When we had our well put in and they tested the water it came back total coliform positive but ecoli negative. We had to have the well shocked. We’ve been here for 3 1/2 years and havent shocked it since.

Typically when you put in the well or replace the pump you disinfect the well. It's too easy to introduce bacteria to the well during those activities.

Test the water once a year or so to make sure it's still good.

I've heard that shocking is needed if/when a well gets covered / inundated by a flood, sewer overflow, etc. Mine dates to 2004. I bought the house in 2005, never have had it shocked (nor has it been flooded).

Well, I DID just replace the pump :-O So maybe this is something I should do!

The plumber didn't say anything about shocking it, though, and I don't see an easy access. There's a pipe coming out on the right of this picture that I assume is to let air out, but it's a hard pipe that's aimed downward so there's no way to pour anything in.

Glad to see that you got your well up and running, I was the one responding to your other post. If you can't get anything like a bottle of bleach into the well, your only other option is to run the water to flush the well. At this point, you're probably ok as is.

"at this point you're probably okay as is" - or you could have the water tested and know instead of guessing.

I've never heard of shocking a well either. Our first house and our present camp is well water. A lot of people who have wells also have septic systems. Bleach and any antibacterial cleaner kills the bacteria that is beneficial for a healthy septic system and should be used sparingly. I could see some kind of action is needed after a flood, first I would flush and test before adding bleach if you also have a septic system. Then if bleach was added I would flush using the outside spigot so the bleach water in not dumped into the septic system.

Never heard of it. My well is at least 25 years old and it's never been shocked, or tested for that matter. Water is just for outdoor use and irrigation.

Our last house was 4 years old when we bought it. Lived there 29 years. Well pump went out, had it replaced and the well guy "shocked" the well. That was probably 3 years before we sold it.

The home we are in now was built in 1977, still has original well and septic!

When I sold a house the well test came back positive for coliform. I shocked it and it took forever for the water to clear and the chlorine to go away. The water can't be tested if there's residual chlorine. My current house hasn't been shocked since I moved in 10 years ago. I think it depends on what kind of water you have.

So somewhere there's a medium between, "I want my water absolutely pure" and "I haven't done anything to my well in x years."

People have a mistaken idea that well water is "safe" and city water has chemicals.

You don't know what's in your water if it's not regularly tested. At least city water is regularly tested.

Not all well water is safe, like not all public water is safe, that is why you test it periodically. Mostly if the environment around you and the water is refreshed routinely the well water remains safe. Well water is naturally filtered underground and public water usually isn't. But I'm 99.9% sure public water has chemicals in it. My husband worked 30 years for a water authority. The water was tested several times a day from the source, ( which was a open source river water), and during the addition of many chemicals. The water itself changed due to it being an open source and was used by many for pleasure, manufacturing, shipping, towns processed sanitation sewage deemed safe to dump , among other things. . It was just as important to test during the addition of chemicals. The chemicals used can lead to illness or death in the incorrect amounts. I grew up on public water. Our first home after getting married was well water. Ever since then I can't drink public tap water anywhere. I can't get it past my nose. I can't stand the smell of the chemicals and the taste has a lot to be desired.

My tap water is awesome. I really can't tell the difference between bottled spring water and water from my tap.

I've had a well on all my residences since 1973. Never shocked the well but I have known those that have.

Well, not to stray off topic or anything, but... when I was a kid my dad worked for the local wastewater plant, and a lot of the employees there crossed over between there and the water plant.

They all chewed tobacco.

And would regularly spit in the tanks.

Seriously.

I mean, I know it's just river water that's treated, so it has a LOT more "yuck" in it than a relatively microscopic amount of tobacco spit! But still, that's something I'll never forget.

So either way, I'm definitely filtering my water!! LOL

My MIL has municipal water, and it definitely has a chlorine smell to it. It's probably cleaner than my well water because of that, but I would definitely have to filter that smell out!

@functionthenlook

When wells are drilled, and when pumps are pulled and replaced, it's a best practice to chlorinate the well to kill bacteria that has been introduced.

When I was younger it wasn't uncommon to pull the pump and 70' or so of poly pipe and stretch it out through the yard. You needed to get the pipe, and the wires, and nylon pull rope laid out in a straight line so they were the same length. You would secure the wires and rope every so many feet to the poly pipe. When we were done we didn't even think to chlorinate the well.

There was never any thought about bird droppings, dog poop, or anything else that might be in the grass that we dragged the pump and pipe through. It was really stupid in retrospect. The water always tasted great - BTW.

My parents remained on well many years past the time the locality installed sewers. They were in a rural hilly area and a group of houses would have a small grinder/pumping station. Theirs was at the bottom of the hill from their house. For several years that pumping station leaked - unbeknown to everyone. When my mother refinanced the home, the mortgage company insisted on a water test and that great tasting water was contaminated. I shocked it repeatedly and could never fix it... that's when we discovered the leaky pumping station.

In some rural communities the "natural" well water is highly contaminated with agricultural chemicals, including nitrates (from fertilizer and animal waste). Nitrates are an oxygen scavenger and cause "blue baby" syndrome. But the water tasted great and was "natural".

There are other people on here who have posted about dangerous arsenic or heavy metal levels in well water. Some of it was naturally occurring and some was the result of mining or similar activity.

In one of the quaint suburbs of my city there is a cluster of rare pediatric cancers - most likely connected to a groundwater contamination - a plume that traveled way beyond ground zero. I'm sure their water tasted great also.

We don't know what is in the water unless we test it. And any discussion about "natural" anything is nonsense, and generally clouds the picture. We certainly can't make judgements about water based on taste or smell. We are in no position to evaluate the "environment around us". Things change, contamination moves, sewers leak, agricultural chemicals leach - it's not one and done.

Municipal water companies must test and correct for over 90 contaminates including chemical

and microbial contaminates. There is also an unregulated but monitored list. States may enforce more stringent requirements. These standards are evolving as new issues come up.

It's not foolproof, but it's far better than the blissful ignorance that most private wells operate under.

https://www.epa.gov/dwreginfo/drinking-water-regulations

Ooh, ooh, you reminded me of another childhood story...

My parents had a "pump house" that looked a little bigger than a dog house, but it was sealed up and I was never allowed in. I suspect that the hole was considerably larger than the hole in my well, though, because this one time...

We noticed the water smelled kinda funky, but didn't think anything of it. Then the next day it was a little worse. After a few days, my sister was drinking a soda and saw what looked like a black hair frozen in the ice!

Next day my dad went to the pump house to check it out, and discovered a dead and well-decayed skunk in the well :-O

Yeah, I hated the well house - it was a brick walled hole in the ground about 7 feet deep. It was damp, muddy and there were always snakes and things in there with you when you lowered yourself in.

There were some shallow wells in my area also - 20-30 feet... no way those were bio safe. Those are the ones that would get hair in the water from some poor critter. Probably had an un-maintained septic nearby also.

Jake the water tests for wells includes pesticides and heavy metals, along with the other usual tests. Yes, wells can be contaminated, that is why the environment around you is important. Basically what is uphill from you. Our first house and our present camps wells were in the basment and sealed. Grinders are very rare here. If there is sewers the main is run in the valleys and feeder sewers run down the hill to the main sewer line from homes. It is all gravity feed. Spring houses are different than a well. They are old school system to get water.

When we lived in our last house the neighborhood on the next hill had clustered leukemia in children. They had public water. They never did find out the cause of it after testing everything they could and the cluster never happened again.

Chessie, most bottle water is tap water with reverse osmosis used. If you drank well water for years you could tell the difference between tap or bottled water. Some public water is better than others. I drink bottled water at home, but it has to be ice cold. I do use the public water to make ice tea or flavored drinks. By the time it is cold the chlorine has dissipated. When I was in Aruba and St. Maarten their tap water was great.