We settled on my new house this past Monday. After we closed I noticed the water smells weird (I'm leaning towards bacterial iron after checking the toilet tanks and doing the backwash of the system) and the water softener brine tank was empty. I filled the tank with 120# of salt pellets and did a manual backwash of the softener system. That didn't change anything so I plan on shocking the well with chlorine. I have baseboard heating with a boiler and wanted to know if shocking will have any negative affect on the boiler system. I'm looking into getting a chlorine injector system for the water supply as a long term solution. If anyone else has ideas I'm all ears.
chlorine is bad news. I use h2o2 hydrogen puroxide injection. You can read up on Oxyblast. Hope this helps.
Had it sat idle for long? If so, the best thing to do might just be to run the chit out of the garden hose and really flush the whole system.
Get a raw water test and start from there. If the softener was run without salt for a long time, the media could be toast. The hwbb should be a closed system, not sure how shocking the well would cause any issues there.
+1 on not effecting HWBB. It needs oxygen + chlorine to rust, so even if it did get into the supply it wouldn't do anything.
My well water had the stink - kind of sulfur-ish. This area has very high iron levels. I installed a dedicated greensand iron filter (uses potassium permanganate in the regen cycle) in front of the softener and that took care of the smell.
I have never had any problem using liquid chlorine in my well. Do it about twice a year and then flush it out for a few days. I just draw a glass out of the spigot after a couple days and test it for chlorine levels with a pool test strip. Our well will get iron algae built up and start to restrict the water veins, chlorine takes care of that. If I go too long I have to give it an iron out treatment, both of these were at the direction of the well company that drilled. ***** As for the hot water boiler that is what I have as well, it's a closed system unless you drain it for some reason very rare that you would have to add water.
Another option is to get something like this: Pro-OX Iron Filter 5900e CWS FE011180: Clean Water Store I have one on my well, and it does take care of the iron bacteria.
Are you using either a chlorine or hydrogen peroxide feeder with your system to take care of the iron bacteria or just the straight filter?
I had a problem where my water smelled and my pump lives in the cellar. I replaced the pump after 25 years of service as it was getting very noisy and interestingly the smell went away after replacing the pump! Manganese can create odor. Whatever you do have the water tested by a cooperative extension NOT by a water treatment company! If you have clear water iron like I do then you must have a fine mesh resin in your water softener. My water softener can handle up to 25PPM of clear water iron and my level was at 13.2PPM when tested. This will also address a small level of manganese. Additionally I have an acid neutralizer before the softener to address the water acidity and ahead of this I have a 5 micron whole house filter to remove any sediment.. Yeah it's like a science project lol.. The water softener removes the iron and also removes the hardness introduced by the acid neutralizer.. I had to calculate the grains of hardness as clear water iron is worse than regular hardness so it takes more salt. My softener is made by GE Osmonics and this model measures water usage rather than being time based so it saves water. I also set it up to regenerate every 15 days no matter what. This is to avoid fouling the resin bed. To deal with a fouled resin bed you can use Super-Iron Out or Res-Up.. The resin lasts a very long time and mine has to be close to 15 years old now and still works. As a side note if you have red iron which is iron that is visible and collects in a filter you don't need a softener to deal with that.. A good 5 micron filter will take care of this.. I found inexpensive 5 micron filters I believe on ebay or Amazon for less than $2.00 each and they seems to work fine for a lot less $$. Good Luck! Ray
Currently I'm just using the filter with good results as in no iron taste, no smell and no iron residue. As raybonz and DaveGunter said, do get your water tested to see what your needs might be. Then, talk with a representative of the company you decide to make your purchase from. Good customer service is a necessity, and the ones I've dealt with have been educated and very helpful.
Iron in solution (soluble or "clear water" iron) is certainly treatable by a softener. Interesting that your neutralizer is before the softener as the solubility of iron is much greater at a lower pH. Softeners can't remove iron that's not in solution.
No special training or license is required for someone to give you "professional" water treatment advice or sell you equipment...kinda scary if you think about it. The water treatment field is ripe with fly by nighters who will tell you whatever you want to hear in order to sell you the product they are peddling, the advice you get is sometimes dangerous, remember the water you are treating is supplying your family. Do yourself a favor and pay for a test and seek out a professional with water treatment credentials. Professional Certification Titles Available through WQA
The water was tested by the county extension by the seller. The ph was 3.35 before the softener and it's up to 8.3. Iron was 8.22 before treatment and <.10 after. The water isn't red so it's the clear iron in my water. Manganese is <0.025
Yes I agree. I have clear water iron. The reason the acid neutralizer is before the softener is to remove the hardness it adds to the water. The fine mesh resin handles the clear water iron.
Our water pump guy (I no longer use) was selling me a paper filter cartridge for our whole house filter. When the filter paper was rotting in the housing after 1 month and he continued to tell me everything was okay I started reading and found the polypropylene filter 5 or 20 microns (water filter.net) I've been much happier!!! Odor and taste are excellent now. If you have a bacterial problem look at the UV systems. Much better than the chlorine drip systems, nothing wrong with shocking a well periodically just constant chlorine is very corrosive to the plumbing.
shocked the well w bleach on Tuesday, flushed it all out yesterday and the smell of the iron bacteria went away. I was very happy last night. I installed a new shower head and took a shower in clear and stink free water. I woke up this morning to make coffee and the water was yellow! I ran another regeneration cycle on the water softener this morning and am now allowing the water to run in the tub to see if it'll clear up. I did run a little bit of bleach solution through the resin tank (the WS was on bypass during the shocking of the well) in order to kill off any iron bacteria in the softener (bleach solution was much weaker than what was put in the well). I'm not sure if that's the problem or if the iron in the water oxidized during the shocking process and will take time to clear up. It looked great last night
I have 2 houses with wells. My weekend cabin has very high iron content to the point of staining toilets in the course of a week and you can set a glass of cold water on the counter and by the time it is room temp it is orange. My dad did the filter thing for years and after he died, I had a sand filter tank put in that pretty much eliminated the real bad stuff we had before (I am blonde and when I was younger I was lighter in color than now, and had to use special shampoo at the end of a weekend or my hair would start to tint orange). My main house I have issues with a hard water and a sulfur smell and I am trying some other options before getting into expensive systems in a house I am hoping to flip. I have two regular canister filters side by side with a plain filter and a charcoal second in line, I change them about every 1-2 months. My main issue was with the hot water and I found that adding hydrogen peroxide to the hot water tank instantly did the trick. I was pulling the anode rod out and dumping into the tank about 3-4 bottles when I changed filters. Now, I plumbed in another shutoff valve that I put a funnel in and can add at anytime I shot the water off right before my valve I added. I have reduced my peroxide down to about 1 bottle when I change filters now. I also first added an aluminum/ something else not normally in an anode rod anode rod with not much of a change with it. I found a lot of helpful info if it is hot water related on "waterheaterrescue.com", that's where I learned the peroxide trick and after seeing the plumbing kit he was selling, I made my own but was probably pretty close in price as his, it is also where I got the segmented anode rod.
Had the same problem and that is clear water iron that you describe. A fine mesh resin water softener takes care of this.. As an FYI Walmart has had the best price on Morton water softener pellets..
