Need well treatment advice (test results & equip details included)

[Larrytove]

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster.
We have a well system that will be our primary water source once we get the water treated (house already had well and municipal source installed with an air-gapped bypass so for now we are on municipal). The water has dissolved iron (clear at first then develops a red tint over time) and only a slight smell.

I contacted the original well installer and they provided these details:
Pump: Goulds 2 wire 1/2hp 7LS05(422C) 7GPM pump 220v
Well & casing: Capable of 6GPM, 142ft total, 130ft to pump, 101ft galvanized casing, Static level 70ft. (115+130, 245 head pressure) <(not exactly sure what this last bit of info means)
Installed in crawlspace, there is a medium sized pressure tank and twist2clean in-line filter after tank. House is on septic.
Point of Use undersink RO system in kitchen

Comprehensive water test revealed these levels:
Calcium 24.5 mg/L
*Iron 4.31 mg/L
Magnesium 24.5
*Manganese 0.111 mg/L
Lead 0.004 mg/L
Potassium 4.4 mg/L
Sodium 3.7 mg/L
Strontium 0.4 mg/L
Sulfur 1.0 mg/L
*Zinc 6.49 mg/L
Alkalinity 86 mg/L
Bicarbonate 85 mg/L
Carbonate 1.15 mg/L
Chloride 4.8 mg/L
*Hardness 162 mg/L (9.5 gpg)
PH 8.2
Silica 8.1 mg/L
TDS 132 mg/L
Turbidity 48.2
Methylene Chloride 6.2 ug/L
Trihalomethanes 7.3 ug/L

*indicates areas I would like to address (unless someone else identifies another area that should be addressed)

I suspect the previous owners treated the well before capping it off as it appears there are some bleach bi-products here that may dissipate over time (I could be way off on this, any advice is appreciated)

Our goal is to treat water for whole house use and exclude outside spigots. Ideally we do not want to use a softener due to excessive salt drain into septic, equip being installed in hard to access crawlspace and continuous purchasing of consumables, maintenance upkeep of softeners, and excessive wear on our water heater anode.
We would like a very low or no maintenance method of treating the water if possible, preferably a system that can be paused/resumed for long periods of time without issue if the house is switched over to municipal for any reason.

With the enormous amount of conflicting info out there, I am thankful for the pros on sites like these to help alleviate my lack of experience in these matters

 

[Reach4]

You could create a dry well for the softener drainage.

Methylene Chloride is over the MCL. Is your well near an old industrial plant?

How did you test the well? I wonder if you had run the water for a few days before testing, the test result would have been a lot different.

Your iron is higher than what a softener can easily deal with. Do your neighbors have a lot of iron? Maybe that was just water sitting in an iron casing for years, and running water for a few days would have washed that out.

Lead is high.

No wonder you are figuring to use an RO unit to make drinking water. Is the water stinky?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Larrytove]

You could create a dry well for the softener drainage.

Methylene Chloride is over the MCL. Is your well near an old industrial plant?

How did you test the well? I wonder if you had run the water for a few days before testing, the test result would have been a lot different.

Your iron is higher than what a softener can easily deal with. Do your neighbors have a lot of iron? Maybe that was just water sitting in an iron casing for years, and running water for a few days would have washed that out.

Lead is high.

No wonder you are figuring to use an RO unit to make drinking water. Is the water stinky?

If we were going the route of softener, the dry well is a good idea to avoid high salt levels in the septic. Because the crawlspace area is hard to access, one of our main objectives is to minimize the amount of maintenance trips down there. Cost savings over time
and water heater life expectancy retention are our other objectives.

Our neighbor mentioned the previous owner may have treated the well before capping it off and switching to municipal. Could that explain the high dichloromethane? We live on a small mountain in a rural area with only one neighbor semi-nearby so no runoff from anything.

I tested with a KAR labs 360 report (before I found this site) I let the water run for a few hours before taking the test samples but never considered letting it run longer, I may try that yet as my neighbor reports having near perfect quality water.

According to the report the MCL for lead is 0.015 mg/L which mine is at 0.004 mg/L.
I suppose it would be ideal to have zero lead but is this amount still considered safe?

The water only smells faintly of iron, not unpleasant by any means. From what little I have researched, one of the manganese dioxide medias looks like it checks most of the boxes. Is this a good solution to achieveour desired result? Any notable real world pros/cons? Any advice on what setup/media weight/brand would be recommended and compatible with my flow rate and equipment?

 

[Reach4]

You are right on the lead MCL.

The heavy manganese dioxide media take a lot of gpm for backwash. The coated media, such as Katalox Light take less.

The size and dosing for KL seems a little hard to figure out.

The Methylene Chloride seems like a mystery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloromethane doesn't make it sound too scary, but washing that out sounds good.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my well and plumbing sanitizing write-up. You might want to get the cheap electronic pH tester and the high-range chlorine test strips on order.

 

[Larrytove]

You are right on the lead MCL.

The heavy manganese dioxide media take a lot of gpm for backwash. The coated media, such as Katalox Light take less.

The size and dosing for KL seems a little hard to figure out.

The Methylene Chloride seems like a mystery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloromethane doesn't make it sound too scary, but washing that out sounds good.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my well and plumbing sanitizing write-up. You might want to get the cheap electronic pH tester and the high-range chlorine test strips on order.

Bazinga! your Wikipedia article may have led us to the source of dichloromethane (and possibly the trihalomethanes?) When I was unsealing the well, I noticed the previous owner used a type of polyurethane foam on the cap (think great stuff or similar expansion foam) I suppose it is certainly possible that some foam made its way down into the water when they were sealing it off. I am curious whether the alleged foam has fully dissolved at this point and if not it brings concern that it may just be inaccessibly floating on top, slowly leeching away.

Katalox light looks promising, I will need to research that one a bit more and try to calculate for 6GPM. Hopefully it has the extended maintenance intervals we are looking for. Are there any other mid-to-light weight manganese dioxide medias out there that might work for our setup/goals? Any other guidance in this area is much appreciated.

Excellent well sanitation write-up, very detailed. Will this wash out possibly "cure" our trihalomethane and dichloromethane issue if it is in fact, great stuff expansion foam contamination and not ground water source-based? If so I may attempt the flush tomorrow. I happen to have a ph meter and chlorine test strips for the hot tub at the ready.

The high iron may very well be due to sitting in the metal casing unused for years, (is it possible to have manganese present without iron?) My concern with leaving it running for a couple of days to potentially flush is due to how the well pump is slighlty oversized for the GPM the well is capable of. According to original installer the pump is a 7GPM and well is capable of producing 6GPM. If this is accurate could it result in dry-running the pump or will two days be short enough to avoid dry running?

 

[Reach4]

I think it is possible to have Mn without iron.

Maybe watch the hose for the well running dry, and shut off the pump when you cannot monitor.

For a 10 inch x 54 tank, you want about 8 or 9 gpm for the backwash. A 7 gpm pump may be able to do that.

You read quickly. Here are some threads to look thru.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/new-iron-filter-still-see-iron.98371/#post-707916

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/well-water-treatment-looking-for-suggestions.92928/#post-670075

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/iron-and-manganese-removal-with-katalox.90118/

Katalox Backwash How High Lift

I recently got a Katalox Light filter 2510SXT Fleck When I watch it backwash which I can kind of do through the white wrapped tank, only like one side of the katalox is getting lifted and its only being lifted like 3-4 inches up sort of bubbling/flying up. Does that seem right or should the...

terrylove.com

 

[Larrytove]

Any thoughts on this one? https://www.aquascience.net/katalox...x-54-tank-fleck-5600sxt-digital-control-valve
I have all 3/4 lines in house.

 

[Reach4]

5600sxt cannot properly backwash KL in a 10 inch tank. You need more flow, and I think the 5800sxt could do that.

 

[Larrytove]

5600sxt cannot properly backwash KL in a 10 inch tank. You need more flow, and I think the 5800sxt could do that.

Thanks, excellent feedback! Given I have near zero experience with distributors, are there any trusted, reliable sources that you would recommend to source a setup that would meet our needs and has a warranty? Trying to stay around or under the $1200 mark preferably.

 

[Larrytove]

Thanks Reach. What are your thoughts on this one? Any avaiable option you could reccomend other than almond tank so the media can be seen in the backwash cycle? In an AIO option advised? https://www.qualitywaterforless.com...backwashing-valve?_pos=1&_sid=7cb87bc12&_ss=r

 

[Reach4]

Better. I think I would prefer to have it with a solution tank that could suck in a solution during regen. Maybe chlorine bleach or peroxide. I would experiment.

For the KL backwash, you might look at this graph:

I would want from 8 to 10 gpm for the backwash. That takes the 3/4 inch DLFC button, and that would need a different housing for that.

 

[Larrytove]

Should I go with one of these from the 5800SXT manual? "60706-10 DLFC, AC x 3/4"F, 10 gpm and then move down to an 8gpm button to go inside that housing if well/pump cannot achieve 10gpm?

Depending on the maintenance intervals/continuous solution cost required to add a regen tank, I may look at adding this option later on if it helps the KL do its job more effectively.

At the link I provided earlier, they offer an Air Draw (AIO) Option. Is my thinking correct that this might aid the katalox in filtering the dissolved iron we have in our well?

 

[Reach4]

That sounds right. I am not even sure you need the 8. Probably best. Keep the 10 button in case the bed expansion is not as much as you were wanting. But really, talk to your dealer, and the dealer may be able to set it up with 8 for you. The web pages don't usually show every configuration they can do. Phone a couple.

Note that KL should not have the kind of top basket a softener would have; it will clog. Instead it should have a diffuser.

Post photos of how installing that goes.