Over time, even the best well needs maintenance – we specialize in maintenance and rehabilitation services to clients. Most water well professionals will tell you that the life of a well is governed by two primary factors:
High Quality Construction (with proper drilling techniques)
Maintenance at regular intervals
Well rehabilitation services are designed to improve water yield from an existing well. Well maintenance can usually extend the life of pumping units and the well itself, increase well yields and decrease total operating costs of the well. Some of the services we perform are:
Pump Installation, Removal and Repair
Liner Installation
Well Rehabilitation
Well Abandonment
Well Development
Water Sampling
Well Patching/ Swedging
Test Pumping
Recommended well cleaning cycles vary based on groundwater conditions and well construction parameters.
In the water well industry, “rehabilitation” is a term used to reflect many different repairs, some of which have no effect on regaining well efficiency. Maintenance is the term generally used when the well repair does not involve pulling the pump, an often lengthy and expensive
process.
We define rehabilitation to be a well cleaning process designed to restore lost production capacity, or solve quality problems, that requires the pump to be pulled. The rehabilitation process will generally involve iterative use of chemical, physical, or thermal treatment, singly or in combination, designed to loosen or dislodge fouling; and, physical surging, scrubbing, and pumping (work-over) to move the dislodged material into the well where it can be removed.
We define maintenance as well cleaning procedures that do not require pulling the pump. Preventative maintenance consist of a program of well cleaning with the pump in place that is conducted at a frequency and level of effectiveness sufficient to greatly reduce, or eliminate, the need for rehabilitation.
The routine operational procedure regarding well fouling and plugging is to wait until the well has experienced a significant problem before performing some type of rehabilitation or maintenance treatment. Often, the amount of deposited material can be very extensive, and complete removal of the deposits can be difficult. Under these conditions, it is difficult to achieve the same pore volume that existed when the well was new. Maintenance is often performed when rehabilitation is required to reduce apparent costs.
Wells experience loss of production capacity, and water quality problems, as a normal process of aging. The causes are normally categorized as physical, mineral and biological. Often, bacteria growing in biofilms can filter minerals from the water as it passes over the surface. Within this biologically accumulated material, fines from the formation (clay, silt, and fine sand) can also become trapped. This trapped or accumulated material increases costs by reducing the efficiency of the hydraulic connection between the well and the aquifer. The power required to pump water grows proportionally to the lost efficiency. If allowed to proceed, well plugging can result in total loss of the well. There is incredible natural variability in water chemistry and aquifer composition, requiring specialized materials and construction techniques to install wells that perform as expected. Wells are significant capital investments that require maintenance to provide the expected value.
If you have a problem with your well or believe that a cleaning is overdue, contact us to find out more about our well maintenance and rehabilitation services.