At our summer cottage we have a 2-inch Artesian well that feeds into a 325 gallon tank in our crawl space under the cottage. We turn the water off in the cottage during the winter months and the overflow from the well goes into a creek next to the cottage.

Earlier this year, while turning the water on, unbeknownst to us, one of the valves on the plumbing was broken and we believe because of forced back flow to the well, it stirred up sand in the well which we believe caused quite a bit of sand to enter the water tank.

We were able to fix the valve but we are now experiencing a lot of sand in our pipes which is coming through our bathroom and kitchen faucets, toilet and there possibly could be sand in the water heater and pressure tank. The water is quite cloudy and not usable.

We suspect the sand is in the tank, because the overflow water from the well feeding into the creek is cloudy, but not as bad as cloudy as what is coming out of the tank.

We are trying to figure out we can do. Do we call a plumber that specializes in Artesian wells or a plumbing company?

We did try calling well companies this during the summer but none of them returned our calls.

Do we go so far as removing the tank from the crawl space and cleaning it out?

Note, my grandfather put the tank in the crawl space in 1970 and in 1992 my uncles had to replace the tank due to excessive sand but replacing it involved having to dig up the soil next to the crawl space and remove cement block, etc. which we are not skilled to do ourselves and are at the age where we prefer to have someone else handle it.

Or, do we have a 4-inch well dug and put in a submersible pump so we don't have to deal with this situation again?

We figure the cost may be similar either way.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.



Edited 1 times.

It sounds like the first step is to inspect or sample directly from the tank and from the input to the tank, to confirm your suspicion that sand is in the tank.