Help with fill water test please?

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JohnN

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Jun 24, 2012
977
Howell, NJ
I'm hoping you can help me get a better idea of my true pH. I've always known it is very bad as far as pH goes, but I would like to figure just how low it is. I started with the pH test from the K-2006. The pH was a pale yellow color. It took about 17 drops of base demand to get to 7.0. Next I did the TA test. When I added the indicator it turned a sick reddish color. It took one drop to go full red, for a TA of 10ppm. Lastly I did a pH test from the HTH 6 way kit, and got a reading well below 6.8. It was so low, it actually looked more like a chlorine reading. Based on all that, does anyone have any idea what my pH might be? Thanks.


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When the TA test initially turns red or nearly so, the pH is at 4.5 or lower. In your case, it's probably close to 4.5, perhaps a little higher but not much.

Why is the pool so low in pH? Is this someone else's pool that used Trichlor tabs without monitoring pH or TA?
 
My well. It's not exactly bottled water quality, as you can see.
These are typical results from my water:
pH apparently about 4.5
TA about 10
CH about 20
Lots of iron.
I must say, it is nice not having to worry about CH.
Now I see why you have so many questions. In the first post, I didn't write that this was a test of my fill water. I had a copy of this post typed up on my computer, which, due to a bad battery, died without any warning. So I typed up a new copy on my phone, and must have forgot all that stuff.
 
JohnN said:
My well. It's not exactly bottled water quality, as you can see.
These are typical results from my water:
pH apparently about 4.5
TA about 10
CH about 20
Lots of iron.
I must say, it is nice not having to worry about CH.
Now I see why you have so many questions. In the first post, I didn't write that this was a test of my fill water. I had a copy of this post typed up on my computer, which, due to a bad battery, died without any warning. So I typed up a new copy on my phone, and must have forgot all that stuff.
Click to expand...
What does the well supply? Do you drink that stuff?

http://www.nsf.org/consumer/drinking_water/dw_well.asp


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Well water with a pH of 4.5? Yikes! It's roughly similar to tomato juice and not as acidic as orange juice or lemon juice, but it would be corrosive to pipes long-term. If you've got copper piping, you might have copper in your water. Of course, you said it has lots of iron already.
 
I like this quote from the link above:
The pH level of your water should be checked to determine whether your water is acidic. Water with a low pH (less than 7.0) may have problems with leaching of copper and lead from residential plumbing. Copper leaching will be indicated with a bluish-green stain; an analysis for lead will need to be performed to determine if lead leaching is a problem.
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If less than 7 is low, I wonder what they consider 4.5? I've been looking, and can't seem to find what NJ considers an acceptable pH.
 

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Wow, I guess I am more naïve than I imagined. I had no idea well water existed with 4.5 pH. Never heard of it from anywhere in this country. I am really curious what is driving that. The EPA doesn't mandate pH limits, but recommends pH be between 6.5-8.5 for public water systems. I am honestly a little stunned, but just never ran across it or heard of colleagues dealing with it in my business. I would be most concerned with copper and lead leaching I suppose, but very interesting.
 
The house is 19 years old, so I don't think there is lead in the plumbing, but what do I know. Hey, now you have a story to tell all your colleagues. Everyone seems to be so interested in my fill water, so I added it to my signature. Now everywhere I post, you will get to be reminded of my interesting story. :lol:
 
JohnN said:
It supplies all of our water. We cook with it, shower with it, etc. The one thing we don't do is drink it. We have bottled water for that. For the cooking, we have a 3 stage water filter, not that that helps with much of anything. One of these: http://www.amazon.com/Culligan-FM-15RA- ... an+FM-15RA. I've been using this water for all 18 years I've been alive, and haven't noticed any problems. Yet.
Click to expand...
The sodium hydroxide pump solution mentioned in the article I linked is an option to remedy the pH long term fir household use. For the pool you might consider an SWG a blessing. These normally lead to rising pH, and require acid to hold them in check if you can't get the TA to balance out things. You could just drain a little water and add some well water! ;)



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I think I would probably have a hard time convincing the people with the money (my parents) that we need a SWG. I am having a hard enough time convincing my mom to buy some Borax, so I can add borates. EDIT: Wow, just noticed I passed 500 posts. How did that happen??
 
To add on to this, now I am really glad I have a cart filter. It's bad enough with the iron, but could you imagine trying to maintain pH and TA if I had to constantly backwash a sand filter? I would probably go though a box of Borax a week.
 
Well, the rainwater test did not turn out at all how I thought. TA was either 60 or 70, and pH was way above 8. Although I didn't have enough water to rinse out after the TA test, and I also didn't have a full 44 mL of water for the pH test. Still, I know that the pH must be at least 8. So that doesn't explain the well's acidity at all.
 
One last update on this topic. I had enough water collected to do another TA and pH test, and these are the results:
TA 20
pH 7.0 or lower.
I think on my last test there was some Borax residue left in my pitcher, so that would explain the high readings.
 

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