Water treatment for our well water, have iron and H2s, so confused and its so exspensive!!! Help

[new2countrylife]

We just bought our small acerage in october of last year and we have been meaning to get the water tested as it smells like rotten eggs bad and tastes horrible.

We have had two companys out of Red Deer come and test our water both of the guys seemed very nice and knowlegable but I know nothing about that stuff so I don't know how much a system to fix our problem would cost or what is actually needed and what would be over kill, also if one system is really better than than the other.

here are our results

Hardness 3 (so pretty soft water)
turidity 0
Iron .3 ppm to .5 ppm (ferric iron)
Sulfur/H2S 1ppm to 2.5 ppm
PH 8.4 to 9.0 (alkiline)
TDS 484 to 503
color 0
organics 0
High sodium content around 150ml/l

now one guy suggested a system that used no chemicals, except you have to dip a rod in chlorine every 6 weeks and that flushes the system? Its called a sulfur clean Filter system chem free. He waved the labour cost and says it would be 4280$ and the only on going cost would be minimal chlorine which is cheap and then a redbed every 8-10 years (rebedding costs 800$) this unit has a 10 year parts and labour warrenty.

he suggested another system that uses potassium perminate but said the chemical replacement cost yearly are about 150$ and it needs to be redbedded every 5 years (rebedding costs 800$) and costs 2850$ with a 5 year parts and labour warrenty.

He said most other companies don't have as good of equipment as them because they are a huge and a well know company that only works with water and that they have many patents and that many other companies do not know how to properly fix things when they break so they just make you buy new components.


the second tester suggested a potassium perminate system as well and explained how their system was better than most becasue of something that helps the water be dispursed properly so the bed doesnt get worn out as quickly as others systems. possassium should cost about 85$ a year he said and they too have a ten year warrenty on parts and labour but they also have a ten year warrenty on the chemical filtering stuff inside/bed material in the system. He said that other comapnies dont have the same thing inside to dispurse the water evenly and that the other companys systems would need rebedding in like 3 years even the guy who quoted me 8-10 years. He was going to suggest a constant shock clourine thing directly connect to our well but we have an old well that closed off (pit well?) and that system wouldnt work, so he scratched that idea.
this potassium system would cost 4400$ plus gst for the 1 cubic unit and the larger 1.5 unit is 4800$ and that he would give us two years of the potasium free to start and that he would take 1000$ off either price because he was trying to be nice as ive been out of work for 6 months.
He also said the only way to remove the sodium in our water is to use reverse osmossis and the under the counter system would cost 1595$ and the filters would cost about 45$ a year. This doesnt solve the issue that we would like to be able to drink our well water without ingesting a very large amount of sodium everyday from every tap in our house and not just one, on top of wanting our shower water to be salt free (dries my skin out and is killing my hair). He said the only way to remove salt from the whole system is a reverse ossmosis system attatched to the main water but those cost 15,000$.

So can anyone tell me if any of these prices seem right or to high or what I'm being told is correct or just smoke and mirrors? because thats alot of money!!! especially since it doesnt remove the salt

Thank you so very much for any help or personal esperiance you can add.

[ward]

Try to get a couple more quotes. Calgary ? Are you satisfied with the water treatment knowledge and technical capability of the two you have dealt with ? Make sure you are before you commit.

[nitro]

The prices don't sound to out to lunch to me .You mentioned Red deer not sure where you are close to but this is who we have used http://www.prowaterlacombe.com/ .They have been around along time which is a good thing,I have always kinda thought most water guys are like snake oil salesman.I would get a few more quotes if you can ,and ask around the area who people use.Also yes the only way to remove salt is with an RO system.I would look at a small one for just your drinking water.The filter beds for us about ever 6 to 7 years

[densa44]

With 50 years experience and having tried lots of different solutions the cheapest and the best has been to buy the water you drink (our first well had Fluorine and it damaged the kids teeth and the next one iron) so I shocked the well, you should pour a liter of javex down there and run the dish washer, not the washing machine, have a shower, but not clothes. See if the smell is gone.

Did I say don't drink it. Welcome to Alberta country living.

[Sunbreaker James]

May want to shock the well first. if that does not help then look at treatment.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/wwg404

the link is to the gov of Alberta water well document. good luck

[elkdump]

Originally Posted by densa44

With 50 years experience and having tried lots of different solutions the cheapest and the best has been to buy the water you drink (our first well had Fluorine and it damaged the kids teeth and the next one iron) so I shocked the well, you should pour a liter of javex down there and run the dish washer, not the washing machine, have a shower, but not clothes. See if the smell is gone.

Did I say don't drink it. Welcome to Alberta country living.

24 years in the same home , NO usable well water in area , have hauled or purchased(had delivered) every drop of household water for those 24 , raised our family this way,

A tanker with 1800 gallons of potable water delivered ? Cost is $150,

Lasts about 18 to 25 days, depending

Get used to livin the dream

[yoteblaster]

Wet Water Industries in Lacombe. You rent their systems. No upfront costs and if you don't like the system after a while, they come and take it out. No maintenance costs either Plus you are never stuck trying to sell it if you move etc

[260 Rem]

I would shock treat before looking at anything else. I shock a couple times a year, no big deal. My "method" is to ...a gallon of unscented laundry bleach into the well stem through a 20' garden hose (this insures the chlorine bypasses the pitiless adaptor release mechanism). Follow bleach dump with 5-10 minutes of running water through a garden hose (this draws the bleach downward and adds "weight" which will better flush the bleach into the formation outside of the pipe). Run water inside the house until bleach smell is evident from all taps. Use both hot and cold water to make sure bleach gets in the hot water system. Include the washing machine and dishwasher. Let sit for 12 hours then flush the system starting with a long run from an outside tap then through all the inside taps and appliances.

[Jack Hardin]

We had hard water with iron in our well and we had a 740/760 Control 255 and perfomra series valves installed. It is two tanks that do something to the water during the night and it removes the iron and softens the water with out adding anything. We shock the well 4 times per year as per instructions.

No more rust in the toilets. The outfit that does it is Water Fix Inc, 403-227-1478. They are located just west of Innisfail on the north side of the river.

It's worth a cal.

[hunterfisher]

We had the same issue and the old owners had a open tank with an aerator that supposedly helped. I removed the entire system and had several companies come out to try and correct the same issues you are seeing. There was a bunch of ideas with greensand and red whatever lol. I ended up going with a peroxide drip system which includes a large enclosed tank of about 100 gallons, a dose pump and a charge charcoal filter of some sort. The peroxide is apparently good for you in any case or at least better than chlorine. That cost me 4000.00 to rip out the old and install the new. The other options don't sound expensive as a mater of fact I was getting quotes around 10k. I shock my well every 1-2 yrs but I still don't get amazing results, just decent ones. I'm thinking trucking it in is the best solution.

[58thecat]

Been on an acreage for 10 years, well water, installed a iron eater and a water softener...no issues except twice a year routine maintenance, total,system cost was 5k but have no water bills and use what I want when I want...test water twice a year and all is good.

[eagleflyfisher]

We have the never ending battle with our well water too.
H2s & way over the limit of fluoride .
When we moved in back in 2000 I dropped $7500 in about 2 hrs on a RO unit, a iron filter that is to help remove h2s and the fluoride not iron and a big cystern in the basement to help vent off the gas before it hits the pipes in the house.
2005 I had a new well drilled in hopes of better water, less bacteria etc..
First year it was better but quickly returned to original poopiness!
Twice a year I spend 4 or 5 hours cleaning the jellyfish out of tank, spend my $1000 to the water well service to shock well.
Water well service said they had a method to actually blast the aquifer out really good to help rid the h2s bacteria.thats like $2500 for that service.
I try to keep up with adding bleach to the tank in basement to keep somewhat clear of slime.
It's my understanding that pouring household bleach down the well is too weak of a concentration, you need a 5 -10 gallon of a high concentration.
As far as the iron filter goes, I have been rebedding my own with a charcoal substrate mined off the surface of Mars lol ( water well guys charged me a grand to rebed! ) unfortunately I think the head of my unit needs a rebuild as it won't backwash properly And probably I have channeling through media.
It all wears me out and we pretty much live with ****ty water.

[ram crazy]

Buy a cistern and haul water, probably cheaper in the long run and you know your getting decent water.

[bb356]

Originally Posted by ram crazy

Buy a cistern and haul water, probably cheaper in the long run and you know your getting decent water.

x 58964879345 !!!

[new2countrylife]

So far the largest difference I see for most posters options and help is shocking our well. Im not sure we even can ours has a really old rusty head thing sticking about a foot out of the ground and everything else is sealed off. Infact when I showed the second guy who suggested a constant shock treatment, he was like "oh it an old pit well.. hmm if it doesnt have organics now lets not touch it becasue its working so far".

so our water doesnt have organics or slime, the h2s in our water is real h2s not the gas that gets produced from the bateria creating it down there I guess. S o well shocking isnt needed for us I guess.

So far most of you feel that almost 5000$ is a good price$ so maybe I'm just being cheap lol

we have settled with the fact that we will not be drinking our well water ona large rate due to the sodium content and we refuse to pay that much for an RO system installed to the whole house sadly

so its only the iron and h2s that needs to be moved from the water and ours is soft water so no softeners are needed. I really hope someone has water like ours and help us out with what theri system costs or what they have tried and didnt try.

Does anyone have the potassium system? does anyone have that chemical free system?

I will be trying to contact or neibours and see what they use but everyone kind of keeps to them selves in this acerage neibourhood.

Thank yuo again these replies are great!

[hunterfisher]

What area are you in?
I'm south of calgary and I have a pretty similar problem. Unfortunately with the high h2s content I needed some kind of chemical to remove the smell. Our iron was low so we have relatively soft water and other than that it's just fine. The peroxide drop was out only choice.

Install was 4000.00
Pales of peroxide are about 50.00 each and last around 2-3 months. The system flushes itself every week and that's good because if you have a system that is flishing daily, it has an affect on your septic well.
The smell is still there sometimes when new well water is replenished in the holding tank and is quickly used for showers or what have you but if it has enough time(a few hours) to let the peroxide work, there's hardly any smell.
I also installed a 300 dollar under counter RO for kettle and boiling food but I still purchase big jugs of water for our water cooler.

[Redrider]

Is it a cast iron casing or plastic??
If it iron casing it's a old well. I think they went to plastic in the early 80s.
Is there good water in your area. If there is drill a new well. If not put a cistern in. My two cents

[new2countrylife]

Originally Posted by Redrider

Is it a cast iron casing or plastic??
If it iron casing it's a old well. I think they went to plastic in the early 80s.
Is there good water in your area. If there is drill a new well. If not put a cistern in. My two cents

If your referring to the thing sticking out of the ground above our well, Im assuming its cast iron becasue its all rusty and deffinatly metal, our home was built in 1979.
re drilling a well wouldn't help I guess this area all have H2s in the water and we are trying not to to spend an arm and a leg becasue this house needs other updates

a cistern would be like a unground conainer that would hold water we get trucked in correct?

we would like to be able to use our water for almost everything in the house, we just cant use it for drinking becasue of the salt.

[Redrider]

Originally Posted by new2countrylife

If your referring to the thing sticking out of the ground above our well, Im assuming its cast iron becasue its all rusty and deffinatly metal, our home was built in 1979.
re drilling a well wouldn't help I guess this area all have H2s in the water and we are trying not to to spend an arm and a leg becasue this house needs other updates

a cistern would be like a unground conainer that would hold water we get trucked in correct?

we would like to be able to use our water for almost everything in the house, we just cant use it for drinking becasue of the salt.

Yes a cistern is a tank that's install underground,if you go that route, get a large one that can take the whole truck load of water. 4000 gal. They charge per trip. Not how much water you use. Water cheap trucking is not. Right now in my country its 3.25 per meter of water= 225 gallons.

[new2countrylife]

Originally Posted by hunterfisher

What area are you in?
I'm south of calgary and I have a pretty similar problem. Unfortunately with the high h2s content I needed some kind of chemical to remove the smell. Our iron was low so we have relatively soft water and other than that it's just fine. The peroxide drop was out only choice.

Install was 4000.00
Pales of peroxide are about 50.00 each and last around 2-3 months. The system flushes itself every week and that's good because if you have a system that is flishing daily, it has an affect on your septic well.
The smell is still there sometimes when new well water is replenished in the holding tank and is quickly used for showers or what have you but if it has enough time(a few hours) to let the peroxide work, there's hardly any smell.
I also installed a 300 dollar under counter RO for kettle and boiling food but I still purchase big jugs of water for our water cooler.

We are just west of red deer, pretty much a part of it, like 2k out. From what I can tell both of our iron and h2s readings are pretty low, just enough that something should be done. Maybe thats why we didnt get the same system suggested to us as you use? thats alot for chemicals every 2-3 months whew.

No one told me that about the flushing causing problems with our sectic?!?! thats really important to us as our sepric is kind of non descript the old owners didnt really know how it works, it drains out somewhere but no one can find where it dreains out, so some people think there could be a very old feild under all the trees and stuff lol
It is functioning currently and we would like to keep it that way becasue it will cost us 25,000-40,000$ to get a new tank and feild put in

I agree with you on the still buying jugs, its what we plan to do for drinking water due to the salt in our well water, do you find your 300$ under the counter system works just fine? how much do filters cost you a year? and do you wish you would have bought one of the proffsional ones ffrom the companies instead?

[new2countrylife]

Originally Posted by Redrider

Yes a cistern is a tank that's install underground,if you go that route, get a large one that can take the whole truck load of water. 4000 gal. They charge per trip. Not how much water you use. Water cheap trucking is not. Right now in my country its 3.25 per meter of water= 225 gallons.

and do you use that water for showering and everything? how much a year do you think it cost you in water and trucking fees? also how many in your house hold? thank you

[hunterfisher]

I like the under counter unit and the filters are 65.00. We replace them every 6 months. I debated a Cistern but I hate having to pay for water each time and having to get it delivered. Keep in mind you have to clean your Custer periodically. I don't know how often but I would think every 3-5 years. At least there's no bacteria cultures and your not high H2S so maybe a greensand system would be ideal. Runs about 4-5000

[new2countrylife]

Originally Posted by hunterfisher

I like the under counter unit and the filters are 65.00. We replace them every 6 months. I debated a Cistern but I hate having to pay for water each time and having to get it delivered. Keep in mind you have to clean your Custer periodically. I don't know how often but I would think every 3-5 years. At least there's no bacteria cultures and your not high H2S so maybe a greensand system would be ideal. Runs about 4-5000

Yes I'm beginning to think your right and the salesmen are right we will need a system that filters it out and they cost around that 4000$ to 5000$ range, just sucks spending that kind of money lol i miss being in town
pretty sure those green sands and the system we are being recommended are like the same thing, they all have sand and bedding in the middle that filters the water through...I think lI guess Ill just get more quotes

[huntsfurfish]

Originally Posted by ram crazy

Buy a cistern and haul water, probably cheaper in the long run and you know your getting decent water.

Best^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[new2countrylife]

based on this agreeance, then does anyone know how much it would cost to buy a large cistern and have it burried (and have it not freeze?) or do they stay abouve ground?.

then how much a year on average does water and trucking it in cost the average family?

[Snort]

You can install a tank anywhere that it won't freeze such as in the basement or a heated garage rather than burying.

[SamSteele]

We put a 3000 gallon cistern in at our last house about 8 years ago. I can't recall the exact cost though. I hauled the water myself with a tank and trailer. 3000 gallons cost me about $60 plus fuel and time. I had a family with 3 small kids and that would usually last us 1.5 months or so. We were extremely water conscious though and had all new appliances and fixtures to reduce consumption. Neighbours would burn through the same amount in 2 weeks.

If we had a load delivered by a water truck it was $160. They don't meter the load either so you get whatever the tank had room for. Call too soon and you are paying for water you don't get. Call too late and you run out.

We moved to an acreage close to town that has city water and I don't miss hauling water one bit!

SS


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[trophybook]

How deep is the well? Drill it deeper .

[Big Grey Wolf]

Had water wells on acerages before, will never go back to them, have cistern and haul water now once per month. My costs are around $20 for water and sewer per month, lets see you guys in city beat that price.

[darren32]

I think you need to be a little careful on the systems. If I was doing it I would ask for some references to call and see how the systems are working for people. I would want some real world feedback before spending that kind of money

Some friends of our got sold on a good sales pitch for a chemical free system. They spent $7,000.00 2 years ago. They are putting in a cistern in the spring. The system does not work.

We were starting to look into a system but decided to keep hauling water ..... just bought a bigger trailer LOL 2,100 gal = $45.00