How do you purge a well?

Question

I have well water at my home and I was told I should purge it every couple of years. How do I do it?

Answer 1

Purging means- Removal of a sufficient quantity of water from the well to ensure that all the stagnant water will be removed.

"Well Purging - High Flow

The universal goal of well purging, according to the literature, is to provide representative samples of formation waters, while at the same time, creating as little disturbance to the groundwater flow regime. In all cases found in the literature, the most common reason for purging is to "refresh" the "stagnant" bore water volume. In general, one well bore volume is described as the volume of water standing in the well casing above the screened interval. Recommended purge volumes found in the literature range from one (1) to twenty (20) bore volumes, depending on which contaminant or suite of contaminants is present.

Well Purging - Low Flow

Low-flow purging removes considerably less water from the well, disturbs the surrounding geology only minimally, and has been well documented over the past four or five years. The method provides for the slow insertion of a pump so that its inlet is placed in the screened interval of the well at the point where sampling is desired.

The No-Purge Scenario

The elimination of the practice of well purging combined with DPIS sampling can effectively reduce the overall costs of sampling while increasing the quality and reliability of the data acquired. Reliable and cost-effective sampling devices are now available to enable discrete point-interval groundwater sampling. Discrete point-interval samplers must be flexible in design to be consistent with future trends in contaminant monitoring."

I 'tweaked' these paragraphs considerably to keep them semi-shorts but sweet. Bottom line, your water needs to be tested for bacteria and/or metals and the water in the ground feeding your well. You might need to purge if you are required to treat the water with chlorine or acid, or, as stated above, to reduce the possibility of stagnation.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

Answer 2

You would purge a well by pumping the well to waste, or to the ground instead of into your house. I do not agree that wells need to be purged every couple of years. It should only be done if you have a contamination problem. Excessive purging could cause the well to bring in more fines and clog the pump.

Answer 3

I would think purging is simply running the water through the well pump for a sustaind period of time sufficient to achieve whatever goal it is that purging is supposed to achieve. To me the bigger mystery is why if you are regularly using it would you purge it? Is the well qwater good quality or is it laden with particulates? If there are particulates then purging would only serve to scour the piping. Anyway purging is simply rinning the well pump at max flow for a period of time.

Hope this helps - if you can find out the objective of the purging then perhaps more light will be shed...

Answer 4

I would only pump out all the water if it tasted funny or something and then you could get water treatment and put it in the well, this would help for a while, right now it's so dry I think I would wait till a rainy season starts so I wouldn't run out of water! you might try putting in a water filter if your water is cloudy or muddy............I don't know why you need to purge your well!.......... Good Luck!

Answer 5

I wouldn't mess around with this if I were you. This is a job for a well professional. He'll come in and run a line down the well and clean it and, pump it out, then he'll sanitize it.
There isn't anything you can really do except screw it up. It's going to be to deep, you don't have the tools or the materials and, you don't have the expertise.