Both companies are a little right and surprisingly wrong. Could be inferior copper or PH problems which can result in pinhole leaks in copper pipes. If neither has mentioned checking the PH of your well water then they are both of questionable competence. Why do you think your sodium # is high? High TDS is not necessarily sodium but is total dissolved solids. Is 26.5 hardness gpg or ppm? Where you start is... get a comprehensive water test from an independent lab. An independent lab has no agenda and won't be trying to sell you water treatment equipment. This is a MUST DO because without it everything is a guess. A quickie water test from a water softener company won't be as accurate (and possibly not as competent) as from a certified independent lab. Hit the Yellow Pages and call at least three local INDEPENDENT water treatment pros. You've already called the big dogs (Kinetico or Culligan) for comparison. DON'T TELL THEM YOU HAD YOUR WATER TESTED. Give each an opportunity to offer suggestions and provide you with a quote to meet your water treatment needs. IGNORE ANY THAT DON'T TEST YOUR WATER THEMSELVES as they can't speak intelligently to water treatment without knowing what needs to be treated. Ask lots of questions. Softening the entire house or just the water heater? Warranty, parts & labor or just parts, how long and on exactly what? Install, permits required, licensed plumber? Routine maintenance and costs? Do they stock parts? Response time for emergency (water leak) calls? If they don't explain things to your satisfaction that is a good indicator of how you'll be treated after the sale. After they've gone use your water test to compare with theirs. Are all your treatment needs being addressed? Ask your neighbors if they have any water treatment experience. They might tell you who's good or who to avoid. Come back here and post the specific recommendations and hardware components with the costs and we'll give you our opinions.

pH++ is crushed magnesium that is designed to dissolve in water raising alkalinity. However, at your extremely low pH, I have severe reservations whether it will bring it up past 6.0. I would get some written assurance/gaurantee that it will work as they claim. The tank will need to be rebedded and maybe even dumped and bedded on occasion. Your tank will need to be large enough to allow sufficient contact time to raise the pH. A large tank requires so many gallons per minute to adequate backwash and lift the bed to prevent channelling. Other types of systems are tanks arer upflow types; which. again, adequate flow must be attained to prevent soldification of the media. I would recommend a chemical feed that can be adjusted as monitoring the pH is something you can do. Also, chemical feed systems don't increase hardness like pH++ will do. Andy Christensen, CWS-II

The place where I am living dates back to the late 1600s. There were two previous houses on this field stone fondation, that had burnt to the ground. The records date back to when this house was homestead to the surrounding 100 acres (I have 5.1), where is was all farmland. I don't think there was any mining operations or smelting going on, but I don't know for sure. My well is directly next to several huge pine trees (if that helps). I know pine trees are said to make the soil around them acidic, but would that be enough to be causing the large copper deposits I'm experiencing? I was also told by my state well inspector, that the new copper piping does not have that protective layer that the old pipes have. Therefore, I may be seeing an increase in copper deposits due to that. So, what do I do? Do I rip out all the new copper pipes, and replace them with PVC? I can't wait 2 or 3 years for this microbial protective layer to grow within the pipes. My thoughts are that I have to get an acid neutralizer (to treat the incoming well water which is naturally acidic), and then slowly replace the copper pipes with PVC (to prevent future degeneration of the pipes, pinhole leaks, etc.). Now, I'm thinking I may need a water softener on top of the acid neutralizer. Man, I never knew all the problems with well water and I wish I did, because it would have factored into the purchase and sales agreement. What would you all do? Thanks in advance for your response and the insightful responses I've already received.

Thanks for all the comments! Every individual unit can be bypassed - with the exception of the pre-filter and pressure switch being tied to one another. That's by design, but I'm considering switching it. I didn't note it on the diagram, but thank you for pointing out the supports. The larger red and blue (copper) pipes will be supported at the corner where they first drop down. There's no drywall on the ceiling in that room right now, but when I complete half a dozen other projects down there it will be, and that will be above the drywall. Same thing with the pressure relief valve. Everything else I figured would be okay, except the pressure relief valve and prefilter.... Still thinking about how to do that in a way that looks decent. Drains are just going to be 3/4" PEX, so I didn't bother modeling them. I was just going to use tees to connect them all to a single drain line. Though about using some check valves, but I don't think it will actually be necessary. I am curious about how the aerator discharge and the filter/softener backwash will affect one another, but I don't expect any problems. Will labelthe thing after a few revisions and repost. Sorry about that! I agree with you on the CPVC valves. I'm aiming for no metal components before treatment is complete to reduce corrosion. It would probably take decades before I noticed the difference, but I am hoping that these are higher quality valves and will last longer. The aeration tank is pressurized - I'm thinking 60-75 psi as the range. As far as a sparger, I'd definitely prefer to use one! I'd read that they will stop up very quickly with higher iron levels in the water. Any thoughts on that? For the resin... Ya, if I don't hear back from them before I'm ready to buy I'll definitely be looking elsewhere. My backup is Resintech's CG10. The UV system is actually already installed. Old owners put it in because of a failed bacteria test with water from a bathroom faucet. I'm pretty sure it was introduced after the well. I'm planning on shocking the well when I do all this and installing a new UV Bulb. When that bulb is near its end of life I'll do some tests and if everything is negative I'll remove the UV system. Thanks again for all the comments!