A clean BBB slate is not an indication that a business does it's job right only that it's customers think it does. Based on your experience with your current water people are they resolving your water treatment problems? Would you recommend them? Get a 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 Sears or 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 water treatment pros. Make sure you call at least one of the big dogs like Kinetico for comparison and at least a couple independent pros. 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. Don't offer your lab test results and don't suggest anything to them. Ask lots of questions. 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. Make them be specific regarding hardware. size, components, maintenance? 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.

First, is you house supplied with city water or is it on a private well? If city water, you can obtain the city water report and see typical numbers. Those will vary somewhat from the water you see at your house, but will get you in the ballpark. If well water (which I assume is the case since you made the house offer contingent upon water quality), since the house has not been occupied for several months, I would locate the faucet closest to the point where the water enters the house and sample there. Further, run the water for 20 minutes prior to taking the sample to flush the lines a bit. Does the water come out clear from the faucet? If so, does it turn dark after sitting for 30 - 60 minutes? You will not see health issues with the manganese level you have see so far. However, over time you may see the following: 1) Staining in toilets/sinks, showers. 2) Discoloration of laundry, particularly whites. 3) Cooked vegetables may be darker, unappetizing in appearance. 4) Alcoholic mixed drinks may darken and develop a metallic flavor. Low levels of Manganese can be removed by a variety of methods, such as ion exchange softener, birm filter, pyrolox filter. If water taste is your only concern, a point-of-use RO will take care of it nicely. However, before you get to the point of deciding on treatment (if you purchase the house and decide treatment is necessary), get a comprehensive water test to see what else might be in your water. You shouldn't make treatment decisions without the whole picture. You want to know: pH, TDS, hardness, alkalinity, iron, manganese, sulfate, nitrate, bacterial count (plus viral if surface water).

Assuming you have a 9x48 resin tank which should have 1 cu ft of resin and you use a medium salt dose of 9 lbs you get 26,000 grains of hardness removal. Using the formula at the above link that results in a setting of 660 gallons because I find 60 gpd per person more realistic than 75 gpd. That includes a reserve calculated in. Ideally you want a softener to regenerate every 6 to 7 days unless there is iron and then more frequently. I think your small 1 cu ft softener will regen every 4 to 5 days. You could increase the hardness removal capacity of your 1 cu ft of resin by increasing the salt dose at the expense of salt efficiency. At a high salt dose of 12 lbs you'd set the gallons at 750 using 60gpd per person.

GardenWeb Community, I need your assistance. I am needing to size a water softening and whole house filtering system for my home and there are many different approaches I have found on the web with different values, peak vs. average flow rates, etc. Based on the feedback I have read thus far from Justalurker and aliceinwonderland_id on this site I am leaning towards a Fleck softening system but not sure which one. Also looking for ideas on a whole home filtering system based on the below test results. We live in Anchorage, Alaska and we just bought a 6000 sqft., 3 bed 3.5 bath house with 3 people living in it (wife, 2.5 yr old daughter, and myself). All appliances are high efficiency Frigidaire Professional series, Triangle Tube Prestige Water heater, etc. A recent water test was performed by a local sales company and the basic results are as follows: TDS: 125 ppm Hardness: 10 gpg pH 7.0 Total Alkalinity 120 ppm Total Iron 0.1 ppm Total Manganese 0.2 ppm Coliform: Neg colonies/100mL Nitrate: 5.09 mg/L Arsenic: ND ug/L Let me know if any additional information is needed in order to provide any recommendations. Any recommendations are welcomed and I genuinely appreciate the assistance in advance. Regards, Derek