Well Water Treatment - iron and pH

[Orangeelmo]

This seems like a good question to post in rural living. Most rural dwellers use well water for home and farm.
My water issues are minor but advice is always helpful when trying to correct the problem. Water test shows low pH, 6.2 and disolved iron, 0.2 mg/L. All else is good. Those levels aren't drastic but enough to be minor problem with taste, staining and corrosion.
Options:
A large whole house calcite upflo filter and a backwash iron tank filter.

A backwash calcite filter and a 4" x 20" cartridge iron filter

A water softener and upflo calcite tank

I don't really want to deal with salt for softener just to remove iron. The water is very low hardness already.

Any opinions????

 

[gary49]

A calcite neutralizer is going to make the water harder. You could try starting with just the neutralizer and see if correcting the pH makes the water too hard to suit you. .2 iron isn't too bad, there will be a bit of staining but it might be tolerable, it is possible to clean up the staining. If the hardness and staining turns out to be intolerable, you could add a softener later using iron out in the brine tank. You could also add an iron filter in the system along with the neutralizer if the hardness isn't too much of a problem. The iron filter is first in line, then the neutralizer. If you use a softener to remove the iron, the neutralizer goes first. IMHO, the low pH is the most important problem to fix, that'll eat your plumbing and leach things you don't want to be drinking into your water.

 

[Orangeelmo]

A calcite neutralizer is going to make the water harder. You could try starting with just the neutralizer and see if correcting the pH makes the water too hard to suit you. .2 iron isn't too bad, there will be a bit of staining but it might be tolerable, it is possible to clean up the staining. If the hardness and staining turns out to be intolerable, you could add a softener later using iron out in the brine tank. You could also add an iron filter in the system along with the neutralizer if the hardness isn't too much of a problem. The iron filter is first in line, then the neutralizer. If you use a softener to remove the iron, the neutralizer goes first. IMHO, the low pH is the most important problem to fix, that'll eat your plumbing and leach things you don't want to be drinking into your water.

The water is soft to begin with so I bought a used 10x44 backflush neutralizer for $100 with full bag of calcite. And a Pentek big blue iron filter 4"x20" that should take care of the small amount of iron followed by a carbon filter at kitchen sink.
Spoke to Pentek tech support and this should be a good compromise requiring almost no maintenance.
I'll check hardness after install. Should be around 150 mg)L if their calcs are correct. The water is only 25 mg/L hardness before calcite. I can live with 150.

 

[Zippo1]

This seems like a good question to post in rural living. Most rural dwellers use well water for home and farm.
My water issues are minor but advice is always helpful when trying to correct the problem. Water test shows low pH, 6.2 and disolved iron, 0.2 mg/L. All else is good. Those levels aren't drastic but enough to be minor problem with taste, staining and corrosion.
Options:
A large whole house calcite upflo filter and a backwash iron tank filter.

A backwash calcite filter and a 4" x 20" cartridge iron filter

A water softener and upflo calcite tank

I don't really want to deal with salt for softener just to remove iron. The water is very low hardness already.

Any opinions????

We used one of these on our well for almost 20 years.

Well Pro Dry Pellet Chlorinators

Oxidizes and precipitates the iron. Any sand filter with backwash capability will remove the oxidized precipitates. We had to replace the dropper motor once in the time we used it. Very reliable and pellets are available many places.

You don't say but, if you have iron, your water may also be hard requiring a softener. You only need to deal with the softener pellets every couple of months depending upon the conditioner model. If you have hard water you'll like the feel of showering in soft water and the missus will like it in the washer.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

We used one of these on our well for almost 20 years.

Well Pro Dry Pellet Chlorinators

Oxidizes and precipitates the iron. Any sand filter with backwash capability will remove the oxidized precipitates. We had to replace the dropper motor once in the time we used it. Very reliable and pellets are available many places.

You don't say but, if you have iron, your water may also be hard requiring a softener. You only need to deal with the softener pellets every couple of months depending upon the conditioner model. If you have hard water you'll like the feel of showering in soft water and the missus will like it in the washer.

Look at reverse osmosis. Dirt filter first in line. PH correction to just between 7 & 8 at the final. Amazon has one for $179

Ron

 

[Orangeelmo]

Look at reverse osmosis. Dirt filter first in line. PH correction to just between 7 & 8 at the final. Amazon has one for $179

Ron

That one on Amazon is just a drinking water filter for 1 tap. It won't suit our needs. Also I don't have the pressure for it to work properly.
Whole house RO gets really $$$ and you need a large storage tank for the permeate water. These systems are for really horrible water like brackish Florida well water; been there done that. Never again.

 

[Orangeelmo]

We used one of these on our well for almost 20 years.

Well Pro Dry Pellet Chlorinators

Oxidizes and precipitates the iron. Any sand filter with backwash capability will remove the oxidized precipitates. We had to replace the dropper motor once in the time we used it. Very reliable and pellets are available many places.

You don't say but, if you have iron, your water may also be hard requiring a softener. You only need to deal with the softener pellets every couple of months depending upon the conditioner model. If you have hard water you'll like the feel of showering in soft water and the missus will like it in the washer.

The chlorinator was an option. But for such low levels of iron I'm trying to eliminate the Pentek filter will work @ $70. every 1-2 years. The water is soft to begin with so with the calcite system I still might be ok. Only paid $100 with calcite for that. We'll see how this works out.