I just went though this ordeal myself. The builder brought in Water Boy (see my posts on this forum about him) and he tried to rip me for 8 thousand dollars. I solved the problem myself for 1000. As mentioned above - get your water professionally tested. You must have very accurate measurements of hardness and iron so that the filtration system can be optimized for your specific situation. My well water is hard (9 grains per gallon) and the iron is also high (2 parts per million which equals about 8 to 10 grains per gallon). This meant that I had a problem that a small water filter was not going to address. I found a great source - www.abundantwaterflow.com. Talk to a guy named Mark in sales. He is very knowledgeable and honest. I ordered a water softener from him for a total of 700 dollars which included shipping. It came with a Fleck 7000 valve which is (as I found from many searches on the Plumbing forum) a high end control valve - very easy to program as I did in about 5 minutes. I had my plumber (nickname John Wayne - and I swear he looks exaclty like him, except he speaks with a Slavic accent) install the system for 300 dollars. Very simple. I also thought that I would need an iron filter - and if you read on the Plumbing forum (see aliceinwonderland posts) - the Pyrolox filter is recommended for iron. Mark convinced me to NOT buy the iron filter yet - to install the softener first since it will remove some iron. That is why I like Abundantwaterflow - they could have easily made another 1000 dollars since I was ready to buy that too. But they gave me an honest opinion and a lower cost solution that can be expanded if required. I had the plumber set the system up so that I can add in the iron filter myself if that becomes necessary. I am waiting on the results of a recent test to see if I really need that type of filter or the softener will do the job for both hardness and iron. The softener was delivered to my house in 4 boxes. The tank is fiberglass and is very light, the resin filter material is heavy - one box about 45 pounds the other box around 25 pounds), and finally the brine tank and otjer parts which is light and looks like a small garbage can. I assembled it myself - the hardest part by far was getting the resin into the tank. The stuff is like caviar - small beads - and was a little difficult to pour in because I was dumb. I hoisted the 50 pound bag up and poured directly into the tank. DON"T do this - use a small pail and dump some resin into the pail - then pour that small amount of resin into the tank. It will take a little longer but is much easier and safer. It took me about 1 hour to assemble all the parts and connect up everything except the main water input and the flex line drains - which John Wayne did for me. I hope this helps. One thing i found out is that there are a lot of people who will throw a lot of mumbo jumbo at you on the complexities of doing this yourself. It is not that hard - just do your research.

If the chlorine is adequate, sure. This sounds like a system that isn't controlled very well though, so hard to tell. The "rusty" staining could be from the upset conditions or it could also be something else entirely. sabol68 - Have you had a water test done? Do you have the quarterly reports from your city water system? They may be available online.

Which is the proper location for the pre-filter on the Accuclean system? Mine is located at the bottom of the system. The videos i watched how to clean the filter shows it at the top. When i took out the pre-filter, after two months of use, it wasn't dirty. That's why i think the original installation was done incorrectly. Unless the airflow for my entire a/c and furnace system has the airflow going up.

Does anyone have any experience with this system? Any other recommendations?