Lab results came back at 3.1 ppm iron, 18 grains per gallon hardness, pH 7.4, no detectable manganese or sulphide. Orange staining in every fixture and the laundry is suffering. I have about $1,600 to spend and space for one unit in the pump room without moving anything. I can add the second unit next year but I want the one that fixes the most now.
Whichever you buy, leave yourself a drain and a plumbed bypass now, plus enough pipe length for the second unit. Retrofitting that in a tight pump room next year costs more in plumber time than the parts do.
Different take, and it depends what's making you unhappy. If it's the laundry and fixtures, the iron filter is right. If it's the scale, the water heater and the feel of the water, a softener sized for iron loading will get you through a year and it's one unit doing two jobs badly rather than one job well.
If you go that route, size it with compensated hardness, meaning grains plus about four times the iron in ppm. 18 plus 12 is 30, so specify it as 30 grain water, not 18.
This is the calculation that everybody skips and then wonders why the softener regenerates constantly and never quite keeps up.
One more question to answer before spending: is the iron dissolved or already particulate? Yours reads like classic clear water ferrous iron at pH 7.4, and that's the case where air injection works well. If a lot of it were already rust particles, a cheap backwashing sediment filter would take the edge off for a couple of hundred.
@pumptest_pat · 8mo ago · 3 replies
Iron filter first, and put it ahead of wherever the softener eventually goes.
At 3 ppm you are well past what a softener is happy with. It will strip some of the iron, but iron fouls the resin bed, and a fouled bed stops removing hardness properly and starts smelling. You end up buying resin cleaner every month and replacing the bed years early.
With pH 7.4 and no sulphide, an air injection oxidising filter is the straightforward choice and it will land inside your budget with room to spare. It oxidises the iron, catches it in the media, and backwashes it to drain on a timer. Then the softener you buy next year sees clean water and lasts fifteen years.
Reply
Report
@pumptest_pat · 8mo ago
It does nothing for hardness. You'll still have scale and still need extra soap. But orange staining is the damage that doesn't come out of fabric, and hardness is the one you can live with for a year.
Reply
Report
@beatriz_moll · 8mo ago
Does the iron filter alone do anything for 18 grains of hardness, or will the scale and the soap problem stay exactly as they are?
Reply
Report