My water has 50 gpg hardness and 2 ppm clear water iron.
I had been having reasonably good luck using a MacClean iron removal unit and a softener. Both units were 25 years old and needing more and more frequent service.
Last year, I replaced the old softener with a much larger 80,000 grain unit. I decided at that time that I would consider replacing the MacClean unit the next time it needed service. That time is fast approaching.
My installer is suggesting that instead of getting another MacClean unit, I try a Charger 25FA Iron Breaker III. A major problem with the MacClean unit has been that the pipes between the air injector and the filter tank get clogged with iron deposits and need to be disassembled and cleaned about every two years. He says the Charger unit won’t have this problem and will work just as well. However, I’m reading some negative reviews about the Charger unit from people who have them.
The Charger unit uses a filter medium called “Brim”, and I haven’t been able to find much information about it. I don’t know if the MacClean unit also uses Brim, or if it uses a different filter medium. I’m also wondering if I would do just as well with ONLY the large softener and NO iron removal unit. I know I would have to regenerate the softener more often, but I don’t have a feel for how much of the softener capacity would be used up by the 2 ppm of iron.
Do you have any comments on the pros and cons of the MacClean vs. the Charger? Should I have one or the other, or would the 80,000 grain softener alone be sufficient? I really want to avoid having rust staining problems again. Thanks!
Answer: Although we are not familiar with the Mclean iron removal system you refer to, we do offer the Iron Breaker II under the our trade name “Iron-Pro”.
We have had very good success with the removal of ferrous (clear water) iron at very high concentrations up to the 10 to 15 ppm range. To date, we have not had any service failures since we started selling these systems about 4 years ago. Any problems that we have heard about were due to misapplication of the unit, not design issues. For instance, these units use birm in combination with oxidation by air to remove the iron. It is very important that you have sufficient backwash flow rate available (7 GPM unit needs 7 GPM backwash, 11 GPM unit needs 12 GPM backwash, and 15 GPM unit needs 15 GPM backwash). If you don’t have this flow rate availability, the system may not provide acceptable performance. The other thing that is important is to be sure your pH is within 6.8 to 9.0 units – Birm requires operation within this pH range. You can download a copy of the Birm material specification on our site as well.
All of this said, assuming that you have dissolved ferrous iron present, 2 ppm is within the range that a water softener can remove alone. We would suggest that if you consider not using an iron pre-filter, to add a Res-Up drip feeder to your brine tank. This is a gravity feed device that automatically adds Res-Up to your brine solution. Res-Up is a solution that will help remove any accumulated iron from the water softener resin bed during the regeneration process. This is offered on our site as well.