Unique water treatment situation...

16 years ago

In my new home I have a unique situation needing water treatment.

I have domestic water usage AND a geothermal system for hetaing/cooling teh house. I can't treat teh geothermal side since there is SO MUCh water flowing through it that it would overwhelm any pH or softner... so my geothermal units are cupernickle and should stand up OK... unfortunately they used copper pipe from the units to the plastic well supply/return... which may be a problem in the lon run once you see my water numbers below...

For the domestic side, I need to deal with the following numbers:

Lead: 5.4 ug/l

Iron: 1.03 mg/l

Manganese: pH: 4.32

gross alpha: 2.3 pCi/l

No VOCs or mercury.

They did not do calcium, magnesium or TDS in the first test... although I though they were. They are doing them now and I will have in a few days.

The one I am getting different opinions from everyone on is the pH... some say that a magoxide/calcite neutralizer will not get it up high enough... other say it will and soda ash is not needed...

The water does have a slight smell to it... but I have not yet put the chlorine tablets in that the well driller gave me... i am wiating to connect the house plumbing so thet it will flush the entire system.

So, I am guessing that a softner and acid neutralizer are definates... but what is best and what will work, especially with the LOW ph? Questionable is a pre-filter... and is a carbon tank overkill for cleaning up taste and smell?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am going to bu the tanks locally from my well driller and install them myself... i just want to make sure I have everything covered.

Also, I have 3 bathrooms... master bath has a 3 head + 6 body spray shower... I want to make sure that i can properly soften and neutralize even at high demad rates (i.e. 10 gpm or so). Do I need tanks with 1" in/out and special valves, or will a basic residential unit do the job for me?

And how long will my copper to and from the geothermal units last with untreated 4.3pH water flowing through it?

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Comments (9)

andy_c
16 years ago
You actually have 5.4 ppm of LEAD? Is that not a major concern? Could you have lead solder in your pipes. As you water is extremely acidic, it may be leaching it from your pipes or elsewhere.

Did you test the water at a faucet or near the pressure tank. Take tested from both locations to see if anyting is different. This may result in pipe degradation if tests at teh faucet are worse.

At that level of pH, Mag-ox and soda ash will not be effective. Consider sodium hydroxide with a chem-feeder and rentention/mixing tank. If you have mineral acids, instead of high levels of C02, then another approach may be necessary.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II
Brewbeer
16 years ago
The lead level of 5.4 ug/l is less than the MCL.
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andy_c
16 years ago
My bad. I read it as mg/l and not ug/l. Thanks.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II
jscozz
Original Author
16 years ago
The Lead MCL is 5 ug/l... I am at 5.4. This is strange. I asked the testing co where it could be coming from. The sample was taken from a valve at the pressure tank. New house. All plastic pipe to the well... 3 large pressure tanks and about 8' of 1-1/2 copper line tying it together... water has been flowing to my geothermal system for about 6 weeks... so it is constantly moving... replenishing. It was lead free solder on the copper... where could it be coming from? Pump? small amount from lead free solder? To ber over MCL with NO lead based pipe in the system seems strange to me? Is lead removed by water softner?

As for the pH... one company (masterwater.com) has an acid neutralizer that they say uses something called pH++ instead of calcite or magoxide. They say this works for extreme pH cases.. .but no further info? Anyone ever hear of this?
andy_c
16 years ago
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
jscozz
Original Author
16 years ago
Does a chemical feed pump HAVE to be tied to the well pump? The problem is that I have two geothermal units that use water from the same well... they run at about 8gpm each... and depending on time of year and outside temperature, they can use 10,000 gallons/day... making the feed pump mixture hard to keep up with... :) If not tied to the pump, then how else can it operate? I am not interested in treating the geothermal water... or lawn sprinklers for that matter... only domestic.
andy_c
16 years ago
Most chem-feed pumps run off the pump switch. Sometimes,outside bid that do not need to be treated causing the chem-feed pump to work when not needed. This may cause the pH level to raise too high giving you a caustic mix. Not good.

In those cases a flow meter and attached switch is adapted. It will register only the water that is to be metered and activate the chem-feed pump. This, course will cause installation price to go up a bit, but they work fine. With some meters, you can actually see the number of gallons you are using via an analog or digital meter.

Stenner Pumps
http://www.stenner.com/prod-pcm.htm

I would recommend a paristaltic pump as oppsed to a diaphram pump.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II
jscozz
Original Author
16 years ago
I spoke at length to a vendor of well filters... he said I can go with a chem feed pump OR a 2 cu ft tank with 5:q calcite/mag ox in it and it will get the ph up to where it belongs. I would rather have the lower maintenance of the filter... but is it unrealistic to think the 5:1 filter AN will get my ph to over 6.5? My TDS is VERY low and hardness is also very low. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but they were described by the testibng lab as negligible... I would not need a softener if it were not for the iron in the water.
mhlurker
16 years ago
I've used backwashed AN filters on pH as low as 4.5 and 4.6 pH and got the pH up to 7.0. If you go with a filter it will add hardness to the water and you'll need a softener for that.

Solution feeders require a lot of attention and baby sitting.

Unique water treatment situation...

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Unique water treatment situation...

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