I'll add my $.02 as a completely unprofessional DIYer who's had lots of water problems similar to yours. All appear to be solved now, but I travelled a bumpy road to get here -- most bumps self-induced.
Our well (200' deep, 84' of 4" casing, pump inlet at 60', 17' static water level) was drilled 8/24/2000. To me, the well water looked OK, but tasted and smelled bad, so I had a treatment system installed by a local old-timer whose only testing was done by feel, taste, and smell. I'm a recovering engineer, so I do some more scientific testing; over the years, test results have been pretty consistent: Hardness - 8gpg, Iron - 0.9 mg/L, pH - 7.5. A very fancy gas chromatography test run by a co-worker showed manganese sulfides, possibly as a result of bacterial action, and negligible hydrogen sulfides. Periodic Hach tests for H2S, IRB, SRB, SLYM have all been negative. Periodic Health Department tests are all negative.
My local old-timer is a chlorine fan, so he recommended chlorine injection followed by a carbon filter and a softener. He hooked 'er all up, told me to dump a jug of Clorox in the chlorine tank and refill it when it got to 1/4 full, keep the salt level up in the brine tank, flush the contact tank periodically, and replace the carbon when the water in the house started to taste of chlorine. I've fine-tuned things a bit in that I monitor the residual chlorine and fiddle with the injector setting now and then, but all in all, it's a pretty easy system to maintain. I've learned that if you let the chlorine tank run dry you're in a world of hurt, and if you run out of salt we do see a difference in the shower and laundry; we like soft water. We've never smelled chlorine in the house, so our carbon filter is apparently doing a great job. In the house, the water feels, looks, and tastes great. For some reason, there's still some iron staining in the toilet tanks over the very long term, so I'm adding an iron filter.
A few words about chlorine: There's an anti-chlorine bias on the part of some water treatment experts, but every time my wife sees a horse take a leak in the field across the street, she LOVES our chlorine system. I find it easy to manage, with one exception: there's a 120-gallon steel contact tank -- big, poorly designed for draining precipitated iron and other sludge, and showing evidence of nascent rust. I wash it out with a pressure-washer once every couple of years, which is a major PITA. One vendor offers a tall skinny Polyglas retention tank with a bottom-drain blowout and a fancy mixing device in it, claiming it's as effective as the big bulky steel tank. Might be worth a try (
https://terrylove.com/forums/showth...quot-x60-quot-Retention-Tank-Good-stuff-or-BS). I noticed that my system was set up in the order: pump->pressure tank->chlorine injector->contact tank, with the injector controlled by the pump switch - a common arrangement. However, this means there could be zero flow past the injector much of the time, when the pump is running but there's no demand in the house. I'm going to rearrange things so the order is: pump->injector-> contact tank->pressure tank to ensure the full flow from the pump is passing the injector. This order is recommended by several on-line vendors and the manufacturer of my pressure tank. For unrelated reasons, I'm going to use a flow switch instead of the pump switch to control the chlorine injector pump.
A few words about Clorox: Many people have given me flak about not using "special" chlorine. They claim that Clorox has benzene and other impurities in it, loses effectiveness over time, and is "illegal" to use in potable water. However, according to the Water Quality Association, it is approved under
NSF/ANSI 60 International Standard for Drinking Water Additives (
http://www.wqa.org/goldseal/detail.cfm?tableDefID=6&companyID=1031933), which is good enough for me. It's cheap, available everywhere, and if you adjust the concentration so as to require refilling the chlorine tank once a month or so, there's negligible loss of effectiveness over time.
After a while I noticed a sulfury smell in the hot water. I replaced the 30-year old electric water heater, which was really disgusting inside, but the smell returned after a while. A little Googling told me that a) it's a bacterial thing, b) it's related to the sacrificial anode in the tank, and c) it can be aggravated by using softened water. This led me to periodically adding hydrogen peroxide to the water heater tank, which worked OK, but got old pretty quickly. I moved on to replacing the anode with a special no-stink anode, which also worked. It requires inspection and possibly replacing (they're called "sacrificial" anodes for a reason) every few years, so I will probably replace it with a powered anode (hopefully solar powered) when the time comes. I now use a solar water heater, and the water temperature in the tank is usually over 160° unless we have an extended cloudy period. This should, by itself, kill any bacteria in the tank, so a fancy anode may no longer be needed.
All backwash effluent goes to a drywell, so there's no impact on the septic system.
Now, of course, they're threatening to run city water down our street, and state law requires us to hook up if it's available. City water is legal, but tastes awful, so my investment in my current system won't be money wasted.
Finally, a word about Kinetico. A neighbor a few doors down has one and swears by it. He also swears
at his water, which stinks to high heaven and stains his toilets badly. In fairness to Kinetico I think the smell is the same water heater problem I had. I've never tested his pre- and post-treatment water, so can't say if the Kinetico system is softening and removing iron as intended, but for the money he's paying it sure ought to be. All in all, I wouldn't have one.