Is there a simple fix for iron/hardness?

[johnsuz]

I'm just a mom who wants decent water for her family--I know very little about water softeners and this forum has my head spinning. This is what I know about my water after testing it:

iron: .929 mg/L
hardness: 160mg/L

These were the only things above standard. My (newly-installed) white tiles and grout are getting rust-colored; my lightened blonde hair gets orangey/brassy, and the toilets get a little brown. There is no sliminess in the tank, but when I blow out the AC drain there is a lot of pale pink/tan slimy stuff (gag!) We have well water (Floridan aquifer ) and our current softener uses salt pellets in a brine tank---and that's the extent of my knowledge. It is at least 15 years old.

What do we need to do to have softened water, get rid of the iron and treat the hardness? Any advice is appreciated.

Here' s a pic of the setup:

 

[Reach4]

We have well water (Floridan aquifer ) and our current softener uses salt pellets in a brine tank---and that's the extent of my knowledge. It is at least 15 years old.

1. Tell us about your well. 2 inch with a jet pump, or 4 or more inches with a submersible pump? I ask that mainly with an eye to you being able to sanitize the well. That can have good effects. The frequency that is needed is affected by how effective your sanitizing is.

2. I expect that your system needs some cleaning. The resin in the softener can be cleaned. The injector screen and the injector can be cleaned. The brine tank can be cleaned and sanitized.

However we don't know what your other tank is. It probably needs some attention too. You would want to know what that is in order to figuer out how to rejuvenate it.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[ditttohead]

Looking at the pictures, 15 years old, these units should be easily rebuilt to like new condition. Replace the seals/spacer/piston, see linked video,

Rebed the tanks, and your systems should be good for another 15 years. Be sure to sanitize everything... do you know what is in the second tank?

 

[Skyjumper]

those are nice units and definitley worth saving like dittohead says.

the one with the tube running to the square salt tank is your softener. it is likely loaded with iron residue from years of neglect, but it can be cleaned and put back into service. if you are not able to do it yourself then call the water company and pay them to do it. it will probably cost about $600 to clean, rebuild, and rebed it (rebed means to replace the resin beads inside the tall round tank), and that's worth it. a new one of comparable quality will cost 2+ times that. From there on you need to use resin cleaners like Rescare to keep it clean. This will solve your immediate iron/hardness issues.

The other tank is likely an iron filter and it too needs to be cleaned, rebuilt, rebeded like ditto says. you can do the softener first and do the iron filter later if you want. I'd put the iron filter in bypass if you don't fix it now. the red valves on top are the bypass valve if you point them toward each each other the unit will be in bypass.

even if you do fix the iron filter you should still use Rescare on the softener to keep it clean as some iron will leak through the iron filter.