Advice on well water conditioning & filtration system

[Rbrockman]

We recently purchased a newer home with a well and would like to put in a water conditioning/filtration system. I'm more concerned with improving the quality of the water if possible than the cost of an effective system. Currently we don't consider the water drinkable due to the taste.

Water system details:
- water flows from well into 2500 gallon holding tank, then to a pressure tank and into home.
- 2.5 bathrooms
- 2-3 people living in home

Attached is the water analysis from National Testing Laboratories I just received.

Here are some of the concerning water analysis data points which stood out to me.
Total Coliform present - but no E.Coli
Sodium - 519 mg/L
Sulfate - 140 mg/L
Hardness? Not sure why this wasn't detectable. I measured at 25ppm with Hatch test
Alkalinity - 1100 mg/L
TDS - 1400 mg/L
PH - 8.4.

As this is water from a well I'd like to also add a properly sized UV filter assuming the water can be cleaned up as needed to allow this to function correctly. Any recommended UV filter brands?

Given these results, I'd like to hear feedback on what system components would best improve the water quality. There is room to install most any necessary water filtration/conditioning equipment. If I've missed any critical information necessary to provide a recommendation, please let me know.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

 

[Rbrockman]

As I begin to understand the water quality situation further, it is beginning to look like with this level of Sodium and overall TDS a whole house RO system may be required. Using an estimate of water usage of 60 gal/day/person, and there are on average 2.5 persons in the home then I'll need a RO system with at least 150-200 gal/day capacity. I understand that there are also some pre-filter requirements for the RO system.

There appears to be a lot of variance in RO systems from recovery rates, energy efficiency, cost, etc. Are there any well known reputable brands to quickly narrow down the options?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

Pacific Ocean seawater along the U.S. West Coast has a TDS concentration of 33,500 mg/L. People swim in that. You can shower, flush toilets, and do laundry with your 1400 TDS water.

Your RO water can be used for drinking, house plants, and as a final rinse after cleaning. Not to say that your whole house RO would not have its advantages. I am not a pro.

 

[ditttohead]

A whole house RO is fine but usually overkill in your application. A poorly designed unit starts at about 3-4K, a properly designed unit will run about 10K.

An RO has a rating but these are laboratory numbers, not real world numbers. A 500 GPD Ro may only make 200 GPD in your application due to water temperature and TDS compensations. Every 100 TDS takes 1 PSI off the membrane so you lose 14 pounds of pressure right off the top. If your water comes in at 45 degrees F, then you would multiply the rating by .43 to get the actual production rate.

So... A 500 GPD RO with a 100 PSI pressure boosting system would net you about 430 GPD considering the high TDS load, then compensate that at .43 for temperature compensation,,, your 500 GPD RO now makes a whopping 185 GPD. And considering you do not want the RO running 24/7, it really should be designed at about 25% duty cycle, so assuming you need about 200 GPD, you really should consider no less than a 1500 - 2000 GPD RO.

As to efficiencies, please ignore 90% of the marketing, 1:4 ratio, 1:1, ultra low pressure, non boosted etc. There are no secrets in the RO industry. We all use the same software to determine life expectancy of the membranes and the software helps guide us to a good balance of efficiency vs membrane life expectancy. many of the companies pushing the ultra efficient low waste system designs are also looking forward to selling you lots of membranes.

All that being said, how about some basic treatment for the whole house, not much you can do about high sodium, but since you have coliform present, a simple chlorine injection system, a baffled contact tank, a backwashing carbon tank, and a drinking water RO system is what I would lean toward. if the spotting is too annoying and you have a nice budget available then by all means, a whole house RO is feasible. Your water is actually ideal for this since the membrane fouling potential is fairly low even with the slightly elevated pH.