Well Depth?

[P.K. Burke]

MarkV: It's fairly common in my area to have hot water wells due to the geothermal nature of the area. We have many geothermal power plants on Cobb Mountain and there are hot soda baths in Clearlake which is the lake I live near. The entire area is volcanic (Mt. Konocti) and there is hot water everywhere. Not only hot water but all the attendant minerals, hydrogen sulfide, sulfuric acid, boron, carbonation, and just about anything else that may or may not be water soluble. Fortunately I was able to filter the water to make it potable and it doesn't stain the fixtures to bad. Just depends where you dig. I can't really complain though because I know of people that have drilled seven and eight dry holes on their property and still don't have any water. Take what you can get and make the best of it. P.K. Burke

 

[JimBinMI]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Wen,

You said: "Using a water softner without a cartridge filter before it is just like driving your tractor without a ROPS."

I hope you're kidding, otherwise: ARE YOU SERIOUS...WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING/DRINKING DOWN THERE IN TEXAS? /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
Can a grain of salt KILL you like rolling your tractor with no ROPs on it? /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Silly Rabbit!

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Jim,

I'm in northern Indiana and my well is 75 feet deep with an 80 foot head. It flows between 5 to 10 GPM without a pump. This well was drilled in the height of the drought. My stream , at the same period in time, flows about a 1000 GPM. A shortage of water is not a problem here.

Joe

 

[Von]

Jim,
My well is 135' deep and has 50gpm. We have no filters at all and only a small amount of iron in it. I have a 1" lawn hydrant on the top of the well to flood my ice rink and have never had a problem with running out of water (well pump only puts out 10gpm). And I have let the water run for 8 days non-stop. I have talked to many different water treatment experts on removing iron and all say that a softner won't do it. They do make filters that are specific for iron, but I found the cost to not be worth it.

Von

 

[W5FL]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Just like all my teachers. Just read the first line and missed the point. Grade B--

"It will only matter when you need it! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif "

 

[Alan L.]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Speaking of water softeners. I read somewhere that the salt will play heck with your septic leach field for whatever reason. That septic website I was on said not to use a softener as it would ruin the leach field.

 

[W5FL]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Also NOT correct. There are many reports (one published by the San Diego Agricultural Extension Office) stating that results of testing water softners with septic systems that the level of salt does not cause problems.

Water Softners DO remove clear water iron (the most common kind) contrary to what someone posted here earlier.

Wonder where all of this mis-information comes from?

 

[JimBinMI]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Wen,

Actually I read the whole thing...especially the last line which I have not had a problem with in twelve years! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I won't assign a grade to you, public embarassment is not my specialty!

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[Cowboy]

Hello Jim
We have 2 wells. aprox. 5 1/2 miles between the two. (1) 580 feet deep, 14 gpm. must be R/O'd to be potable ( 2200 ppm salt. suggest a poorly cased gas well in the area) #(2) well. 371 feet deep, 35 gpm. Ice Cold! Potable...good stuff.

Cowboy

 

[PBMAX]

Wingnut,I don't know about bactieria it does make sense though,but here in Bama my grandpapy had a well that was iron water and let me tell yaa it was like drinking from a rusty pipe.../w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif.(Just Guessing what I rusty pipe taste like/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif)Here in Bama it is not uncommon to go through iron ore...or have it dusted through the ground..In that case I would think JimM's descrition is sound.....Still as other Im no expert either.

Lil' Paul

 

[Wingnut]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Sorry for the delay in posting Jim ... I had tomake a quick trip down to Houston to "consult" on internet procurement ... such fun to try and inject common sense and reality into a meeting of marketing weasels.
Anyway ... I'll defer to our friend Wen on the "clearwater iron". I've never come across dissolved iron as a contaminent in wells, back in Alberta ... it was there but acted as food to what he calls the "black slime". There's a big industry there to service wells ... there's the method I used of chlorination and filtration, there was the method I used previously of ion exchange with potassium permanganate, and there's oxegenation, etc, etc, etc. It is indeed a very ugly mess ... if you think "your" iron messes up clothes and fixtures ... well, most people that had acreages around there had water trucked in rather than dealing with the iron. Old timers told me it was a matter of years ... 5 to 10, before a new well was infested with iron bacteria (black slime).
Fortunately, the method I used (albeit quite expensive) generated quite good ... and perfectly safe and clean water.
I'm glad that the brine method works well for dissolved iron, I'll keep that in mind in case I start getting iron in my well (but as a last resort ... I don't much like -additional - salt).
Also, it's much easier to be polite and a little tongue-in-cheek ... everyone enjoys a laugh and none of us want to be the next one jumped on for an incorrect statement or for a moment of inatention ...

too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Wingnut]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Wen,
I guess some of the confusion comes from your two categories of "clearwater" iton and "black slime" .... and the opther part comes from (reading Von's note about water conditioners not removing salt) ... comes from marketing weasels.
But I will say that I had also undersood that ion eachange would NOT remove iron (but that again might have been an Alberta Iron thing) ... <grin>

too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Wingnut]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Wen ... and it occurs to me that I had read (I'll see if I can dig it out of my archives) an article in the Western Canadian Producer from an ag study ... that water conditioners CAN cause a septic tank problem if the backflow contains too much salt ... kinda wipes out the anaerobic bacteria or some such ....
Dueling ag agencies at 10 paces! (you know what the definition of expert is, doncha? ... I use it in my seminars all the time
X is an unknown quantity - in other words nothing
Spurt is a drip unddr pressure
Therefore expert is a nothing drip)


too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Iron In Well Water

While preparing to build my house I found that in CT water softeners that back flush a salt solution are not even legal to use, although they are legal to sell. Plenty of people use them. The reason for the law is they will damage septic systems. If there is a city sewer system the added salt is difficult to remove so they do not want it flushed in there. It is not even acceptable to flush into a dry well, since that can cause ground water pollution. I even asked about making an evaporative system, where I could just sweep up the left over salt and was told that it might be approved but would have to be engineered. The only legal systems use large cartridges that are replaced by a service on a regular basis and do not back flush.

Andy

 

[Bird]

Re: Iron In Well Water

I'd always heard an "ex" was a has been, and a "spurt" was a drip under pressure. Of course, I've also heard an "expert" was a guy from out of town with a briefcase./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[W5FL]

Re: Iron In Well Water

Connecticut -- is that where they use salt on the icey streets?

The entire state of California would die if they had Connecticut Inspectors! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Water softners are so common in California that Culligan recharges them and exchanges them with your system weekly! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Filteration will only remove rusty iron. Clear water iron (the iron is dissolved and in solution) is not affected by cartridge filters unless proceeded with a process that oxidizes the iron in the water.