Vacant well failed quality test, when to retest?

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kktalker

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We purchased a home at auction and the water quality test came back with high arsenic and iron. The property has been vacant for about 2.5 years. Before the purchase, my husband ran the water at the kitchen faucet for about 10 minutes before taking the sample (since we did not yet own the house when taking the sample, that was about as long as we had time to run the water before taking the sample). Now that we own the house, is it possible that longer flushing may improve the water quality? If so, how long should we run the water before retesting? Anything else we should do before jumping in on expensive treatment systems? We've got a quote of $10k for water treatment, including water softener, pre-filter, iron, and arsenic, but we want to be sure we actually need the treatment before shelling out that kind of money. Fortunately, the property was a screamin' deal, even with the cost of dealing with water issues.

Thank you for your advice.
 

Reach4

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$10000 sounds like you got a personal salesman. A personal salesman is more likely to recommend premium propitiatory equipment. I have not priced that equipment, but you can get a lot of stuff for $4000. Check your "private messages". You need to get a water test done to get an independent suggestion involving industry-standard equipment. Get numbers for all contaminates. Ditttohead has recommended http://www.ntllabs.com/index.html AKA http://www.watercheck.com/ a few times. They suggest you phone to discuss.

I think you want to test for values of pH, iron, manganese arsenic as well as hardness.

"Watercheck 1 & 2" for $102 seems to be the appropriate test. It includes sulfate value too.
http://www.watercheck.com/pdf/Waterc...ple_Report.pdf is a sample report. I find the "Min. Detection Level" for Hardness to be be ridiculously insensitive.

I used e-watertest.com The test included a lot more stuff that all came back nd=not detected. I felt the 39 days total to order kit, get kit in mail, fill and mail next day(Friday), arrive there Monday, and get email result "20 business days" was long. I have no clue as to the turnaround times for the other lab.

Try to find how deep the well is. What kind of casing is there. What is the diameter. Does it freeze in "United States"?https://terrylove.com/forums/images/smilies/rolleyes.png Based on having arsenic, I am guessing you are in the southwestern quadrant of the 48 contiguous states.

How long you ran the faucet would not likely a factor in arsenic. I have no experience with arsenic. I am not a pro... For you I would be thinking about a reverse osmosis system for drinking water, along with the other treatment equipment.
 

kktalker

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Reach4, thank you for your reply. The original water panel we performed had acceptable results for all tests you suggested, except arsenic (0.012mg/L) and iron (.87mg/L). The well is drilled to 395ft, I believe the casing is PVC, 6" diameter. Yes, we are in the southwest desert. The quote came from a plumber we have personally known and trusted for a long time; however, I suspect he may propose the most thorough (read: expensive) solution, whereas we might be satisfied with a lesser system (you know, like when the mechanic wants to fix your car up perfect, and you just want your car to run ;) ).
 

Craigpump

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Reach,

There is also significant arsenic in some areas of Fairfield County in Ct.

$10,000? I'm not in the treatment business but that might not be unreasonable depending on how high the contamination levels are. Sure you can always find someone who will sell you less expensive equipment, but what is the health of your family worth?
 

Reach4

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Arsenic sounds scary...
http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/arsenic.cfm says "(MCL) = 0.010 milligrams per Liter (mg/L)"

So if you got at least half of the arsenic out, you would meet minimum standards for drinking water. So not so scary, I guess.

.87mg/L iron is not so bad. It is in the range that a good regular water softener can handle. You might want to use the Morton salt save for iron pellets, which add citric acid to the pellets. You could also treat with Iron Out as needed.

With your deep well, organic chemicals are unlikely to be a problem.

I would tend toward a big-enough standard water softener for softening and iron removal. Follow Gary Slusser's guide for sizing. Then add a reverse osmosis (RO) for the drinking water. RO should be fed by the softened water.

Another reasonable alternative is to add a backwashing filter at the beginning that removes iron, and I'll bet there is a media that also removes a lot of arsenic. I am not the person to suggest media, but that would save some salt, and maybe give you better results overall. But heck, a *big* softener might be $1500. A backwashing media tank maybe another similar amount. Plumbing 300 each maybe? I am optimistic that somebody knows a media that addresses iron and arsenic.... Your pH affects media selection. So post those numbers that you have.

Add some unions, valves and pressure gauges to monitor filter clogging. I would put a 20*4.5 Big blue housing or two in line... many filters available for those at reasonable prices... housing can be left empty. I use a 50..5 micron filter followed by a 1 micron filter in mine. Since they are after my backwashing filter, there is almost nothing caught in a year. Considering the price, while it is overkill, I am happy I did it. It serves, if nothing else, as an early warning if something gets caught some day. Use polypropylene, not cellulose, filters with non-chlorinated water.

Incidentally, .87mg/L is the same as .87 PPM.
 

kktalker

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I have an update. The first water test (a full domestic water panel) had shown high levels of arsenic and iron. After moving in, we flushed the well for a total of about 30 hours over a few days (hey, the trees got a deep watering after baking in the desert for the two years the property was vacant). We retested the water for iron and arsenic (cost to test only those two items was about $40), and levels came back within acceptable ranges. Iron is still a bit high, but I have a feeling the level may continue to drop a bit as we continue to use water. For the two weeks we've lived in the house, we've been bringing gallon jugs of water from our old house on city water (we haven't sold it yet, and we're over there every day). But now we are in the clear to drink the well water, and we avoided about $7-8k in recommended treatment (specifically for the arsenic and iron; though we'll still look into pre-filtering and softening).

So, moral of the story is: if well water fails testing on a vacant house, flush the heck outta that baby and retest--even if it takes a few weeks--before jumping into expensive treatment.
 
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