Plumbers in Big Sandy, Texas

Slime rather than staining

Dissolved iron alone gives you orange staining on fixtures and laundry, and it responds well to conventional treatment. Iron bacteria are different: organisms that use iron and leave a sticky reddish or brown slime behind them, coating the inside of the well casing, the pump, the pressure tank and every pipe downstream.

The tells are consistent. Slime rather than sediment inside a toilet cistern. Filters that block in weeks rather than months. Smells that come and go instead of being constant. Water that clears after running for a while, because the slime is being disturbed and then flushed.

None of it is generally a health emergency, and all of it is a nuisance that gets worse because the slime keeps growing and keeps sheltering whatever is living in it.

Worth separating from a similar complaint: black slime, which is usually a different set of organisms associated with sulphur and shows up as a rotten smell rather than an orange stain. The approach to both is broadly the same, and knowing which you have makes the testing more useful.

Why a filter alone does not fix it

A filter catches what reaches it. When the source of the material is a colony growing inside the well and the pipework, the filter simply loads up and the colony carries on. That is why people go through cartridges at an alarming rate and conclude the water is worse than it is.

The treatment that works is shock chlorination, done properly: a calculated dose of chlorine introduced into the well, circulated so it reaches the casing, the pump, the tank and every line in the house, held for a set period, then flushed out until the residual is gone. Recirculating it back down the well is what distinguishes a real shock from pouring bleach into a hole.

Expect to repeat it. These organisms come back, and on a badly affected system the realistic plan is periodic shocking plus continuous treatment rather than a single cure.

The discharge matters too. Heavily chlorinated water should not be flushed into a septic system, because it damages the biology the tank depends on. Plan somewhere for it to go before starting.

Keeping it away, and how we work

After a shock, the useful measures are the ones that reduce what the organisms live on and where they can settle: continuous disinfection where the problem recurs, keeping the well head sealed so nothing new is introduced, and cleaning or replacing components where the slime is established.

A well head that is cracked, low-lying or unsealed is often how the problem arrived in the first place, and shocking a well without fixing that is a temporary result.

We test, shock properly with circulation, deal with the discharge sensibly, and set up continuing treatment where it is warranted. Big Sandy, Gilmer, Hawkins and Gladewater are all inside our area.