Danny, You might have found an old septic tank that was decommssioned when a new one or city sewer was installed. We don't have old concrete cisterns around here but from what I have read older cisterns for water storage usually seem to be partially burried or above ground near buildings, under porches, or in basements. For your situation if there is not crud in the water that is ruining your pipes or fixtures I would install an under the counter filter in the kitchen maybe with a special little faucet for drinking/cooking water. They are not that expensive and you should be able to DIY it in an hour. If the water is so bad that you don't want to bathe or clean with it you can install a whole house fixture but it will be more expensive to buy, could be harder to install, and probably cost more to maintain the filters. acer60's page has a neat filter that will improve your water (I have been meaning to build one) but to use it in your existing plumbing you might have to repressurize the water with a pump, pressure switch, and pressure tank - pretty much what you would need if you had a shallow well, I think that they would be more expensive to buy, use and maintain than even a whole house filtration system. If you have 30 to 60 feet of elevation change on your property, placing the filter and a cistern uphill might be a long-term money saver if there is enough water main pressure. Best of luck!

FWIW....Kinetco K5 and a few others offer multiple-filter RO units purported to deliver absolutely pristine water free of all contaminants biological or otherwise. The additional filter modules add expense and the unit so configured requires specific and cumbersome maintenance from time-to-time to maintain their performance. Also offer mineral add-back modules for taste. For those with elevated concerns about such issues and some extra bucks to expend, such units are certainly available. From one web source, here are filtration modules available for Kinetico K5. In addition to carbon pre-filter and GAC post-filter, three more of any of these can be plugged in: "Sediment prefilter�used in well water applications to remove particulates and sediment Carbon/Sediment prefilter�used with city water installations to remove particulates and sediment as well as chlorine Chloramine prefilter�used with city water applications to remove chloramines, which many municipalities use in place of chlorine Volatile organic compounds (VOC) filter�used to remove VOCs (including pesticides, paints and paint strippers, cleaning supplies, and building materials) Purefecta� Guard�uses Purefecta technology to remove bacteria and viruses Arsenic Guard�provides extra protection against arsenic V and arsenic III Perchlorate Guard�used to remove perchlorate (a by-product of rocket fuel) from water Mineral Plus�cartridge that adds magnesium and calcium into treated water GAC postfilter�removes any unwanted tastes and odors from water" I have two K5W's at two different locations (neither using the additional modules) providing 97% and 99% exclusion. Kinetico is high-end price-wise but if you've got the bucks, I recommend them without hesitation. (I am retail customer. No affiliation or interest of any kind in Kinetico otherwise.)

I'm new to these forums and wanted to say hello to you all before I asked my question. My wife and I just bought an old HUD home in West Michigan (North Muskegon) and are in the process of renovating it. All the plumbing to this house was shattered due to neglect and it froze.So I dropped a new well point down, replaced the pump with a 1 hp shallow well pump. The county engineer told me that there are two aquifers in my neighborhood one at about 25-30 ft and one at about 280 ft. The shallow one has the same water content as the deep aquifer but has iron in it as well according to him. So I decided to deal with the iron instead of paying 5-6k for the deep well. The neighbors have a deep well and they have the same issues as me. So what I would like is some advice as to how I can filter this and get good clean water for our soon to be newly remodeled home. All plumbing and water appliances will be new in this home. There will be 1-2 adults and probably one 3 year old a couple times a week. The house is 1400 sqft, 2 bed room & 1 bath. The new well pump is in a 5 ft deep cement walled and covered pit. I ran new 3/4 pex into the home thru a 2" conduit so I can change the pipe diameter if I need a larger size to get the GPM I need and not have to dig again. The 1st time was enough 50 ft long and 45" deep. It took me a week to get that accomplished. I have a new 40 gallon bladder thank with the pressure switch at the tank in the garage. The water coming out on the other side is where the 10 GPM was checked. I bought the house from Fanny Mae (paid cash) so I have no more mortgage. Woo Hoo. I'm just looking for some advice as to how I should proceed with filtering the water so it doesn't ruin all my hard work. The sinks and toilets that we removed was dark brown stained from the water so whoever had the house before us did not try to filter it. The water comes out tinted and has a funky smell to it. There is no sediment after the water sets for a day or so but it does change color a tad and the water smell gets worse. Below is what I got back from the test that Fanny Mae did on the water to check how safe it was to drink. It passed but I ask my family won't drink it the way it is or bath in it until it's cleaned. There was no other information other than what is shown below. - Iron 5.85 - Sodium 2.30 - Fluoride .10 - Chloride 1.39 - Sulfate 10.60 - Total Nitrite & Nitrate - E. Coli Absent - Total Coli-form Absent - Hardness (as CaCO3) 98.4 I really appreciate your time, I know how valuable it. Thanks!

Hey Jake maybe I can be a little more clear on the Pure Water Appliance, and a little more helpful as I am more technically involved with the system and its design. First off there is no "magic sauce" or even a one size fits all approach with our unit. The machine is 3 compartmented so we can use a multitude of medias inside of our unit for different purposes. For instance in the state of Texas we use 85 different configurations of medias in this unit depending on the water it will be treating. When you ask what medias we use in the system the answer is quite a few of them. This solely depends on where the machine is going, and what it will have to remove to make drinking water in the whole house. That being said there are instances where the machine will not function 100% and in those instances we either add peripheral equipment to ensure the water quality going into the home. I.E a bad sulfur well, or a high TDS situation, or we simply will decline the use of the Pure Water Appliance. We DO NOT put the unit anywhere it will not function properly. That is why in the 4 years this thread has been operational it has not been flooded with bad reviews, and horror stories. Quite simply put if there is a problem with our unit it is simply fixed at no cost to our customers in any fashion. We actually guarantee our unit for 10 full years, and that covers everything on or in our unit including medias. So if our machine has a failure at 9 years 11 months, lets say either the second compartment, or third and the medias are no longer viable, then we simply replace the unit free of charge. No trip fee and no labor charge at all. Just to be clear the cost of replacing the unit at 9 years 11 months and 30 days is $0.00 usd . There is no company in the United states that can say that at all. Another thing I would like to add is that of course we design each compartment with proper space to expand and clean the medias properly. We actually use some ingenious flow screens that lift the beds evenly allowing us to clean more efficiently with less space. If you can lift a resin bed evenly you can reach your needed expansion in a smaller space. Also we use almost every media there is in the book redox, absorption, Ion exchange, filtration, you name a media that actually does what it is designed to do and we have probably used, or at least tested it's viability for use in our system. The way we build our units is off of proper testing of the water we will be treating, in all cities in Texas it is mandatory that they send water analysis reports to the state twice a year from multiple points of use in their water systems. We simply look at the water analysis reports for the last 20 years, make a projection of how we see the water changing, and design the system to the best of our ability for the next 20 years. We also recommend to our well customers that they have a full analysis done from a third party laboratory so we can build them exactly what they need, we offer our own base line testing, but anytime any one has their own well we always recommend labs off the TCEQ approved testing facilities. Does this machine work in every situation? absolutely not that's why if the machine wont work properly we either give an alternative set up that will take care of our customers problems, or recommend companies in their local area that can take care of them properly. We just design a system as bullet proof as we can, and back it with a non prorated warranty to protect and take care of our customers. No magic, no gimmicks just honest over the phone pricing, and proper service for our people. I'm sure this post wont be sufficient for you as I'm almost convinced you are a competitor hell bent on bashing our company. That is fine we know the warranty we have, we know the service we provide, and we will always take care of our customers, and even take care of customers that have been abandoned by shady inexperienced companies. We have been here for 37 years and will continue to be here for the foreseeable future.