron-oxidizing bacteria are a very likely source of the problem. Your state agency that regulates wells almost certainly has info. Treatments like dry ice kill the bacteria - but they will come back. Local well drillers almost certainly know about treatments. Finding a driller through recommendations of satisfied customers is a must. Fixes can be expensive, as well as temporary, so be sure you find someone you can trust.

 

[Jeff Handy]

I am wondering why a boatload of dry ice would not shatter the black poly water line that usually is down there.

From thermal shock.

 

[tomtheelder2020]

Jeff Handy, I don't know if it would freeze fast enough to fracture. Does plastic experience significant thermal expansion/Contraction? Wells in hard rock might not have any casing below overburden and older wells would have steel casing.

 

[Jeff Handy]

Just wondering about the water line not the casing.

I watched that goofy video of the chuckleheads dumping in the dry ice, so it must be a real procedure, no matter how dumb they performed it.

 

[Jeff Handy]

I guess you have to pull the pump and water line first anyway.