Causes of pollution, cleaning and restoration of drinking water wells. Types of their repair with an indication of typical defects. Step-by-step technology of work for concrete, brick and wooden structures. Cleaning and repairing wells are activities aimed at improving the quality of drinking water in household plots. You will learn how to take care of krinitsa if you read this article to the end.
Reasons for contamination of wells
A well-made well does not freeze and provides its owners with drinking water all year round. Regular maintenance of this structure can significantly extend its life. The purpose of such work is to eliminate the causes that contribute to the possible pollution of water entering the krynitsa from the aquifer of the soil.
There are several reasons for this. The water in the tank can become cloudy due to deposits on the walls or sediment on the bottom. Such contamination can consist of mineral particles, dust or debris entering the well from the outside.
All this is a favorable environment for the emergence and development of various bacteria in a humid environment. Accumulating in a well, they form a slimy sludge with an unpleasant odor in it.
If leaves from trees fall into the source of drinking water, their decomposition leads to a deterioration in its quality. The same applies to animals killed in the well.
As the structure ages, the integrity of its walls may be compromised. Wooden logs rot, and over time, cracks appear in the brick or concrete enclosing walls of the well, through which dirty water from the soil surface, clay and chemicals penetrate into its shaft.
With the accumulation of a thick layer of silt at the bottom of the bottom, the quality of drinking water becomes worse, and its quantity decreases. The source becomes shallow and requires urgent measures for cleaning and even repairing.
Features of cleaning the well
This procedure is a preventive measure that allows you to keep the water in the well clean and fresh. Its frequency is once every two or three years.
To clean the well with your own hands, you must do the following:
- Pump out all the water from the krynitsa. A powerful pump will help with this. If it is not there, you will have to drain the well using buckets - in the old fashioned way.
- Clean the walls of the tank shaft from the inside of slime, moss and other formations. To do this, you need to go down into the well and work with metal brushes in it. Firms that specialize in such events have in their arsenal Karcher devices that allow you to wash away any pollution with a water jet. This method is much more efficient than the manual one.
- Clear the bottom of the well from silt. This can be done using ordinary buckets and a gate attached to the top of the structure. In this case, buckets should be filled with bottom sediments and fed alternately with the collar upward. Another option is to use a submersible pump "Kid" or "Trickle" for cleaning. Both of them have a bottom fluid intake and do their job admirably.
- Clean the bottom filter. This is a layer of coarse crushed stone, which over time also becomes covered with deposits and ceases to perform its functions. To restore them, the stones must be cleaned, washed and put in place, or the filter must be replaced completely.
- Disinfect the well. This procedure is only necessary in the event of the death of a living creature in the well and the associated risk of contamination of drinking water.
Bleach should be used for disinfection when cleaning drinking wells. At the first stage of work, it is necessary to wipe it with a solution of the walls of the well from the inside. To prepare such a solution for 10-20 mg of lime, you need to take 1 liter of water.
After that, you need to wait until the pot is filled with water on its own, and add another solution to it in the proportion of 200 mg of lime / 1 liter of water. Using a pole, the water in the well, diluted with chlorine solution, must be mixed well, and after 10-12 hours, pour the next portion of the disinfectant into it.
After a few hours, all the water from the mine should be pumped out and continue to do this until the chlorine smell disappears from it. However, in any case, after disinfection, the water from the well will have to be boiled for a week before use.
Types of well repair
Well cleaning and repair are two procedures that are inextricably linked. After the repair, cleaning must be followed, and after it, problem areas of the structure are almost always identified, in which repairs are needed.
Conditionally, work on bringing the krynitsa in good condition is divided into two types: scheduled maintenance and unscheduled repairs. Activities of the first type are carried out periodically, as well as cleaning. Their task is to timely identify and eliminate minor structural defects in order to maintain the required water quality in the well. It should be noted that for the most part, major accidents do not just happen. They are always preceded by various minor malfunctions, which together cause serious breakdowns.
Scheduled maintenance of a well includes:
- Cleaning the walls of the mine from dirt and build-up;
- Sludge removal or replacement of the crushed stone filter;
- Disinfection of the inner surface;
- Pumping stagnant or contaminated water after repairs;
- Sealing small cracks in the brick or concrete walls of the mine.
The unscheduled repair of the well includes the elimination of major defects that could result from mechanical impacts on the structure, violations during its operation or builders' mistakes.
Such repairs include:
- Alignment of concrete rings when they are displaced;
- Fastening adjacent shaft rings to each other;
- Replacement of the head of the well with damaged rings in it;
- Deepening the mine with a sharp decrease in the water level in it.
When creating a water supply system for a house or a sewerage device, wells, consisting of plastic or concrete rings, are most often used. In the first case, the mines usually do not need to be repaired, since they have a solid monolithic shaft resistant to any impact. Concrete walls are also used in both engineering systems. And since their malfunctions are often similar, repairing concrete ring wells for drinking water is almost identical to restoring a structure for a sewer.
Renovation of a concrete shaft of a well
The most common defects in concrete structures are displacement of rings, leakage of gaps between them, the presence of cracks and a decrease in the water level. Let's take a closer look at how to fix these problems.
Crack sealing
Cracks in the walls of the well can appear as a result of seasonal ground movements. Elimination of small cracks can easily be performed by any home craftsman who is familiar with the rules of safe work inside a confined space.
From the materials, a cement mortar is required with the addition of a small amount of polyvinyl chloride glue. Alternatively, you can use a store-bought sealant mix, but it will cost more than a regular grout. Before work, you also need to prepare a spatula, hammer and brush with metal bristles.
Before sealing, it is recommended to tap the detected crack with a hammer, removing the exfoliated old putty from it. After that, the problem area should be cleaned, dust removed from the crack and filled with mortar to its full depth.
A large crack, due to which soil particles and dirty water from its surface can penetrate into the mine, must be repaired from the outside of the well. This is a more time consuming procedure. After all, for this, it will be necessary to free the outer part of the mine from the side of the problem area to the required depth from the soil, clean and seal the gap, and then coat the repair site with bitumen, ensuring its waterproofing.
When the repair of the well ring is completed, the excavated recess should be covered with earth and everything should be tamped thoroughly.
Eliminate ring misalignment
The most common reason for the displacement of the concrete rings of the well shaft is the lack of fastening to each other. Ground movements aggravate the situation, especially in those cases when a sand-crushed stone pad was not made outside the walls of the structure.
In such cases, repairing the well is quite complicated and requires partial dismantling of its shaft. Starting at the point of displacement, all rings should be removed and then reinstalled in the correct position. After that, they need to be connected with metal staples.
Outside, it is recommended to overlay the mine with a layer of coarse gravel, which will reduce the pressure on it from the side of the soil. All gaps between the rings should be repaired using the method from the previous section.
Deepening the well
Due to erroneous calculations of the depth of the source or for a number of other reasons, the required water level in it may drop sharply or completely disappear. If this happens, repair work will be required associated with the deepening of the mine. To carry them out, you will need special repair rings. Moreover, their outer diameter should be slightly less than the inner size of the rings installed in an already existing source.
The repair rings must be alternately lowered into the shaft on top of each other, performing its deepening according to the technology of the original construction of the well. Under their own weight, the products will sink to a predetermined depth.
When deepening the mine, you should not use already mounted rings for this purpose. This will probably not work, since over time, the material is tightly compressed from all sides by the soil due to seasonal movements. And if you try to lower the old products by force, this will inevitably lead to serious damage to the mine. As a result, it will require partial disassembly and complex repairs with additional costs.
Sometimes cleaning and repairing wells with your own hands can be very laborious, especially in cases where there is a lot of damage. Plastic rings help to facilitate this work. As in the previous version, their diameter should be slightly less than the width of the well.
Plastic rings are installed inside the shaft and connected at the joints by bar welding. The resulting sleeve will reliably isolate the concrete walls of the well from water. The free cavity between plastic and concrete is filled with a cement mixture. In this way, even the oldest wells, including brick and wood structures, can be renovated independently and at low cost. The main thing here is to choose plastic elements of the required diameter.
Reconstruction of wooden and brick wells
It is difficult to repair a wooden well. To begin with, you need to make equipment for lowering the well into the shaft and working in it. It is a system consisting of supports, platforms and cables. The supports are attached above the krynitsa, and to them - a platform with cables, thereby receiving a kind of elevator.
Gradually descending into the mine, you need to clean the well and find its damaged areas. Those elements of the log house that are cracked or rotted should be replaced. To do this, you need to install spacers on problem areas of the walls, then select new elements in size, insert them, replacing defective logs, and carefully wedge them. The wedges should sit tightly, closing the gaps between the elements of the frame and protecting against the penetration of contaminants into the well from the ground.
It is much easier to repair a brick structure. After cleaning its walls and identifying defective areas, the crumbled brick should be removed, and the new one should be laid on cement mortar.
Before starting the repair of any well, it is necessary to study the recommendations of professionals and, most importantly, the safety instructions, which indicate that the contractor must have protective equipment and safety equipment, and also contains some rules for the composition and use of building material in conditions of limited space. How to clean a well - watch the video:
Timely maintenance of the well and its competently carried out repairs are a guarantee of the flawless operation of the source, which will delight the inhabitants of the house for a long time with invariably tasty and clean water.
