We use standard laundry-grade bleach. The process is done at first once a year (commercial dairys and farmers do it sometimes twice per year) if you have an old, non-treated system. I do it ever other year myself.
Here are the steps that I follow:
1. Get 2 5-gallon pails
2. Get 6 gallons of Bleach
3. Put Water softener on by-pass
4. Take cover off of well
5. Fill pails with water
6. Pull wires aside - pour pail of water into well
7. Pour gallon of bleach into well
8. Use empty pail & fill with water
9. Pour into well
10. Repeat steps 7-9 for the other 5 gallons of bleach
11. Pour clean pail on top to clean it up
12. Cover well
13. Turn outside water on until you smell bleach
14. Open each cold water faucet until you smell bleach
15. Flush toilets
16. Let sit for 6-8 hours - some water can be used (not for drinking)
17. Run outside water for 1 hour afterwards
I got this information from the local well management company and it compares favorably to what the local farmers, etc., do with their wells. The first time I did it, the water in the lines/toilets/sinks/etc. was really black. Even with the flushing it still took time to get it all out. In subsequent flushings I left the bleach in longer (more than 8 hours - almost 24) and it wasn't as bad. Now when I do it I don't get much at all - in fact, we now rarely see any bacteria buildup in the water.
If in doubt, talk to you local well management company. They won't charge to do it as this is something you can do yourself - but they will reinforce what I just detailed above. Good luck!
If your water is really hard, I'd recommend a Kinetico brand softener. The Kinetico is a twin tank all mechanical system which regenerates based on usage. The two tanks ensure that you have always have soft water available.
Most of the cheaper softeners have a timer which controls the regeneration cycle. This works OK if your demand is relatively constant, but if you have spikes in demand, you'll run out of soft water and when you go away for awhile the softener will continue going through regeneration cycles even though no water is being used. Most softeners which use a time clock are set up so that the regen cycles will be slightly more frequent than your average usage. This ensures that you almost always have softened water, but also increases your salt consumption slightly.
I put in a GE demand softener I bought over the internet for about $400. It was their top of the line at the time.
Prior to that, I had Culligan come out, and they quoted me over $1200 for a mechanical timer unit. The demand unit was over $2000!
Im very happy with the GE. All I do is feed it salt every couple months, and forget it. It even keeps it's settings (including the clock) through extended power outages.
I have hard well water with lots of iron. There is a sediment filter on the incoming line, which helps. We also have a Hague softener, which is a two tank on-demand unit. I can tell you that the difference between just the sediment filter and the softener is like night and day.
The Hague unit can be filled with a number of different compounds, depending on your needs. We filled ours up with a combination of softening agents and iron removal agents. It works great. One of the nice things about it is that it treats all of the water coming into the house. A lot of softeners only treat the hot water.
It is expensive (don't remember exactly how much), but I figure that the protection it provides to our appliances, pipes, and health is worth it. I've heard that depending on who you buy one through that you can get really suckered on the prices. Don't think I was, but you never know...
But it works really well and the guy that provides the service is top notch. Got lucky there. (He replaced the line from our reverse osmosis system to the refridgerator under warranty at no charge - when it was chewed through by a mouse. Mouse was quickly dispatched, no problems since.)
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