diggity
Member
I'm sure I have long ago bored the poor souls who were unfortunate enough to stumble on any of my previous posts here on this forum as I tried to fix my water system over the past few months, and for that I apologize. But I have some happy news for once! And I can't resist posting one more time, partly to get it off my chest and partly for the benefit of anybody else who is unfortunate enough to have water as horrible as ours.
To recap, we have over 20 ppm of iron, TDS around 1400 or so, pH around 5.25, and 50 grains of hardness. But despite all this nastiness, and skipping to the good news, today I tested the iron at the upstairs faucets, and the level was... zero! For the first time in the 13 years we have owned this house, our water is free of iron! I feel like dancing, but me dancing is a pathetic sight to see, so I'll just sit here an smile instead.
Apparently the key was that our water is so bad that it doesn't conform to the typical advice, which is to treat iron before softening. Been there, done that, and it just didn't work for us. The paradigm that works for us is this: If the softener can remove 80% or 90% of the iron by itself, then let it. And remove whatever remains via oxidation and sediment filtration. I doubt this tactic would work if the raw water had ferric iron and/or high pH. But in our case, our water is really acidic and all the iron is ferrous - both conditions which softeners actually prefer. So fine, Mr. Softener, do your thing. Knock that iron down from 20+ ppm to 3 or 4. We'll clean up the rest downstream.
I tried to remove the iron before the softener... I really did. But I didn't fully appreciate what I was up against. If the peroxide feed rate was too low, it didn't oxidize all the iron. If the feed rate was ridiculously high I could oxidize all the iron, but then struggle to remove it.
So after a couple months of trying to oxidize all that iron before the softener, I finally re-plumbed everything over the course of the past two weekends. Here's how bad it was: There was rust literally everywhere - all through the contact tank, piping, everywhere. My contact tank is just an old empty filter body... just a flow through head and a riser tube. When I took it apart it was of course filled with orange water. The distributor basket was just about plugged, and the riser tube had so much rust in it that I had to take it outside and flush it with the hose. When I did so, it looked like the tube was pooping out a 2 foot turd of pure rust. Sorry for the visual. It was pretty gross.
The first weekend I plumbed the softener first in line. No injection of soda ash or peroxide. When I turned the water back on it was REALLY bad. It blew chunks for a couple days and then gradually cleared up. Still though, by the end of the week, there was over 5 ppm of iron at the faucets, despite the fact that there was only 3-4 ppm coming straight out of the softener. How could that be? I double checked it to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I think what was happening was that, because I was not correcting the pH during that time, the very low pH water was actually scouring rust off the pipes. Converting it back to ferrous and delivering it right to our sinks and toilets. Yuck.
The second weekend I plumbed the injectors and contact tank back in, and voila! The water quality improved dramatically. Iron is now zero, the taste and smell are fine, pH is around 7, and the TDS even drifted down a bit, from around 1400 to around 1200. (TDS is still high, I know, but we have an RO at the kitchen sink for drinking water)
So here is the final configuration:
Well --> 40 gallon pressure tank --> Dual softeners --> Peroxide injection --> Soda ash injection --> Contact tank --> 4 gallon pressure tank --> Katalox Light filter --> Sediment filter (Chemsorb)
Picture can be seen here: https://flic.kr/p/EB6aiD
In case you're wondering as to the purpose of the little 4 gallon pressure tank, it is to absorb any additional pressure created by the Stenner pumps if they happen to come on during a time when there is no demand for water in the house. For example, when the softeners backwash. The Stenners are wired into the switch on the primary 40 gallon PT, which is BEFORE the softeners, but the injection points are AFTER the softeners. So when the softeners backwash and the well pump kicks on, the Stenners may create excessive pressure in the lines because the injection points are after the primary PT's check valve. So the little PT absorbs any extra pressure in the lines. The Stenners only inject an ounce or two every time the well pump runs, so we're not talking about a major amount of water anyway. But still, the mini PT seemed like a good precaution.
I had thought about buying an atmospheric storage tank and air pump, because it seems to me that good old air does a marvelous job of oxidizing iron and just improving overall water quality. But I'd need a big tank - probably at least 150 gallons, and those are expensive. And shipping is very expensive too. And I'd need a shallow well pump for re-pressurization. And I'd need to find an appropriate float valve - one that could handle typical household pressure and flow. Seems most float valves are built for aquariums. Anyway, when the peroxide Stenner pump eventually dies I'll revisit the issue. For now, peroxide seems to be good enough. I'm diluting 7% peroxide (NeutraSul) by half and the pump is at setting 4, which means I'll go through about 2 gallons of peroxide per month. Not too bad.
I still have to tweak the injection flow rates and backwash frequencies, but I finally feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks again to all of you who offered advice during this odyssey!
To recap, we have over 20 ppm of iron, TDS around 1400 or so, pH around 5.25, and 50 grains of hardness. But despite all this nastiness, and skipping to the good news, today I tested the iron at the upstairs faucets, and the level was... zero! For the first time in the 13 years we have owned this house, our water is free of iron! I feel like dancing, but me dancing is a pathetic sight to see, so I'll just sit here an smile instead.
Apparently the key was that our water is so bad that it doesn't conform to the typical advice, which is to treat iron before softening. Been there, done that, and it just didn't work for us. The paradigm that works for us is this: If the softener can remove 80% or 90% of the iron by itself, then let it. And remove whatever remains via oxidation and sediment filtration. I doubt this tactic would work if the raw water had ferric iron and/or high pH. But in our case, our water is really acidic and all the iron is ferrous - both conditions which softeners actually prefer. So fine, Mr. Softener, do your thing. Knock that iron down from 20+ ppm to 3 or 4. We'll clean up the rest downstream.
I tried to remove the iron before the softener... I really did. But I didn't fully appreciate what I was up against. If the peroxide feed rate was too low, it didn't oxidize all the iron. If the feed rate was ridiculously high I could oxidize all the iron, but then struggle to remove it.
So after a couple months of trying to oxidize all that iron before the softener, I finally re-plumbed everything over the course of the past two weekends. Here's how bad it was: There was rust literally everywhere - all through the contact tank, piping, everywhere. My contact tank is just an old empty filter body... just a flow through head and a riser tube. When I took it apart it was of course filled with orange water. The distributor basket was just about plugged, and the riser tube had so much rust in it that I had to take it outside and flush it with the hose. When I did so, it looked like the tube was pooping out a 2 foot turd of pure rust. Sorry for the visual. It was pretty gross.
The first weekend I plumbed the softener first in line. No injection of soda ash or peroxide. When I turned the water back on it was REALLY bad. It blew chunks for a couple days and then gradually cleared up. Still though, by the end of the week, there was over 5 ppm of iron at the faucets, despite the fact that there was only 3-4 ppm coming straight out of the softener. How could that be? I double checked it to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I think what was happening was that, because I was not correcting the pH during that time, the very low pH water was actually scouring rust off the pipes. Converting it back to ferrous and delivering it right to our sinks and toilets. Yuck.
The second weekend I plumbed the injectors and contact tank back in, and voila! The water quality improved dramatically. Iron is now zero, the taste and smell are fine, pH is around 7, and the TDS even drifted down a bit, from around 1400 to around 1200. (TDS is still high, I know, but we have an RO at the kitchen sink for drinking water)
So here is the final configuration:
Well --> 40 gallon pressure tank --> Dual softeners --> Peroxide injection --> Soda ash injection --> Contact tank --> 4 gallon pressure tank --> Katalox Light filter --> Sediment filter (Chemsorb)
Picture can be seen here: https://flic.kr/p/EB6aiD
In case you're wondering as to the purpose of the little 4 gallon pressure tank, it is to absorb any additional pressure created by the Stenner pumps if they happen to come on during a time when there is no demand for water in the house. For example, when the softeners backwash. The Stenners are wired into the switch on the primary 40 gallon PT, which is BEFORE the softeners, but the injection points are AFTER the softeners. So when the softeners backwash and the well pump kicks on, the Stenners may create excessive pressure in the lines because the injection points are after the primary PT's check valve. So the little PT absorbs any extra pressure in the lines. The Stenners only inject an ounce or two every time the well pump runs, so we're not talking about a major amount of water anyway. But still, the mini PT seemed like a good precaution.
I had thought about buying an atmospheric storage tank and air pump, because it seems to me that good old air does a marvelous job of oxidizing iron and just improving overall water quality. But I'd need a big tank - probably at least 150 gallons, and those are expensive. And shipping is very expensive too. And I'd need a shallow well pump for re-pressurization. And I'd need to find an appropriate float valve - one that could handle typical household pressure and flow. Seems most float valves are built for aquariums. Anyway, when the peroxide Stenner pump eventually dies I'll revisit the issue. For now, peroxide seems to be good enough. I'm diluting 7% peroxide (NeutraSul) by half and the pump is at setting 4, which means I'll go through about 2 gallons of peroxide per month. Not too bad.
I still have to tweak the injection flow rates and backwash frequencies, but I finally feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks again to all of you who offered advice during this odyssey!
