Water filter

[Yadkin]

My daughter and SIL have lived in their current home outside of Roanoke Virginia for about three years now. It's on a well.

I did the pre-purchase inspection on the house and found a cracked well cap and biological contamination in the water. There were snails and spiders living under the cap. I had the seller hire the original well-driller to clean out the well, disinfect the system and install a new well cap. A re-test showed good water.

The PO had installed a salt-type water softener which I disconnected for the testing and instructed my SIL to leave it that way. My daughter complained about the water hardness- takes a lot of shampoo to clean her long hair. I told her to invest in a shampoo company and leave the softener disconnected.

My SIL caved in and reconnected the softener. That made the water, my term, "slippery". Take a shower and it seems like forever to rinse soap off.

My SIL tried several times to adjust the softening rate. I've never had a softener so can't give much advice. He eventually gave up and took my initial advice.

Now his electric water heater is clogged with mineral deposits. I had that happen to mine when I lived in NY, on a well, so told him how to clean the heater out. That job is best described as three hours of frustrating pain in the ass, working through the heating element holes, using hardwood dowels to crush the soft stones, making sure not to damage the tank sides, removing a handful of debris at a time using a shop-vac with various home-made fittings.

Baby Doll asked me to go up and do the work, which in no way will I consider. He's younger than I am and needs to learn this shit- it's not rocket science.

Any tips on a whole-house filter to remove excess minerals? I'm guessing that reverse osmosis is the only option.

[Bruze]

Yaddy: There may be more than one option, depending on what exactly is in the water. I'm going through all this right now with either a change in my water or with my softener.

Call The Culligan Man.

[Yadkin]

Originally Posted by Bruze

Yaddy: There may be more than one option, depending on what exactly is in the water. I'm going through all this right now with either a change in my water or with my softener.

Call The Culligan Man.

You can't use creek water because some guy keeps pissing in it.

MY MIL, in NY with a well, had the best water ever. Baby Doll used to joke that we should take a barrel home with us (to Winston-Salem) so she could wash her hair in it.

The the Culligan Man came, installed a softener and ruined it. At one point changed it over to a non-sodium ion and made it even worse.

[DAB]

Our whole house RO was not cheap, but the water is awesome. 15-20ppm hardness.

[Raazor]

Call the guy

*hint* not Culligan

[Yadkin]

Originally Posted by DAB

Our whole house RO was not cheap, but the water is awesome. 15-20ppm hardness.

Personally I love minerals in my water- calcium, manganese. So you can control the amount of minerals left in the water?

[Raazor]

Originally Posted by DAB

Our whole house RO was not cheap

Troof. Thank God!

[ZipZap]

Only thing I ran in VA was silt and iron removal.

In CO I only need to run silt, and that's one of those $12, 5 micron, R50's and it lasts 6 months. Water calcium hardness has always been <100.

[Kevin68]

You were wrong to take the softener out and should have cleaned out the water heater and maybe buy them a new one. The stones are calcium carbonate (limestone). Calcium and magnesium are the primary sources of hardness. Iron and manganese are the other sources of hardness, which a softener won't fix. The softener exchanges calcium in the water for sodium. Water hardness is harmless except for the damage to plumbing fixtures and the PITA to clean glass. The slipperiness you describe is what your skin is supposed to feel like, not rubber. Use less shampoo and soap.

Some bacteria are naturally occurring in groundwater. If it was fecal coliforms or e-coli, then you have a problem most likely related to the septic system placement (or the neighbor's septic system placement). Did you test for nitrates? Anything over 10 mg/L is above drinking water standards and can be a problem for infants (blue baby syndrome). Nitrates are also associated with septic systems and farms/ranches/feed lots.

A UV light system will take care of the bacteria. Don't use Culligan or any other treatment system that uses proprietary filters. You'll overpay for them and will beholden to their service costs. Use equipment that uses standard size filters. Search Amazon for standard sizes of particulate and carbon filters, and UV lights. Viqua is a common brand around here that uses non-proprietary filters, although they do brand their own with their own "special" price.

A whole house RO will run $5-8K if you DIY and $10-15+K for someone to install. They are also relatively maintenance-intensive. They only recover about 1/2 of what goes in so you need to dispose of the concentrate ("brine", although it's unlikely to be salty enough to be considered brine). The septic system might not be tolerant of the concentrate and it could be toxic to plants depending on what's in it. I don't recommend an RO system if the total dissolved solids concentration is less than 1,000 mg/L. 500mg/L TDS is the EPA drinking water standard. My recommendation is somewhat dependent on what's in the water. Heavy metals or radionuclides being the primary reasons you would RO fresh water, although I'm not sure about the effectiveness of consumer-grade RO systems at removing all radionuclides. Adsorption filters might be effective for heavy metals if there is one particular contaminant. Legally disposing of the adsorption media could be problematic/costly, again, depending on what it is.

[Big bob]

Originally Posted by Yadkin

My daughter and SIL have lived in their current home outside of Roanoke Virginia for about three years now. It's on a well.

I did the pre-purchase inspection on the house and found a cracked well cap and biological contamination in the water. There were snails and spiders living under the cap. I had the seller hire the original well-driller to clean out the well, disinfect the system and install a new well cap. A re-test showed good water.

The PO had installed a salt-type water softener which I disconnected for the testing and instructed my SIL to leave it that way. My daughter complained about the water hardness- takes a lot of shampoo to clean her long hair. I told her to invest in a shampoo company and leave the softener disconnected.

My SIL caved in and reconnected the softener. That made the water, my term, "slippery". Take a shower and it seems like forever to rinse soap off.

My SIL tried several times to adjust the softening rate. I've never had a softener so can't give much advice. He eventually gave up and took my initial advice.

Now his electric water heater is clogged with mineral deposits. I had that happen to mine when I lived in NY, on a well, so told him how to clean the heater out. That job is best described as three hours of frustrating pain in the ass, working through the heating element holes, using hardwood dowels to crush the soft stones, making sure not to damage the tank sides, removing a handful of debris at a time using a shop-vac with various home-made fittings.

Baby Doll asked me to go up and do the work, which in no way will I consider. He's younger than I am and needs to learn this shit- it's not rocket science.

Any tips on a whole-house filter to remove excess minerals? I'm guessing that reverse osmosis is the only option.

Good job Yadkin that up.

[higgyburners]

TLDR

[04 commemorative]

Originally Posted by Yadkin

Personally I love minerals in my water- calcium, manganese. So you can control the amount of minerals left in the water?

Good for making kidney stones too

[GTOguy]

I love a good solid Yadkin thread and am glad I don't need any of that water treatment stuff. I vote he give the son in law a direction to go in and keep out of it. The kid needs to learn this stuff for himself, and Yadkin will have to find something else to keep him out of his wife's hair.

[KenHorse]

We're on a well that taps an underground running spring at about 40'.

Very good quality water but of course, as it is running it has quite a bit of mineral (and especially) iron content. We have 2 stage filtering/softening which makes the water pretty decent overall. No nasties in the water either.

[NotSlo]

I have an Aquasana whole house system with a no salt softener, it works great, no slippery water.

[Kevin68]

Originally Posted by KenHorse

We're on a well that taps an underground running spring at about 40'.

Very good quality water but of course, as it is running it has quite a bit of mineral (and especially) iron content. We have 2 stage filtering/softening which makes the water pretty decent overall. No nasties in the water either.

You don't have an underground spring because there is no such thing. Did your dowser (water witch) tell you that?

Shallow groundwater (40' is shallow) is less desirable because it is subject to impacts from surface contamination and because it is typically oxygenated, it frequently has iron problems if iron is present in the rock/sediment that makes up the aquifer. In the thousands of wells I've looked at, only once have I encountered water that was visibly/audibly flowing. And that was under a very unusual transient condition. It's rare for groundwater to flow at a rate of more than a few tens or hundreds of feet per year.

I hope there is no nastiness to the water if you are treating it.

[KenHorse]

Originally Posted by Kevin68

You don't have an underground spring because there is no such thing. Did your dowser (water witch) tell you that?

How do you explain water exiting on our backyard slope, at approx a 40' vertical down the slope?

It doesn't dribble either

[Kevin68]

Originally Posted by KenHorse

How do you explain water exiting on our backyard slope, at approx a 40' vertical down the slope?

It doesn't dribble either

It's not a spring until it appears at the surface. Your well may be open to the same formation as the spring. How deep is your well? When your well pumps for a long time does the spring flow decrease or stop?

[VatorMan]

We use this. Our water doesn’t taste like dirt any more.

[KenHorse]

Originally Posted by Kevin68

It's not a spring until it appears at the surface.

So semantics. Gotcha

Originally Posted by Kevin68

Your well may be open to the same formation as the spring. How deep is your well? When your well pumps for a long time does the spring flow decrease or stop?

As I posted, around 40' (had the pump replaced about 2 years ago). Have never run out of water, even when filling our 300 gallon hot tub. Can't say I've ever noticed if the spring flow decreases or not as I never thought to look