Need advice on treating water

[Fireman]

Hi, I have a shallow water well in Annapolis MD. My water has a hardness of 5 grains. Iron of 12 mg/L, PH of 6, and turbidity of 1.2. I also have coliform bacteria in the well. It has been shocked 3 times by 2 different companies. It failed every time. My current water softener is a Fleck 5600 valve on a 9x48 resin tank. It has a kinetico twin tank backwashing 10x54 resin tanks before the softener. Currently the Fleck 5600 is leaking from the bypass, and the system is not softening the water. I have cleaned the brine wash tube, and it advances manually through the full cycle, pulling brine as it should. The Kinetico is stuck in backwash. All resin tanks appear to be in good shape.

I am a carpenter part time and fix all of my own vehicles. I am fairly mechanical but I hate fooling with things like carburetors with lots of small parts. I think my best bet right now would be to replace or rebuild the Fleck 5600, and replace or rebuild the kinetico. I think I need a brim filter, a calcite filter, and a UV light, as well as a working water softener. I do not know what media is in the Kinetico system or how old any part of the system is. I bought the house 6 months ago. I am thinking I should replace the kinetico valve with something simpler like a fleck 5600 with backwash only for BIRM, and put calcite in the other tank.

 

[Reach4]

It sounds like surface water is leaking into your well. Try to look for ways to stop that. IRB and SRB can exist in wells for a long time, but coliform usually indicates a fresh supply from the surface.


http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/disin_test.htm disinfection procedure is more involved than what most people use, but it is what I am looking to do.

If you cannot beat the coliform bacteria with a good shocking, you probably need a chlorine injection system with a contact tank.

Regarding your softener, I suggest you try to dry the bypass valve and take a closeup picture of just where the water is leaking out. That will help those who know your Fleck 5600 to suggest a cure for that.

I expect those are not both softeners, and the Kinetico might have something other than softening resin in it. That Kinetico sure looks pretty, and if you had info on it, you might make progress with that. There may be such help available. I don't know about those.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Fireman]

The kinetico has a simple backwash/purge valve on it, I believe it has some other sort of media in it besides softener.

 

[Fireman]

I fixed the fleck 5600 leak. It came from the bypass, it was a $10 seal. I would like to remove the kinetico valve, put Birm in one of the tanks, and Calcite in the other, and put a Fleck 5600 on both to backwash them. The UV light seems easier to install and maintain than a chlorine injection system. What is the benefit of the chlorine over UV?

 

[Reach4]

I am not a pro on that. One advantage of chlorine is it oxidizes iron so it can be filtered out. There are other differences I am sure.

 

[Mikey]

Can you put a standard valve (e.g., 5600) on a Kinetico tank? I think I remember someone saying the Kinetico tanks don't use the standard thread.

 

[Fireman]

That is a great question Mikey. I never thought of that. I will look into it right now.

 

[Mialynette2003]

The best set up for your water is a chlorinator with a retention tank. This will kill the bacteria whereas the UV light will not. It will also oxidize the iron so it can be filtered out. The order of the process should be pressure tank...pH neutralizer...chlorine injection...retention tank...flow switch...carbon tank...softener. The carbon will remove the oxidized iron as well as the chlorine. Any iron that makes it pasted the carbon will be removed by the softener. You can use the Kinetico tanks with another valve, but if I were you, I would start from stratch.

 

[Fireman]

Thank you for the help. I had my Kinetico PF100 valve repaired today. The purge valve had cracked, with a piece of o ring sticking the backwash drain open. The Kinetico technician was more helpful than I could have hoped for. He recommended I remove all media from the twin tanks, rebed with 25 lbs of gravel, .5 cubic ft of birm, .5 cubic ft of filter ag, and 1 cubic ft of calcite. He called this a "rust arrester" and stated that it should work for me. My question was, if I have a 5 micron pre-filter before the tanks, will the filter ag do anything? Thanks for all the support so far.