Thread: Stinking water

We've got a well, concrete rings etc. Seems to be pretty deep. Blue pipe and a pump feeds the house. Plenty of water but over the last couple of weeks it's begun to smell then stink. I've also gone down with a pretty bad dose of gastro.
What to do?
Do you / should you clean wells?
Any suggestions appreciated.

Pump the water into a surface settling tank and fit an efficient filter / purification /chlorination unit on the domestic supply line ( Homepro!)
Sounds to me like your supply is well ( no pun intended!)in excess to your demands and the water is going stagnant.

It helps if you put an airation line in the settling tank (like a big aquarium airbrick)
to help the little bugs eat each other !

Drilled water wells for 5 years in Africa - if you want detailed help PM me - OK?

You will have to send someone down the well and check it out.
I found two dead birds down the well of my previous house.
Dead snakes can be a problem as well.

Some thais put sulphur blocks into the well to help stop problems

I was thinking something similar, something has got into the well and died

maybe it is time to clean it out, try asking in the village

Thanks folks. We'll investigate. When I get off the dunny
Cheers

If you suspect something dead in the well then beg steal or borrow a high capacity sump pump and drain it completely- do NOT send anybody down before it is empty and then only when you have an air circulation system running !
Easily done with a couple of domestic fans and some polythene sheets/tubing !

Had the same problem but have a deep bore well (120 metres deep).

Absolutely clean water and drinkable for the first 6 months then it turned rancid.

Got my pool guy to run some basic tests on the water and found some nasties there that were originating from the adjoining klong.

Checked with one of the neighbours and they said the council were pumping sewage into the Klong in the middle of the night.

A quick trip to Pattaya council and the problem disappeared.

All of the above seem relevent solutions particularly the fitration system. Be prepared to have it serviced every 6 months though and deeping upon the volume of usage.

Hope you get your guts sorted. Can be nasty.

Wife? No, I'm joking

Thanks for posting the snaps

interesting...so where did the slimy gunge come from, and will it occur again soon?

If in doubt, lower in a caged bird

DD should be able to recommend one

Originally Posted by Happyman

If you suspect something dead in the well then beg steal or borrow a high capacity sump pump and drain it completely- do NOT send anybody down before it is empty and then only when you have an air circulation system running !
Easily done with a couple of domestic fans and some polythene sheets/tubing !

take a bucket put a lit candle in the bucket and lower it down the well if the candle can burn u can breathe

Originally Posted by smeden

Originally Posted by Happyman

If you suspect something dead in the well then beg steal or borrow a high capacity sump pump and drain it completely- do NOT send anybody down before it is empty and then only when you have an air circulation system running !
Easily done with a couple of domestic fans and some polythene sheets/tubing !

take a bucket put a lit candle in the bucket and lower it down the well if the candle can burn u can breathe

Had some fun doing that !!
The smell in the well was one of the "ane"s ( methane or summat) from rotting vegetation down the well - spectacular - a lovely deep BOOM !!!! and the bucket came up like a Polaris missile !
Seriously though, the candle in a bucket is only to be used as a last resort as you can get an oxygen rich atmosphere that also has some deadly "nasties" in it.

A sheet of tarp hung down the well across the diameter as long as you can get - weighted at the bottom - a donestic fan blowing down one side and another on a string lowered down and blowing up on the other side is the best bet .
Only work in the downdraught side !

When you want to work on the other side swop the fans over !

Or you can have drinking water delivered to your house for about 100 baht a week and it is good pure RO water, fuck that drinking anything from out of the ground in this nasty polluted fucking place.

Originally Posted by blackgang

Or you can have drinking water delivered to your house for about 100 baht a week and it is good pure RO water, fuck that drinking anything from out of the ground in this nasty polluted fucking place.

Yeh, we have drinking water delivered. The stuff from the well is for showers etc. I reckon I drank some in the shower or something.

Still all clear now.

The gut that cleaned it reckoned it hadn't been cleaned in 20 years.

Originally Posted by Happyman

Seriously though, the candle in a bucket is only to be used as a last resort as you can get an oxygen rich atmosphere that also has some deadly "nasties" in it.

Correct - for H2S it only takes about 200 parts per million (PPM) to paralyse the olfactory nerves in your nose so you can't smell the gas (rotten eggs), and at 300-400 PPM you will quickly loose consciousness. 1000PPM or more results in immediate loss of consciousness - one breath and you're down. Death usually follows quickly, and so, unfortunately do wanna-be rescuers (see my post above).

It takes more than 40,000 PPM for H2S to catch fire (as in Happyman's post), so there is a pretty wide range between safe level and lower flammability limit.

Your guys were lucky - very lucky.

Originally Posted by Whiteshiva

Originally Posted by Happyman

Seriously though, the candle in a bucket is only to be used as a last resort as you can get an oxygen rich atmosphere that also has some deadly "nasties" in it.

Correct - for H2S it only takes about 200 parts per million (PPM) to paralyse the olfactory nerves in your nose so you can't smell the gas (rotten eggs), and at 300-400 PPM you will quickly loose consciousness. 1000PPM or more results in immediate loss of consciousness - one breath and you're down. Death usually follows quickly, and so, unfortunately do wanna-be rescuers (see my post above).

It takes more than 40,000 PPM for H2S to catch fire (as in Happyman's post), so there is a pretty wide range between safe level and lower flammability limit.

Your guys were lucky - very lucky.

Thanks for the numbers!
From experience I know what can happen but never knew that bit about olfactory nerves.

stop showering in the sewer pit that might help

Originally Posted by Whiteshiva

Originally Posted by Happyman

If you suspect something dead in the well then beg steal or borrow a high capacity sump pump and drain it completely- do NOT send anybody down before it is empty and then only when you have an air circulation system running !
Easily done with a couple of domestic fans and some polythene sheets/tubing !

This is great advice, and could well end up saving lives. H2S/CO2 is heavier than air and can cause an individual to loose consciousness without warning. History keeps repeating itself with people collapsing in confined spaces, others rushing in to help, only to succumb to the same, and so on. I remember a case some years back where they eventually pulled 5 dead bodies out of a ditch, each one trying to save the ones before him.

If in doubt, lower in a caged bird - they have a lower tolerence for these gases than humans do.

An Englishman was digging a well at my neighbor's place. This was in Africa.
He had an engine (running on petrol) on the bottom, for some reason.
He was a professional well digger.
The engine went off and he went down to check it. The gases on the bottom killed him. An African man went down to help him, and died too. Two men dead in half an hour, so sad.

Originally Posted by Wanderinawe

An Englishman was digging a well at my neighbor's place. This was in Africa.
He had an engine (running on petrol) on the bottom, for some reason.
He was a professional well digger.
The engine went off and he went down to check it. The gases on the bottom killed him. An African man went down to help him, and died too. Two men dead in half an hour, so sad.

Carbon monoxide most probably - about as toxic as cyanide gas, and a lot more common.

He didn't sound very professional, though - I mean, you wouldn't run an engine inside a garage even with the door open, not to mention at the bottom of a well.....

I feel for you OP. My water comes from the city, so I don't stank.

However, I did walk into my shower on two separate occasions and found two things: a snake and a wild dog.

Never had that happen back home, but I did find some really weird looking worms in my toilet way back when.

Originally Posted by Told Stool

I feel for you OP. My water comes from the city, so I don't stank.

However, I did walk into my shower on two separate occasions and found two things: a snake and a wild dog.

Never had that happen back home, but I did find some really weird looking worms in my toilet way back when.

Please clarify

1 Before you had a dump?

2 After you had a dump ?

3 After you had flushed ?

If answers to 1 & 3 are Yes- check your water tank.

If answer to 2 is Yes ---SEE A DOCTOR !!!

Originally Posted by Whiteshiva

Originally Posted by Wanderinawe

An Englishman was digging a well at my neighbor's place. This was in Africa.
He had an engine (running on petrol) on the bottom, for some reason.
He was a professional well digger.
The engine went off and he went down to check it. The gases on the bottom killed him. An African man went down to help him, and died too. Two men dead in half an hour, so sad.

Carbon monoxide most probably - about as toxic as cyanide gas, and a lot more common.

He didn't sound very professional, though - I mean, you wouldn't run an engine inside a garage even with the door open, not to mention at the bottom of a well.....

So any idea what he was using the engine for then, if it's not standard practice? At the time I just assumed that's how well diggers operate.