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Hard water and manganese

April 29, 2009 By Keith 2 Comments

Our well produces lots of water but unfortunately it is of very poor quality.  Here are a few of the parameters that showed up on a recent analysis (all units are mg/L except for pH):
• Hardness: 1867 (109 GPG)
• TDS:  2850
• Iron:  <0.06
• Manganese:  0.87
• Sodium:  280
• Chlorides:  697
• Sulfates: 989
• pH:  7.7

I have a 3 cu. ft. softener (approx. 3 years old) that uses roughly 1 bag of salt per week.  We have a small RO system for our drinking water (one tap).

I have started to notice a couple of issues.  First, the last couple of times I changed the filters on the RO unit, one of them had a noticeable rust color to it.  I am assuming this indicates some iron is getting passed the softener (although my water test doesn’t show much of a reading for iron).  Second, the inside of the tanks of our toilets have turned black.  I am assuming this is indicative of manganese and again it is getting passed the softener.

Even with the softener, soap doesn’t lather particularly well and the washing machine and dishwasher don’t do particularly good jobs.  While I realize there is only so much that can be done given the poor quality of our water, I would like to try to improve things as much as possible.  My only constraint is that since I am already uncomfortable with the amount of softening salt that is ultimately ending up in my septic field, I don’t want to do anything that will increase my salt usage.

I have been wondering if I could add some sort of a filter ahead of the softener that could reduce the level of manganese.  Hopefully, this would allow the softener to function more effectively.  My problem is that I am getting contradictory advice on what sort of filter I should be looking at.  Here are the various recommendations I have received:

• Greensand filter and regenerate with potassium permanganate
• Chlorine injection system with carbon filter
• Air injection system

Unfortunately, the proponent of each system is giving me a list of “cons” for the other two systems:

• Greensand filter — not as effective as the other 2 “oxidation” systems and potassium permanganate is highly toxic.
• Chlorine injection — will turn my water “milky”;  there is something about my water that will cause it to react with the chlorine and “gunk up” the injector, requiring lots of maintenance; some chlorine may get past the carbon filter and eat away at any copper fittings on my plumbing system
• air injection — not effective for removing manganese

All my “experts” seem knowledgeable and well-intentioned so I’m having trouble deciding who I should believe (I’m a bit of a neophyte when it comes to this stuff).  Can you please give me your thoughts.  I don’t mind spending some money to upgrade my system but there is a significant cost to all these proposals and I would prefer not to spend my money on something that won’t be effective :-) .

Many thanks for your attention to my long-winded post.

Answer:  Actually with such a high level of TDS and hardness, you might want to think about whole house reverse osmosis.  Let us know if you want us to design a system for you – it’s expensive though – probably within the 7 to 10K price range. But, with your existing equipment design, we can make the some comments.

While a manganese greensand filter would be effective, it is somewhat older technology.  You really should not have to worry about potassium permanganate being toxic, as a properly functioning greensand filter will not release any potassium permanganate into the household water supply.  We offer one of these systems on our site. A 1.5 ft3 unit is typical for residential applications, unless you have some unusual water consumption.

Chemical injection is not a preferred route here due to your very high TDS.

However, air-injection is effective at removing manganese, and you may be getting information that is not complete.  Stay away from the low-cost in-line venturi based injectors – they put a tremendous load on your well pump.  Consider a system like our Iron-Pro,  also known as the Breaker III system, it uses a specially designed control valve and a media tank filled with birm media.  The unit keeps 1/2 of the tank filled with air at all times, and the iron & sulfur in your water is oxidized by the air, and any residual iron is “polished” and removed in the birm media contained within the tank.  It cleans and flushes the bed very aggressively, as air is also contained in the backwash water.  The Iron-Pro is a non-chemical solution, that removes very high levels of iron and manganese.  You can also take a look at the Clack corporation cut-sheet for birm that describes the function and properties this media used in the Iron-Pro system for additional information.

Filed Under: Chemical Injection Systems, Water softener Tagged With: hard water, manganese

Brine tank always full to top with water

April 28, 2009 By JON2 Leave a Comment

We have a Clack Corp. water softener (0809GDF) that came with the house when we purchased. The salt storage tank is always full of water and overflows when we add salt. I asked the installer to take a look at it, and his reply was we could try dipping the water out. Maybe there is a different solution?

Answer:  There could be a couple of causes, but the problem is that you seem to not be drawing solution during the brine draw stage.  A standard design softener refills a measured amount of water into the brine tank during regeneration.  This water dissolve the salt, and becomes saturated.  During the next regeneration stage, the water softener will draw all of this water (not brine solution) from the tank, and pass it through the resin bed to perform the automatic regeneration process.  You can read more about this process on our site.

In your case, the brine solution is not being drawn for the tank, and in an additive process, the water level gets higher and higher  with each regeneration cycle. Eventually, the safety float contained within the brine well stops the refill process – which is likely where you are now.  The vacuum that is created to draw the brine is caused by an internal venturi within the water softener control valve.   If the resin bed is fouled (needing replacement) this may cause too low of a flow to create the required vacuum.  There may also be a blockage or restriction in the drain line, which would also cause a low flow, and resulting loss of brine draw.  Other possibilities are salt “bridging” , which is the accumulation of solidified salt in the bottom of the brine tank that is preventing the brine solution from being drawn into the softener.  The last possibility is that you have an air leak in the brine line, however this is most commonly seen when the unit was recently installed or moved.  A document that discusses how to resolve an air leak can be found on our site under the services menu.  Hope this helped!

Filed Under: Clack, Water softener

Water softener help

April 20, 2009 By J. Richardson Leave a Comment

I live in Santa Clarita California and have a Culligan salt water softener with a water purification system in my kitchen. This system was in my house when we bought the house and seems to work just fine. The problem is the city has passed a new law banning salt water systems and has given us notice that we have to remove it by June. I would love to know if there is a system out there that really works! It would be great to have soft water and good clean water to drink. Any info would be welcome.

Answer:  Unfortunately, this legislation was passed leaving many homeowners without any viable alternative.  A quick internet search would seem to indicate that there are many “salt free” alternatives, but this may not be the case. To our knowledge, there are only a few ways to obtain “softened” water; standard ion exchange (salt based water softeners), deionization (not practical for residential application), reverse osmosis (very expensive for whole house application), and distillation (too energy intensive for whole house use).

Although there are many companies that offer “salt free” water softeners, we are not aware of any that are scientifically proven to provide softened water.  Claims are made that while “salt free” conditioners do not actually soften water, they prevent hardness components in the water from depositing on piping and fixtures.  Companies that offer these products say that because these systems do not remove water hardness, that there is no way to actually measure the performance. To date, we have not seen data that demonstrates that this process works as claimed, and until we do, we would not be able to provide any performance warranty, and do not advertise this equipment for sale. If we ever see some definitive proof of performance (other than anecdotal), we will begin offering these systems.

As mentioned above, although we will not be able to provide any performance guarantees, we can provide a salt free system that is identical to larger “combo” systems offered elsewhere, but at a more reasonable price.  The system would contain a Big Blue whole house 5-micron pre-filter (1” inlet/outlet connections), a 1” inlet/outlet head with by-pass on a 10” diameter x 54” tall tank  containing 1.5 ft3 of coconut shell grade carbon, followed by a second 10”x54” tank containing the Filtersorb SP-3 media.  This is a system designed for higher flow rate found in larger homes with 4+ baths, and the price will be around $1800.00 delivered.  Single tank design (pre-filter, Filtersorb SP-3, but without the carbon filter) would be priced around $1350.00 delivered.  As we mentioned, we don’t offer this system at the moment – we have it in stock – we are just not advertising it.  However, if you are interested in this equipment, just send us an email or respond to this post, and we will get in touch with you.

Filed Under: Water softener

Chlorine Injection

April 16, 2009 By jrtimes2 Leave a Comment

If there is iron bacteria forming in the resin softener, do you put the chlorine injection/carbon filter removal of chlorine BEFORE the softener, or AFTER the softener (in series)?

I’m being told before, but if that’s the case, how will that help elim. iron bacteria in the softener?  It would seem putting it before the softener would just help if there were sulfur smell in raw well water, which there isn’t.

Answer: You must place the chlorine injection system in advance of the water softener.  If you do not destroy the bacteria before it enters the softener, it will begin to reproduce within the softener bed, and eventually cause fouling of the bed (iron bacteria is very sticky).

You typically inject the chlorine between the well pump and pressure tank (where flow is constant, not requiring a variable speed pump), and then place a retention tank after the pressure tank to provide the required contact time to destroy the bacteria.  A carbon filter is next in line, to remove the chlorine and any particulate formed during the chlorine injection (oxidation) process.  Following this would be your water softener.  You can read more about these systems on our site at http://www.caitechnologies.com/shopping/ShowItem.asp?ItemID=CI-IB.

Filed Under: Chemical Injection Systems, Water softener