Well water treatment systems

darwi

Hi,

Moderators, please move this post if there is a more appropriate forum for it.

We've recently got our domestic well drilled and installed a pump. There is a hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg) smell from the mains tap, which prompted us to get a chemical and biological analysis done.

The chemical analysis indicated high levels of manganese and iron in the water.
Fe: ~2000 micrograms/Litre (EU limit is 200 micrograms/L)
Mn: ~1600 micrograms/Litre (EU Limit is 50 micrograms/L)

I get the impression that iron and manganese commonly appear together and that the hydrogen sulphide smell is not a huge surprise in that situation either.

I've searched for treatment systems for the well water and, from the internet, there seem to be a number of ways to remove these things from the water including:

- Oxidation
The oxidized compounds fall out of solution and settle to the bottom of a tank, get filtered or are backwashed out of the oxidising medium. This seems to work on the manganese and iron but not on the sulfides.
- Ozone ( + settlement of precipitate)
- Oxidising resins ( + backwash)
- Manganese greensand ( + backwash)
- Aeration ( + precipitation)

- Filters
Didn't find out much about these. They seem to be able to filter chemicals from the water as it flows through. Not sure if they affect the flow rate of the water.
- Carbon filter appears to be able to remove the sulphide smell

- Reverse osmosis
These seem to be fitted at the kitchen sink to provide drinking water. Pressure is applied to water to force it through a membrane, stripping dissolved compounds from the water as it passes through. This is the opposite effect of osmosis, where the water would naturally migrate through the membrane to the side with a greater concentration of soluble compounds, hence the 'reverse' name.


Suppliers
I've found a number of suppliers on-line and have received quotes from €1,000 to in excess of €3,000. The variety of different elements in the solutions make it difficult to make an apples to apples comparison. Below is a list of the sites those I've contacted about this. It is neither exhaustive nor authoritative and I've had no contact with any of these companies prior to this point.

http://www.aislingwatersystems.com - Aisling water systems
http://www.directwatertreatment.ie - Direct water treatment
http://www.campion.ie - Campion
http://www.celticwatersolutions.ie - Celtic water
http://www.h2o4u.ie - Aquatech
http://www.johnnyfloodwaterpumps.com
http://www.smartwatersolutions.ie - Smart water solutions

I'd like to ask the opinion of anyone out there as to their experiences with well water treatment systems.

- What worked for you?
- What didn't work?
- Was it worth the cost?
- Were there any unexpected ongoing costs?
- How did the system perform over time?


- darwi

Tester46

darwi wrote: »

Hi,

Moderators, please move this post if there is a more appropriate forum for it.

We've recently got our domestic well drilled and installed a pump. There is a hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg) smell from the mains tap, which prompted us to get a chemical and biological analysis done.

The chemical analysis indicated high levels of manganese and iron in the water.
Fe: ~2000 micrograms/Litre (EU limit is 200 micrograms/L)
Mn: ~1600 micrograms/Litre (EU Limit is 50 micrograms/L)

I have a similar problem - do you ever get this resolved?

darwi

Hi Tester46,

We just recently decided on a system and got it installed.

It appears to be removing the sulfer smell from the water and when I fill the bath, the water no longer has a yellow tinge (presumably, this was from the iron).

In a few weeks we will submit a new sample to the analyst lab to see the measured results. I'm hopeful that this has sorted out our problems.

I hope to post information on the results once I get them.

- darwi

murph08

Hey Darwi,

Just wondering what worked for you in the end? i to have high levels of manganese in the water.

darwi

murph08 wrote: »

Hey Darwi,

Just wondering what worked for you in the end? i to have high levels of manganese in the water.

Hi Murph,

We went with SmartWaterSolutions.ie in the end.

It was a single system that uses a product called Filox (you can search the web for the term).
It definitely addressed the sulphide smell and we are not seeing any problems with the laundry (yet).

I submitted a sample of the water to the analyst lab last week so we're waiting for the results on that. I'll post once we get them (in a week or two, I expect).

- darwi

darwi

We got the results back from the Analyst lab.

The results are
Fe: <100 micrograms per litre (compared to ~2000 micrograms before)
Mn: ~1300 micrograms per litre (compared to ~1600 micrograms)

So, the Iron problem is solved
The Sulfide smell is gone
But we still have an issue with the manganese (recommended max is 50 micrograms). I've been in contact with the supplier and we're looking into a number of adjustments to the system to address the remaining manganese content

This includes:
- Increasing the oxygen content of the incoming water using an aerator
- Once off agitation of the Filox medium in the canister to ensure the water is flowing across all of the medium for best effect.

We'll see how those measures work. Hopefully, we'll be manganese free after that.

I'm happy with the system so far for these reasons:
- Hands off operation. The system does not require recharging of the medium or replacement of filters.
- Low component count. One canister (and now an aerator on the incoming water line). That is, compared to pretreatment, mixing, post treatment and/or filtering that were variously mentioned as components of other systems proposed.

I hope that this information is of some use to others.

- darwi

deadl0ck

Hi darwi,

Was it expensive to get the water tested ?

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

Hi darwi,

Was it expensive to get the water tested ?

Hi Deadl0ck

In the ************ in Dublin, it cost me €120.
More details of the tests they do are here: *************

You need to book the test first and they'll give you two containers, one for the microbiological sample and a bigger container for the various chemical tests they will do.

I believe that there are other labs around the country but I don't know any details about them.

- darwi


edit: dont advertise

syd

deadl0ck

Thanks !

The system you got for the Iron and Manganese - does it use salt ?

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

Thanks !

The system you got for the Iron and Manganese - does it use salt ?

No, it does not use salt.
It passes the water through a filter medium, which is supposed to oxidize and filter the iron and managnese from the water. The system backwashes based on a timer (every night on our system) to expel the stuff from the medium to a soak area.

- darwi

deadl0ck

OK - we actually got something similar and I'm not sure if it's working

The county council did water tests after the installation (as there's a small possibility to get a grant) and the filter media wasn't working.
I got on to the guy who installed it and he changed the media.
That was a few months ago and in the last week or so the water is starting to have a brownish tinge to it
I want to get the water checked for Iron and Manganese again, but I suspect the media isn't working correctly still.
I can't go back to the guy who installed it yet as I need to be sure that it is actually the iron and magnese that I'm seeing (Although I'm pretty sure it is as you can't see the discolouration until you leave the water out so the air gets at it)

The system is basically a big blue resin tank with a controller on top of it :


Is your's something similar ?

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

OK - we actually got something similar and I'm not sure if it's working

The county council did water tests after the installation (as there's a small possibility to get a grant) and the filter media wasn't working.
I got on to the guy who installed it and he changed the media.
That was a few months ago and in the last week or so the water is starting to have a brownish tinge to it
I want to get the water checked for Iron and Manganese again, but I suspect the media isn't working correctly still.
I can't go back to the guy who installed it yet as I need to be sure that it is actually the iron and magnese that I'm seeing (Although I'm pretty sure it is as you can't see the discolouration until you leave the water out so the air gets at it)

The system is basically a big blue resin tank with a controller on top of it :


Is your's something similar ?

We have a big blue cylinder. The device on top looks different but it is just a water flow routing device, so it probably does not make much difference.
The medium in our cylindar goes by the name of Filox. I presume that it is a trade name rather than a particular compound.

Given that the water is going brown, I'd guess that it's due to Iron rather than Manganese, but I'm no chemist.

The lab that did our tests charge €20 per chemical test, I believe. So you may be able to check for those two elements specifically without incurring the microbiological charge.

It is worth mentioning the new problem to you supplier as they _may_ have seen these failures before. In any event, I think you should get an independent test to confirm the water contents. If you're happy that it is not biologically contaminated, then just do a chemical test.

- darwi

deadl0ck

The chemical analysis indicated high levels of manganese and iron in the water.
Fe: ~2000 micrograms/Litre (EU limit is 200 micrograms/L)
Mn: ~1600 micrograms/Litre (EU Limit is 50 micrograms/L)

Our results were originally
Fe: ~2900 micrograms/Litre
Mn: ~0.365 milligrams/Litre (365 micrograms/Litre)

I must try and find out what media is in our filter....

I had read somewhere that sometimes the water needs to be "aired" sometimes for certain media to work.

I assume you're water is coming direct up from your well and isn't aired before it hits the blue media tank ?

deadl0ck

Actually - does the water pressure coming into the media tank have a bearing on the performance of the media ?

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

Our results were originally
Fe: ~2900 micrograms/Litre
Mn: ~0.365 milligrams/Litre (365 micrograms/Litre)

I must try and find out what media is in our filter....

I had read somewhere that sometimes the water needs to be "aired" sometimes for certain media to work.

I assume you're water is coming direct up from your well and isn't aired before it hits the blue media tank ?

We don't currently have an aerator on the incoming line (direct from the well) but one was provided by the supplier. He is due to visit again to put the aerator on to see if it will help with the high Mn value from the last test (Fe is fine for us).

deadl0ck wrote: »

Actually - does the water pressure coming into the media tank have a bearing on the performance of the media ?

Low pressure might be an issue if it was unable to do a proper backwash. I think that in backwash mode the water has to enter from the bottom and come out the top meaning that it would need more grunt to push the water upwards through the media.

You might try to do a manual backwash during the day and see if much water comes out of the backwash pipe.
This is pure guesswork on my part though, I know little of the real operational aspects of these systems.

Hope it helps.

- darwi

deadl0ck

OK - I just talked to the supplier and the media in ours is Pyrolox.
He recommends that it should backwash daily, and that I should do a few manual backwashes in case there's a buildup.

Tefral

One thing i will tell you with heavy iron contamination is, becareful when using bleach around the house as this causes a brown stain.

Clothing especially, as white washing powder has bleaching agents in.

I did my dissertation on rural water and i have numerous experiments done with this.

The manganese in the water is coming from the green "sand" that is in the taller filter system.

deadl0ck

The manganese in the water is coming from the green "sand" that is in the taller filter system.

I don't understand what you mean here - the Iron and Manganese exist in the water direct from the well (i.e. the untreated water)

BTW - I think I found why our water had started to turn brown again. I went to do a manual backwash via the control head and almost no water was coming out of the backwash pipe. I removed this pipe via a nut on the system and as soon as I did water started flowing properly, so it was somehow clogged and hasn't been backwashing properly for a few weeks.
Hopefully this will rectify itself with a few proper backwashes (I hope the media isn't "damaged" due to the lack of backwashing for the few weeks).

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

cronin_j wrote:

The manganese in the water is coming from the green "sand" that is in the taller filter system.

I don't understand what you mean here - the Iron and Manganese exist in the water direct from the well (i.e. the untreated water)

Same here, the levels of Mn (1600 micrograms/l) initially quoted were direct from the well water.

While I am pretty green regarding even basic chemistry, I would have thought that the problematic Fe and Mn would be from soluable compounds of those elements that then come out of solution in contact with bleach etc. I thought that the manganese greensand and Filox/Pyrolox are based on an insoluable manganese compound (a manganese oxide?)

My guess wold be that this would be a suspension in the water and would be flushed out by the repeated backwashes recommended on installation. I'm assuming that this would act differently to a soluable compound that would gradually leach into the water continuously.

If I'm off base, it'd be great to hear some detail on how all this works in reality.

deadl0ck wrote: »

BTW - I think I found why our water had started to turn brown again. I went to do a manual backwash via the control head and almost no water was coming out of the backwash pipe. I removed this pipe via a nut on the system and as soon as I did water started flowing properly, so it was somehow clogged and hasn't been backwashing properly for a few weeks.
Hopefully this will rectify itself with a few proper backwashes (I hope the media isn't "damaged" due to the lack of backwashing for the few weeks).

Glad to hear you found a potential cause. I got the impression that the medium would not be damaged but it may be that it might clump due to the large amount of rust in the medium.
Again, I'd hope your supplier would know enough about the system to give you advice on how to fully wash out the accumulated iron oxide, if required.

All the best
-darwi

deadl0ck

Actually darwi - have you any idea how much the aerator was ?

I believe I need one on the line before the water enters the iron/manganese filter.

Also - are they a large piece of kit ?

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

Actually darwi - have you any idea how much the aerator was ?

I believe I need one on the line before the water enters the iron/manganese filter.

Also - are they a large piece of kit ?

The one we got is pretty small, about the size of my fist. I think that we were charged about €100 for it.

- darwi

deadl0ck

Great - thanks for the info.

Sorry for all the questions, but I presume then that's it just inline on the line from the well to the filter, something like this :

[WELL]========>[AERATOR]======>[FILTER]======>[HOUSE]

Do you have any idea what size pipe you have going into it ? It's 3/4" or 1" ?

Also - I assume it just plugs into the mains ?

Again - sorry for all the questions !

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

Great - thanks for the info.

Sorry for all the questions, but I presume then that's it just inline on the line from the well to the filter, something like this :

[WELL]========>[AERATOR]======>[FILTER]======>[HOUSE]

No worries, I'll answer what I can.

My aerator has not been fitted to the line. It was part of the package and would be fitted 'if needed', based on the results of analysis.

As I understand it, the location for the aerator is as you suggest. It needs to be on the line before the cylinder, adding oxygen to the water entering the cylinder which allows the medium to oxidise and remove more of the iron/manganese.

deadl0ck wrote: »

Do you have any idea what size pipe you have going into it ? It's 3/4" or 1" ?

Not sure exactly how it is supposed to be connected. There is a threaded piece on aerator which is about 10mm to 15mm in diameter and about 25mm long. I assume that this would allow it to be attached to the main line using a 'T' joint

deadl0ck wrote: »

Also - I assume it just plugs into the mains ?

Not sure what you mean here by 'mains'. Taking a stab at it, I guess you mean the line from the well, through the cylinder, to the house.
If so, yes I believe that the aerator is intended to be placed on that line.

- darwi

deadl0ck

Again - thanks for the info !!

Not sure what you mean here by 'mains'. Taking a stab at it, I guess you mean the line from the well, through the cylinder, to the house.
If so, yes I believe that the aerator is intended to be placed on that line.

I mean power wise, I presume it's just a standard 220V 3-pin plug ?

darwi

deadl0ck wrote: »

Again - thanks for the info !!


I mean power wise, I presume it's just a standard 220V 3-pin plug ?

My aerator has no electrical requirement. It works, I assume, by allowing air to enter the water flowing through the water pipe. Effectively, the water pump supplies the power.

- darwi

deadl0ck

Seems I need to get my ears checked - it's actually "Filox" in our filter also - double checked there via text message with the supplier.

There's still a fair bit of brown coming out during backwash and rinse, so I reckon there is "clumping" in the media as you suggested darwi.
I'll give it a few days to settle down and see how it's doing (I gave it a number of backwashes and rinses yesterday)

darwi

I thought I'd post an update as it has been about a year and a half since my last post.

1. State of the water
The last water analysis we did (January 2011) was disappointing. The manganese and iron levels in the sample were back to the original level.

• Manganese (Mn): 1,755 microgrammes/litre
  • = 1.755 mg/l = 1.75 ppm, I believe
• Iron (Fe): 1,357 microgrammes/litre
  • = 1.3 mg/l = 1.35 ppm)

Not great . That would be 34 times the recommended Mn and 7 times the amount of Fe

I'm optimistic though. We also have a clock skew on our filter manifold control system (More info below) which could mean that I took the sample while the backwash cycle was running. I can always hope .

2. Visible effects

• We notice brown staining on the glass walls of the jug kettle
  • It is not hard to remove but it returns within a few days of use
  • This is happening with water that has passed through a filter jug
• The tiles on the shower get a brown staining over time, which is difficult to remove.
  • But we found a product that does it (Yay!)
• From time to time, the water from less used taps comes out with a distinct yellowish colour. It is more pronounced when filling the white basin or bath
  • This may be due to oxidation of the Mn and Fe in the water within the pipes
• Brown stains appear (sometimes) on white clothes. Once they are stained, they stay stained. We have not found any suggestions on how to remove them. Most likely, any treatment that would remove the stain would destroy the fabric
  • Dark clothes do not show up the stains as much though I notice some stains on lighter coloured clothes too.

3. Technical aspects

• Clock Skew: The head on the treatment cylinder is electronically controlled and is set to do a backwash (or regeneration or rinse or whatever) at 2 in the morning. that is fine, however, we found that the clock on the system was keeping terrible time. It was losing 4 hours every day! So, the backwash cycle would fire at 2am one day, 6am the next, 10am the next etc., etc.
• Regeneration cycle: Apparently, when the backwash cycle is running, the water coming from the well is not filtered. This could mean that if we were running the washing machine (it's on the main line into the house) when the backwash starts then we'd be getting the full whack of Mn and Fe into our clothes :eek:.
• Our system uses a product called Filox, which does not require regeneration, just backwashing, apparently.

While doing some research recently, I found some OEM documentation for the head on our water treatment system. I believe that it is a WS1TC from a group called Clack. Reading through the manual I found the following :

1. The head takes 12V AC power and needs to be set correctly for the supply frequency. It supports two modes: 50Hz, as we normally get in Ireland, and 60Hz, used in the USA and many other places. My unit was set to 60Hz which neatly explains the 4 hour skew. The head was getting five 6ths of the ticks that it was expecting so in a day it counted only five 6ths of the 24 hours (24 hours/6 x 5 = 20 hours!).
2. Also in the manual, it describes the programmes available for backwashing, there are 10 of them. Each specifies a different amount of time for 5 parts of the cycle: 1st Backwash, Regenerate, 2nd Backwash, Rinse and Fill.

Using the OEM manual instructions, I changed the frequency value to 50Hz. We'll see how well it keeps time over the next few weeks.
As I mentioned above, the Filox medium is not supposed to require a regeneration step. Regardless, we have no salt or potassium permanganate system to supply the regeneration process so nothing of benefit would be done in this phase. However, the programme setting on my unit had the regeneration step set to run for 50 minutes.
My nightmare scenario is that this 50 minute regeneration was passing well water through my lovely backwashed medium to flush this filtered water into our soak pit. What if 50 minutes of continuous filtering reduced the effectiveness of the filter medium for the following 23 hours of occasional use? The OEM manual indicated how to change the programme to one that eliminated the regeneration step as well as the second backwash. I've made that change and we'll see if it makes things any better.

I hope that this information will be useful to others. I've found it difficult to find hepful information on this topic over the last few years.

- darwi

Welldrill

Hi just wondering if you have any further updates

muffler

Welldrill wrote: »

Hi just wondering if you have any further updates

If you dug half as deep on site as you did here in the forum to find this thread you would be doing well (Jeez I just love the puns )

Send a PM to whoever if you want info/update but dont drag up old threads