smelly Well

[angrybird]

There is an old Blacksmiths attached to the house which we are currently converting into a utility/boot room. There is a concrete step 2ft square against the back wall of the Blacksmiths and we have always wondered if it was a capped off well! Today I decided to let Mr Angry loose with a hammer and chisel to remove the concrete cap and there seems to be a shallow well but it has a clay pipe running either side and the water is swirling clockwise? The main problem so far is the strong eggy smell!
The clay pipes are nothing to do with our drains as we have replaced them all but there used to be 2 cottages in the garden, any ideas?

 

[mattice]

Do you have any other properties near you? Our property has several old land-drains that we keep discovering that cross the village, over the years a few have been tapped into to aid the drainage of septic tanks and the like. We've just connected to mains to replace our tank yet the people are still suffering down stream... so someone upstream is still discharging. Our eggy smell usually starts when the farmer spreads chicken muck on his upstream field

Swirling water suggests quite a lot of water!

 

[angrybird]

The house is built into the side of the mountain so the ground floor is underground and so is the rear of the Blacksmiths.There was a school higher up the mountain but that was demolished 20+ years ago and 2 new houses built on the school grounds,so apart from that there was only the 2 cottages that were in my garden but they have long gone.

 

[worms]

If it has been capped for years and has limited through flow, it is bound to smell a bit! Can you pump it out, clear any rotting material from the base and let it refill?

 

[88v8]

Is it just water, or something less polite?
Could be an old land drain, but as there is a well there I presume the water was once used by the blacksmith for quenching so at that time it would have been a constant supply such as spring water or perhaps a land drain that ran all the time. Now, as mattice has said it may be, ahh, polluted, and if it is a land drain there could also be root blockages and decaying matter in there somewhere upstream.

If you want to know more as part of tracing the house's/area's history, you could get someone to come and do a camera & tracing survey, should only cost a few hundred.
Otherwise I'd just take some pics and cap it off again.
Don't block it whatever you do, otherwise your next thread will be Mysterious Flood.

Ivor

 

[angrybird]

Thanks everyone for your replies x
The water is crystal clear with no visible nasties! The testing strip showed slightly alkaline, Mr Angry had a prod in the bottom of the well, dug down about a foot and it was still very soft! The smell only came an hour or so after,so your probably right about it being smelly because it has been capped off for so long.
My worries are that if the eggy smell is a dangerous gas! as my first floor lounge and sunroom are above the Blacksmiths :shock:

 

[Penners]

An eggy smell is usually associated with methane, which is a combustible/explosive gas. However, it may be that the gas had simply been generated by rotting vegetation in the hole and/or the surrounding soil. Provided it has dispersed since the opening up of the hole, it's unlikely to cause any danger. I should just keep monitoring the smell and see whether it recurs, despite the hole being ventilated.

As to the water, is it flowing or stagnant? I certainly wouldn't trust it to be pure, even if it looks clear. I'm afraid a lot of old wells were pressed into service as cesspits or settlement pits for septic tanks, once mains water had been laid on to the property. So even if this usage no longer exists, there may still be decidedly septic material in the sludge at the bottom of the hole.

 

[angrybird]

Methane :shock: oh lordy! I am not mentioning this to Mr Angry as he already has the plans drawn for an anaerobic methane digester :roll: (yet another crazy invention on the go! :lol: )
Penners the water is swirling in the well clockwise, Would it be better capped off again and left well alone?

Thank you all for your advise

Jacqueline x

 

[xanthe]

Could it be some kind of sump?

My parents house had a big cellar with at least a metre of concrete poured into it. They dug it all out and found the original brick floor, and what looked like a very shallow brick-lined well - there's a big deep well in the garden, so they knew it wasn't that. It turned out to be a sump and now has a pump fitted. I've never noticed a funny smell from it though.

 

[angrybird]

oh! it could very well be as it seems to be hollow under the floor, making me think that the original floor could be under the concrete floor thats there now, and outside the Blacksmiths is a brick floor!
x

 

[Penners]

Would it be better capped off again and left well alone?

It's very difficult to make any kind of recommendation on the basis of a brief description here. I think you would really be best advised to get advice from a professional. The only difficulty is... a professional what?!

Some structural engineers might have experience of such things, but I don't know whether they all would. I wonder whether the best bet might be to ask for a visit from your council's Building Inspector (which will almost certainly involve a fee). If he's not sure what advice to give you, he should know who could.

Anybody else got any suggestions?

 

[LadyArowana]

Anybody else got any suggestions?

Maybe someone who has experience of old wells? I know this isn't, but in the course of their work they may have examined some similar structures

 

[worms]

An eggy smell is usually associated with methane, which is a combustible/explosive gas. However, it may be that the gas had simply been generated by rotting vegetation in the hole and/or the surrounding soil.

Sorry to question Penners the Chemist, but while the association with rotting vegetation is probably correct, surely it is the sulphur dioxide that gives an eggy smell and the methane has no smell at all? The two may well be "associated" but only because in a partially anaerobic environment, rotting vegetation will produce both (and you might want to make sure that the methane gets vented away!). Did they not at one time add SO2 to natural gas to make it smell, so that people would be aware of a leak?

 

[Penners]

Ahem... worms is absolutely right - an eggy smell means sulphur dioxide. However, it is also usually associated with the existence of methane, as the two gases often go hand-in-hand.

I wondered whether anybody would spot my... er... deliberate mistake...

 

[Flyfisher]

Did they not at one time add SO2 to natural gas to make it smell, so that people would be aware of a leak?

Yes, I believe that's correct. Original coal gas (town gas) was naturally smelly but natural gas is mainly odourless methane and when the changeover was implemented they added something to the natural gas to make it smell for safety reasons.

 

[worms]

So, the answer to the smelly well is obviously to cap it, turn it into a domestic anaerobic digestor and run the gas stove off it! Not sure that the Gas Board would allow you to feed in to the grid!