Biofilm in my water pipes.

Hello, this is my first post. I'll do my profile later. Right now I'm convinced my water is making me sick. It smells like sulfur, and has a bit of fine particles in it.

2 1/2 years ago before I bought this place I had the tap water tested. It passed. My well water has no softeners or filtration, except an under-sink cold faucet line filter. I started getting sick right away, so I added the filter, which seemed to work. Now I get sick 3 times/month. I'm going to try chlorinating the water I draw just for doing the dishes.

My question is about biofilms. I'm assuming all my pipes including the well pump and it's pipes have internal biofilms that metabolize iron, making a sulfur smell, plus other unwanted microbes. I want to disinfect the entire water piping system.

Can I pour enough swimming pool chlorine down my well to disinfect the entire piping system?

I also have a plan for back-flushing the entire system with chlorine, from an outside tap. But that's complicated.

How should I disinfect my hot water tank? I can imagine some ways, but I need the right method. I'm fairly desperate. I don't (can't) work anymore so professional services are out of the question.

I was a multi-tasking gen. contractor for 35 years, and did small jobs for the prior 10 years.

Thx, Roger

You say the water passed when you had it tested. What did they test for?
I am not aware of any biofilms in well water. Iron, sulfur and hardness... yes. Sulfur smells like rotten eggs. Iron leaves brownish stains. They really have nothing to do with each other. They can both be removed with the right filter. I do not mean an inline filter. They are useless. The iron can be oxidized with air and the sulfur gas can be let out of the water with air also. Then the iron can be trapped by the filter media in the tank and the gas can be backwashed out every night.

Pool bleach should never be used for disinfecting a well. And the only way to disinfect a well and all of the plumbing is to disinfect the well with laundry bleach then run it through all the faucets until bleach is smelled at each one. Then let it sit for at least 4 hours. Never pour bleach down a well without flushing it off all the piping in the well.

Thank you Speed. "Never pour bleach down a well without flushing it off all the piping in the well. "

Does that mean after the treatment is finished, flushing with some kind of tubing or hose that I run at about 3 gal/min, pushing it down the well until I hit the pump? Does it need to get past the pump?

Laundry bleach is I think 5 or 6 ppm chlorine. I just called a pool supply house, and they said swimming pool chlorine is sodium hypochlorite at about 14 ppm. It seems to me I could use the swimming pool chlorine so I could use half as much material.

I'm trying to learn about how to use chlorine dioxide. So far, it looks like it has different properties and works better than bleach-type chlorine.

By flushing I mean to pour fresh water down the well to wash the bleach off the piping. It will eat metal. There are all kinds of different methods out there on how to disinfect a well and how much bleach to use. I used about 4 gallons of laundry bleach in a 100' 4" well. But it isn't an exact science.

Pool chlorine is around 14% but it has stabilizers for the pool that you really don't want in your well. The 14% figure is just after they buy it. Once it sits in the big tank at the pool supply house for several months the percentage dissipates.