Starting fresh with my water conditioning. Things have changed...

[BDrivenByDemons]

Time flies is an understatement. I feel like my system isn't that old but I'm reading about lots of new stuff in the water conditioning world. Any suggestions???

My setup was 48' well w/ red jacket pump (12gpm @ 50psi) -> clack air injector -> pressure tank -> retention tank with air bleed off -> birm filter -> water softener. It worked ok and I did maintain it fairly well but it slowly lost flow as the years went by (found PVC pipes severely restricted by iron deposits during CSV install).

I've been wanting to check out the cycle stop valve and now I'm running pump -> CSV -> softener until I know exactly what I need to make things right. The thing is the system is working better than ever now. I had a water test done a few years back but never followed up on the readings. I thought I had a lot of iron but I'm sitting just below 1ppm. I adjusted the water softener by a few grains to compensate and am regenerating every 3 days.

So... I've been reading about fine mesh and 10% cross-linked resins and I'm thinking I don't really need the iron removal equipment at all. Could that be right? I'm all about making this stuff run great but if I can eliminate chlorine/peroxide injection etc I'm all for that. Simplicity rules. I've seen some suggestions saying run the new resin with carbon downstream of that and I should be good to go.

Any suggestions? I would like a metered softener head because water use varies widely in this place depending on who's home.

Thanks!

 

[Reach4]

You have a fair amount of iron. A softener can handle that, but you will need to take some additional action. Treat the salt with maybe citric acid (smells better) or Iron Out (works well but not the best smell). This can be added with salt, but I don't have a prescription for how much.

Iron Out® Rust Stain Remover at Menards®
Iron Out® Rust Stain Remover - 152 oz.

It may be that your BIRM would benefit from getting cleaned with a strong solution of IO, or maybe replace the media.

Sanitizing the well and plumbing can help H2S and IO.

 

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[ditttohead]

Iron moderate, pH 7.6, good, hardness very high, TDS slightly high...
Lots of options, what quality are you wanting? A simple softener designed for the iron with regular acid cleaning is a possibility. The pH is higher than I would like to see for using a softener for iron reduction but not bad. Nothing some regular cleaning would not fix. A post sediment filtration system, a UV and you should do Ok

 

[BDrivenByDemons]

Iron moderate, pH 7.6, good, hardness very high, TDS slightly high...
Lots of options, what quality are you wanting? A simple softener designed for the iron with regular acid cleaning is a possibility. The pH is higher than I would like to see for using a softener for iron reduction but not bad. Nothing some regular cleaning would not fix. A post sediment filtration system, a UV and you should do Ok

As long as I don't have iron stains and the water doesn't stink I'm OK. And I want the least restrictive setup I can get. The flow/pressure drop is what finally pushed me to change my thinking.

Once you oxidize that iron with air or whatever it becomes a real mess. With the clack valve my pressure tank would get fouled, the holding tank would get fouled, and now that I can see - the pipes were severely restricted up until the birm tank. I'm thinking its better to leave that iron in the water and let the ion exchange do it's thing.

The vortech tanks look pretty sweet... Maybe one of those with a metered valve and 10% resin? What's the UV get me?

 

[ditttohead]

Since you are on a well, you are your own municipality. You are not chlorinating so the water has some potential for biological issues. Thigs go wrong, stuff happens... one of my customers recently sent me a picture of weird grey hair in his Hydra filter, turned out to be mouse hair. A mouse went down the well due to a bad cap... a UV system is a last line of defense before the water goes into the house. it will basically sterilize the water killing anything. It is simple easy to maintain and any well system should have one. Cheap insurance.