New Home w/ Well - Advice on Water Filters

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David8381

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We recently moved into a new home and we're trying to get a handle on the water quality.


We're on a well.
Lead: .014 mg/L
Slight rotten egg odor
20 grains of hardness - Culligan Rep
2.5ppm Iron - Culligan Rep (he said softener is handling the iron just fine)
500 TDS at hose bib, 300 TDS from facuet
About 12 gallons per minute are coming out of the kitchen sink faucet.

Current Equipment: water softener and unplugged "super s water conditioner"

The water softener seems to be doing fine, regenerating a few times a week using 4 lbs / salt per regeneration.
If I run the water conditioner, it does deal with the odor for the most part -- but it uses a gallon of chlorine every regeneration. I can't really find much on the internet about this and so I think I'm just going to get rid of it.

Here is my current plan:

Well Water ->
50 micron spin down filter ->
Chlorine Injection w/ Mixer and Contact Tank (for odor and safety) ->
4 20" blue filter housings w/ SED (5 micron), GAC, ACB, KDF (.5 Micron) ->
Water Softener
Water Heater

All of this will be able to be bypassed for easy maintenance / replacement. There will be a pressure gauge at the beginning, end, and after each device (so a total of 8 gauges.)

At the kitchen sink I will install an RO system too. There is a hot water spout at the stove, which is why I want the KDF filter on the whole house.

Questions:

1) It occurred to me today that so pressure gauges might cause a pressure drop. Is that true? I have them here because I wanted to be able to tell which filter was causing a pressure drop to indicate a replacement was needed. If I find I'm replacing a certain filter often I can opt for one of the larger / more expensive systems for that particular issue.

2) When I looked at the contact tank page of the chlorinator I purchased I noticed that on that product page a vacuum relief valve is suggested to protect the contact tank. I really don't yet know much about backwashing or pressure / vacuum build ups. Do I need to learn more here before proceeding?

3) According to culligan rep, water softener is handling the iron just fine. My understanding is that the KDF filter handles iron as well -- but I really have that there for lead. Should I put the KDF filter after the water softener?

4) Am I correct that the carbon filters will handle the chlorine I've injected?

5) Every week I learn something new, so does it appear I'm missing or misunderstanding anything?

Thanks!
 

Reach4

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Chlorine injection should deal with the iron. Ferrous iron gets converted to ferric.... (rust you can see). Much of the iron will settle out in the contact tank. The contact tank should have a blow off valve to drain the sediment.

After the contact tank, you often follow with activated carbon (GAC). That removes chlorine. After chlorine, the softener should not have much iron to deal with. Chlorine over time is hard on softener resin. The GAC will also mechanically filter the ferric iron that did not settle out.

You also want boiler drain valves between pieces to sample for residual chlorine and other stuff.

I am ignorant on removing lead, but if your water out of the softener still has that level of lead, I would pass the drinking water thru a reverse osmosis filter.
 

David8381

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@Reach4 Thank you -- there is no valve on the contact tank I purchased; the company (cleanwaterstore) said it wasn't necessary and it would be sufficient (unless there is 'a lot of iron sludge') to just manually open it up and flush it out once a year. What do you think?

Thank you @Valveman
 

Reach4

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Open it up, drain it, and wash it out with a hose or pressure washer? I don't have one, but it sounds hard to do in a basement. Maybe siphon out the water, and stick a tube from a wet-dry vac down the hole? Dunno.
 
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