Softener & Nuetralizer Help

[DaveBfromCT]

Hello all,

I am a newbie at well water treatment so please go easy on me. I have a family of 5 in CT in a 2.5 bathroom house and my well water treatment equipment is ~24 years old. This past week I received the following water test results and work quote from my well service company:

Hardness: 15.0 gpg
Iron: 1.0 ppm
pH: 6.0 units
Manganese: 0.0 ppm
T.D.S: 265 ppm

AFN-13-EV Golden Eagle Evolve Series Neutralizer with plus plus for pH (filled w/limestone)
GF-532-EV (32,000 gr.) Golden Eagle Evolve Series Water Softener with smart valves
Both Installed: $5674

WR120 pressure tank (already replaced this myself - just put in here for pump gpm reference)
Installed: $1526

Their prices seem WAY to high to me (I replaced the WR120 for 1/3 the cost).

I presently have an old neutralizer and old water softener installed in a water closet with plenty of space. Can anyone recommend equivalent (or at the least adequate) equipment that I could purchase and install myself? I know that I haven't given a lot of info but hopefully what I have provided will be good enough to start a dialog.

Thanks!
Dave

 

[ditttohead]

Their price is typical for a proprietary equipment dealer. If you want to do it yourself there are many companies that have similar equipment at much more reasonable prices.

 

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[Dgold]

I would try to fix it first. Same thing happened to mine in my old house, but the guys used a simple home made tool to break up the caking and clean it out.

If you have an air compressor - even a small one - it's cheap to try yourself. Basically, they took a 5' long stick of 1/2" CPVC, with a ball valve and a 1/4" male air fitting at one end. They set the regulator on the compressor very low, and then used the open end of the "stick" to pound away at the caked up calcite. The air pushed away any loose calcite, ensuring they could pound away at the solid parts. The ball valve turned the air on/off.

It cleaned everything out - tons of dirt was released into the water. it turned a nasty brown color.

You do that, re-plug the fill hole, manually cycle the backwash valve to refill and remove the dirty water (takes less than 60 seconds) and repeat 2~4 times or until all the calcite is broken up and no more dirt is obvious in the water.

Obviously you want to bypass the neutralizer when cleaning, and put back in service mode to backwash after each cleaning. You'll spill some water each time you open the tank.

Also, after opening the port hole each time, they siphoned out about 5 +/- gallons of water (half a 5g paint bucket 2-3 times) before going to work ramming the calcite. not sure if you need to siphon out that much, but that's what I did - monkey see, monkey do (yours truly being the monkey).

I had to do this once again a few years later and it worked like a charm.

BTW, when they did it, it was two guys, and it probably took them an hour, plus driving. $400 is expensive, but not unreasonable if you're the one doing the work. (It was a bit of a PITA.)

Hope this helps.

 

[DaveBfromCT]

Thanks dgold!

I hadn't even thought of that option. I believe the main reason they want to perform all this work (besides making money) is because they discovered that one of my bypass valves is deteriorating from the inside out. All my equipment was installed in 1994 and because some of it is starting to fail they want to replace it all to the newest technology.

Maybe all I need to do is replace the valve(s) and clean out the built up calcite deposits in the tanks...

Thanks again.

 

[_John_]

Thanks dgold!

I hadn't even thought of that option. I believe the main reason they want to perform all this work (besides making money) is because they discovered that one of my bypass valves is deteriorating from the inside out. All my equipment was installed in 1994 and because some of it is starting to fail they want to replace it all to the newest technology.

Maybe all I need to do is replace the valve(s) and clean out the built up calcite deposits in the tanks...

Thanks again.

At minimum I'd replace the valves and the resin in the softener.

Agree with dittohead that your quote may be in the ballpark for professionally installed water treatment for your area. Fleck valves are what I'd look for online. I've seen our customers having good luck with 5600's and 2510's.

I'd do a slightly larger softener than what was quoted if it were my own house (in fact my house is the same specs, but just 3 of us and I have a 1.5 cu. ft. 48000 grain).