Well Water - question about water

PeppermintPatty

PeppermintPatty

🐢. 🐳. 🐢
Location
Canada
We have a drilled well .Its 375 feet deep. The water is clean and tastes good . The only thing I’d like to change, is the iron mineral deposits that make shower curtain orange and dogs beards.

1/. Will a water softener help this or is there something we can do that won’t change the water much? We drink the water.

2/. Should we get a countertop water purifier?

What do you guys do who have wells?
 

A water softener may not be the best solution for your iron problem, as it primarily targets hard water minerals like calcium and magnesium. They make iron filter or iron removal systems specifically designed to tackle high iron levels in water.

You can have your water tested by professionals and then tell them what you would like. They probably will inform you of a few options.
 
I never heard of a countertop water purifier but will look into it now.
Reverse Osmosis is what my plan is for the kitchen only. It's completely contained under the sink with a new spot installed on the countertop. It's pricey.

The estimate I got for the Water Softener throughout the house and Reverse Osmosis for the kitchen sink is $6,000 from Culligan.
That breaks down to 4K for the Water Softener and 2K for Reverse Osmosis. Then I have to pay $10 for a bag of salt to be delivered every month(?) for the Water Softener.

I got a second opinion and it was the same.
 

PeppermintPatty said:
We have a drilled well .Its 375 feet deep. The water is clean and tastes good . The only thing I’d like to change, is the iron mineral deposits that make shower curtain orange and dogs beards.

1/. Will a water softener help this or is there something we can do that won’t change the water much? We drink the water.

2/. Should we get a countertop water purifier?

What do you guys do who have wells?
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We, too, live in a rural area, and have a deep well for our water. I take a sample to the State health Dept., every couple of years, and the tests show very clean and healthy water. However, the water is quite high in mineral content, so I bought a Water Boss Softener from Menard's shortly after we moved here, 20+ years ago, and installed it myself. I fill the softener with Morton's "Clean and Protect" salt, which reduces the mineral/iron content to the point where there is very little buildup of lime/iron/calcium, etc., in the house faucets, etc. Here is a listing of the current WB model......

https://www.menards.com/main/plumbi...ener/900/p-1444446046409-c-8682.htm?exp=false

Culligan is a good product, but like anything you see advertised on TV, you are paying a "premium" for their ads,
 
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Thanks guys,
We had a water softener at our last house but it kept getting clogged up with silt ( fine sand ) due to where we lived. The land we live on now , is more rock and clay, so should work better.

We have a breta water filter system that will take care of the iron problem. It really stains our dogs beards.

Thanks for the help
 
We drank the well water here in this senior mobile home park, but the landlord would work on the well and we would be getting muddy water. So DH got a water softener in, and now neither one of us like the taste of the water.
 
The water is high in iron here too.
A whole house 1 micron sediment filter removes quite a bit of the iron.
I've had one for decades that works great in front where the water comes into the house.
I have an RO unit under the kitchen sink, with 1 micron sediment and carbon block filters in front of it.

The sediment filters reduce the undissolved solids.
The 98% membrane that I use is around $30 on Ebay and lasts from 3 to 5 years.
This particular 98% RO membrane reduces the TDS (total dissolved solids) from 500+ to less than 10.
RO units are generally $150 or so on Ebay. The filters last a long time and are easy to replace.

I don't use any post filters as they put junk back into the water.
Water softeners don't remove any of the TDS and toxicity from the water, so I've never used one.
Brita and other non RO systems don't reduce the TDS and toxicity levels either, but only remove some bacteria.
 
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mrstime said:
We drank the well water here in this senior mobile home park, but the landlord would work on the well and we would be getting muddy water. So DH got a water softener in, and now neither one of us like the taste of the water.
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THAT’s what I’m worried about. The softener was great on our dishwasher and washing machine but had a slime feel to it . It DID ruin the taste. The water had a salty, slimey taste and we switched to drinking bottled water only.

I think I’ll pass on spending $4,000 to $5,000 on a water softener. I’ll just keep using the vinegar to clean it up.

My husband just reminded me that we have a Breta water purifier in the cupboard. It’s now in the fridge.

Thank you all for jogging my memory. I’d forgotten all the cons of owning the water softener.
 
John cycling said:
A whole house 1 micron sediment filter removes quite a bit of the iron.
I've had one for decades that works great in front where the water comes into the house.
I have an RO unit under the kitchen sink, with 1 micron sediment and carbon block filters in front of it.

The sediment filters reduce the undissolved solids.
The 98% membrane that I use is around $30 on Ebay and lasts from 3 to 5 years.
This particular 98% RO membrane reduces the TDS (total dissolved solids) from 500+ to less than 10.
RO units are generally $150 or so on Ebay. The filters last a long time and are easy to replace.

I don't use any post filters as they put junk back into the water.
Water softeners don't remove any of the TDS and toxicity from the water, so I've never used one.
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…….🫤 I shall read up on it.
Thanks. I truly enjoy a refreshing glass of water. I’ll use a bit of hydrogen peroxide on our dogs beards to lighten the stain.
 
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The Brita filtered water is delicious.
Thanks guess. I’ll make sure our dogs get this water too. Easy as pie! I like good water.
Thanks again.

The orange on the shower curtain comes off with bleach and vinegar.
 
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PP, just an FYI that if you ever do decide to get a water softener, run the line around your kitchen sink so you’re not drinking or cooking with it.

Apparently those Berkey water filters that sit on your counter are the gold standard. Very expensive.

We buy 5 gallon refillable bottles of water. Some people do a trade-in system of bringing your empty bottle to the depot and they replace it with another ($2 - $4). We don’t do that because we can’t be sure of how clean other people were. Two bottles last about 1.5 weeks. Great water. DH tried drinking the Brita filtered. That experiment only lasted a couple of days. The scent and taste of chorine is disgusting.
 
This subject can be as deep as a well. I put in a softener, whole house sediment filter and UV light filter when I replaced the water heater. I had my water tested by a lab and sent the results to the people I purchased the system from. They programmed it for me. No RO for drinking water. The water tastes fine and my wife had to go off her meds for blood pressure. We don't have to buy cases of vinegar anymore. No slimy feeling, use less soap, clothes are cleaner, hair conditioner hardly gets used and skin is softer.
My folks had a cheap system. they broke more dishes from being slimy, took forever to rinse off in the shower, had to be extra careful in the shower due to being more slick and their water tasted terrible. We could also taste a hint of salt. Maybe it wasn't set up correctly or maybe because it was a cheap system :unsure: . Theirs also used twice as much salt as ours.
A lot of research to get it right.
 
We have a high iron content & very hard water. The man we use for our well does only well drilling & plumbing work for wells. For regular plumbing issues we use another man. There is a difference between equipment you use for a well vs. the equipment you would by for city water.

Along with our original water softner & iron filter, we eventually installed two different in-line filters that constantly needed changing. Our iron showed up on shower curtain & fixtures as a orangish-red coating. The red iron flecks showed up on light colored clothes more when it needed to cycle as the equipment aged. It was time to replace it.

The new system did away with the in-line filters. We now only need the iron filter & a water softener with a separate salt container. The system is the best one we have had so far. We don't have orange fixtures or problems with clothes since the replacement. The clothes come out clean & the water is very nice for showers, dishes & drinking.

The company is called Sterling Water Treatment out of Indiana.
This is the link to the iron filter: OXY2 SERIES – Sterling Water Treatment
This is the link to the water softener: N SERIES – Sterling Water Treatment

It may be time that your entire system is completely updated.
 
Jules said:
PP, just an FYI that if you ever do decide to get a water softener, run the line around your kitchen sink so you’re not drinking or cooking with it.

Apparently those Berkey water filters that sit on your counter are the gold standard. Very expensive.

We buy 5 gallon refillable bottles of water. Some people do a trade-in system of bringing your empty bottle to the depot and they replace it with another ($2 - $4). We don’t do that because we can’t be sure of how clean other people were. Two bottles last about 1.5 weeks. Great water. DH tried drinking the Brita filtered. That experiment only lasted a couple of days. The scent and taste of chorine is disgusting.
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Thanks. I forgot that you can get a separate tap for fresh drinking water. I’ve really got to figure this out. My shampoo doesn’t lather up well, my clothes don’t clean well, appliances get mineral deposits everywhere. We are moving our hot water tank so maybe we can install it then.
 
Lilac said:
We have a high iron content & very hard water. The man we use for our well does only well drilling & plumbing work for wells. For regular plumbing issues we use another man. There is a difference between equipment you use for a well vs. the equipment you would by for city water.

Along with our original water softner & iron filter, we eventually installed two different in-line filters that constantly needed changing. Our iron showed up on shower curtain & fixtures as a orangish-red coating. The red iron flecks showed up on light colored clothes more when it needed to cycle as the equipment aged. It was time to replace it.

The new system did away with the in-line filters. We now only need the iron filter & a water softener with a separate salt container. The system is the best one we have had so far. We don't have orange fixtures or problems with clothes since the replacement. The clothes come out clean & the water is very nice for showers, dishes & drinking.

The company is called Sterling Water Treatment out of Indiana.
This is the link to the iron filter: OXY2 SERIES – Sterling Water Treatment
This is the link to the water softener: N SERIES – Sterling Water Treatment

It may be time that your entire system is completely updated.
Click to expand...
Our iron isn’t that bad but it does darken my white shower curtain at the bottom and a lot of mineral depot is actually in the drain. I vinegar and clean the drains every 2 months.

I ordered a shower filter which I never thought of before so I’m glad I wrote this thread. An iron filter sounds like something we could use.

The counter filtration system for fresh water works perfectly. I think tackling each thing separately might work better.

Thanks
 
My sister, who lives on a mountain in the Blue Ridge, had absolutely wonderful well water until.....

....until someone built a mega-mansion across from them and put in $100,000 worth of landscaping and used incredible amounts of water to maintain it. It apparently lowered the level of the aquifer that supplied the whole community and all of a sudden their water, while still safe, now tasted like you were licking concrete (that's the best way I can describe it after I tried it).

Unfortunately, what they did wasn't illegal, just not good-neighborly, and hopefully, the aquifer will recover but probably not anytime soon. The new neighbor agreed not to use so much water from then on.
 

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