Well Depth?

[Wingnut]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Sorry for the delay in posting Jim ... I had tomake a quick trip down to Houston to "consult" on internet procurement ... such fun to try and inject common sense and reality into a meeting of marketing weasels.
Anyway ... I'll defer to our friend Wen on the "clearwater iron". I've never come across dissolved iron as a contaminent in wells, back in Alberta ... it was there but acted as food to what he calls the "black slime". There's a big industry there to service wells ... there's the method I used of chlorination and filtration, there was the method I used previously of ion exchange with potassium permanganate, and there's oxegenation, etc, etc, etc. It is indeed a very ugly mess ... if you think "your" iron messes up clothes and fixtures ... well, most people that had acreages around there had water trucked in rather than dealing with the iron. Old timers told me it was a matter of years ... 5 to 10, before a new well was infested with iron bacteria (black slime).
Fortunately, the method I used (albeit quite expensive) generated quite good ... and perfectly safe and clean water.
I'm glad that the brine method works well for dissolved iron, I'll keep that in mind in case I start getting iron in my well (but as a last resort ... I don't much like -additional - salt).
Also, it's much easier to be polite and a little tongue-in-cheek ... everyone enjoys a laugh and none of us want to be the next one jumped on for an incorrect statement or for a moment of inatention ...

too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Wingnut]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Wen,
I guess some of the confusion comes from your two categories of "clearwater" iton and "black slime" .... and the opther part comes from (reading Von's note about water conditioners not removing salt) ... comes from marketing weasels.
But I will say that I had also undersood that ion eachange would NOT remove iron (but that again might have been an Alberta Iron thing) ... <grin>

too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Wingnut]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Wen ... and it occurs to me that I had read (I'll see if I can dig it out of my archives) an article in the Western Canadian Producer from an ag study ... that water conditioners CAN cause a septic tank problem if the backflow contains too much salt ... kinda wipes out the anaerobic bacteria or some such ....
Dueling ag agencies at 10 paces! (you know what the definition of expert is, doncha? ... I use it in my seminars all the time
X is an unknown quantity - in other words nothing
Spurt is a drip unddr pressure
Therefore expert is a nothing drip)


too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Iron In Well Water

While preparing to build my house I found that in CT water softeners that back flush a salt solution are not even legal to use, although they are legal to sell. Plenty of people use them. The reason for the law is they will damage septic systems. If there is a city sewer system the added salt is difficult to remove so they do not want it flushed in there. It is not even acceptable to flush into a dry well, since that can cause ground water pollution. I even asked about making an evaporative system, where I could just sweep up the left over salt and was told that it might be approved but would have to be engineered. The only legal systems use large cartridges that are replaced by a service on a regular basis and do not back flush.

Andy

 

[Bird]

Re: Iron In Well Water

I'd always heard an "ex" was a has been, and a "spurt" was a drip under pressure. Of course, I've also heard an "expert" was a guy from out of town with a briefcase./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[W5FL]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Connecticut -- is that where they use salt on the icey streets?

The entire state of California would die if they had Connecticut Inspectors! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Water softners are so common in California that Culligan recharges them and exchanges them with your system weekly! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Filteration will only remove rusty iron. Clear water iron (the iron is dissolved and in solution) is not affected by cartridge filters unless proceeded with a process that oxidizes the iron in the water.