Steve604
New Member
I currently have a fairly new constant pressure system in my house that works great but I have iron/manganese issues. I installed one of the air venturi iron filter systems (Rainfresh brand) fully knowing it wouldn't work properly but I really like the idea of not using chemicals in the system.
What I'm seeing now is, the air venturi pulls in air like it's supposed to under high water demand. The well pump runs at a constant speed and all is well. When running something like the shower alone, the pump doesn't seem to have a minimum speed low enough to run constantly so it's ramping up and down every 4 or 5 seconds and the venturi sucks air every time the pump ramps up. It also looks like the filter media tank is acting as a small pressure tank.
I'm thinking that I will get a small compressor and connect that to the venturi with an electric solenoid that will turn on anytime the well pump runs. That will constantly inject no matter what the flow rate of the pump is. Can I just adapt an air line to the inlet nozzle on the venturi?
And then to cure the short cycling of the pump (which I'm told isn't actually a problem for a variable speed pump) I could add a big pressure tank to the system. I know that this is actually defeating the principle behind the constant pressure system but I had no idea that iron and manganese were going to be such a problem with my new well until I was actually getting water out of it. I'm actually contemplating bypassing the whole system and just running the existing pump off of a standard pressure switch with a big tank. I've read about a few people doing this anyway due to multiple failures of the Grundfos controller. If I do this, I wouldn't have to worry about adding a compressor to the system either.
What I'm seeing now is, the air venturi pulls in air like it's supposed to under high water demand. The well pump runs at a constant speed and all is well. When running something like the shower alone, the pump doesn't seem to have a minimum speed low enough to run constantly so it's ramping up and down every 4 or 5 seconds and the venturi sucks air every time the pump ramps up. It also looks like the filter media tank is acting as a small pressure tank.
I'm thinking that I will get a small compressor and connect that to the venturi with an electric solenoid that will turn on anytime the well pump runs. That will constantly inject no matter what the flow rate of the pump is. Can I just adapt an air line to the inlet nozzle on the venturi?
And then to cure the short cycling of the pump (which I'm told isn't actually a problem for a variable speed pump) I could add a big pressure tank to the system. I know that this is actually defeating the principle behind the constant pressure system but I had no idea that iron and manganese were going to be such a problem with my new well until I was actually getting water out of it. I'm actually contemplating bypassing the whole system and just running the existing pump off of a standard pressure switch with a big tank. I've read about a few people doing this anyway due to multiple failures of the Grundfos controller. If I do this, I wouldn't have to worry about adding a compressor to the system either.