One last problem with the well water to address

[setsailsoon]

Just to recap where I've been on the well water treatment:

• We have moderately hard water (10 gr/gal), pH 7.6, sulfides ~1ppm, tannin ~.5ppm, no iron. Water stinks to high heaven, and is light yellowish.
• Started with a sort of "locally standard" system that is a cationic resin softener and salt regen plus air injection catalytic carbon bed. Product water is reduced in sulfur (~.1 ppm sulfide) and light yellow.
• So I added H202 injection. This eliminated sulfur but color remains "not pleasant". Also seems we get a "slug of sulfur" each morning. Then sulfur clears up but water smells musty throughout the day.

I've read that tannin content is harmless (tannin is what make tea its color). Tannin is also removed similar to hardness except the charge is opposite to the normal calcium, potassium and manganese so it needs an anionic resin. Purolite 850 resin is typically used for this purpose. At my levels I would need about 10 lb of this resin and I could add this to the cylinder containing the normal resin used to reduce hardness. There are a LOT of opinions on how to do this. Some say you shouldn't mix resins and especially add this on top of the normal cationic resin since anionic resin does not stand up to hardness very well. Others say it works fine and they've done this for years. So I decided to try adding just to see what happens. It worked great! Absolutely identical to bottled water through clear glass on a white piece of paper in very strong lighting. Tannins also give water a musty odor - that's gone now. So next will be to see how long this lasts and to check to see if I need to regenerate more often. But at least for today for the first time since we've been in this new house with new wells we have great tasting crystal clear water! No more yellow toilet bowls that look like kids forgot to flush. Back to "Happy Wife"!!

Chris

 

[JoyfulNoise]

…. Back to "Happy Wife"!!

The only data point that matters ….

Glad it’s working out for you. I hope the resins hold up well over time.

Did you ever get an RO tap for the kitchen sink? I have one and it’s the only water I can stomach to drink in the house. My refrigerator, unfortunately, wasn’t supplied from my kitchen island plumbing so it get regular, untreated City water. It has its own filter but that only deals with particulates, chlorine, and VOCs (like a Britta Filter) and doesn’t do anything for hardness. So sadly my ice cubes are cloudy and the water from dispenser is gross (to my taste). Thankfully the RO tap produces drinkable water.

 

[setsailsoon]

PS

The only data point that matters ….

Glad it’s working out for you. I hope the resins hold up well over time.

Did you ever get an RO tap for the kitchen sink? I have one and it’s the only water I can stomach to drink in the house. My refrigerator, unfortunately, wasn’t supplied from my kitchen island plumbing so it get regular, untreated City water. It has its own filter but that only deals with particulates, chlorine, and VOCs (like a Britta Filter) and doesn’t do anything for hardness. So sadly my ice cubes are cloudy and the water from dispenser is gross (to my taste). Thankfully the RO tap produces drinkable water.

Thanks Matt. Yes, I do have an RO tap under the main sink and a separate one for my automatic espresso machine that has it's own small sink... yes I'm a coffee snob and I drink at least 4 shots in the morning every day. I couldn't agree more about city water and well water. Ever since we lived on the boat for 25000 miles of sailing we can't stand city water. And we're concerned about contamination of well water. Florida has a LONG history of a lot of agricultural chemicals. We made 100% of our own water for the boat with RO. Never put anything else in our tank. Get used to that and you can't stand any tap water. Our boat water was about constant 175 ppm TDS (good bottled is about 230).

I think you mentioned before about the fridge so I added a line in the slab to take RO product water to the fridge water inlet. Works great!

So now I'm on to optimizing H202 injection rate and regen frequency on the mixed bed softener. Plus I need to clean up the piping on the system. It needs proper design and support plus cleaner manifold system. Several on here would make fun of me if I posted any photos. It works for now but I don't think it will last with all the energy bursts when the pump cycles plus the mini hammer with every blow of the peroxide injection pump.

Thanks for all your suggestions and help on this project.

Chris

 

[setsailsoon]

PS

I've never had to disassemble a softener cylinder and add resin. This turned out to be a little tricky. Problem is the control head has an o-ring inside a grove in the pipe that fits over and seals the distribution tube that goes to the bottom of the cylinder in the center Water normally flows into the head and down the outside of the tube over the resin and then into the bottom of this tube and through the outlet on the back of the control head. When I unscrewed the head off the top this o-ring grabbed the tube and pulled it off the bottom. I tried pushing it back down and that didn't work. So I leaned the cylinder over to carefully decant the water taking care to not let it dump all my resin out... a little got out but not much. Then I stood it up and swirled it around while pushing the tube back into place. I'm glad my wife wasn't there nor was my neighbor since it looked like I was slow dancing with the water treatment cylinder. After I got it all sorted out I taped up the tube to make sure no resin went in the tube then used a resin funnel to pour the 10 lb of resin in. Rest was simple and made even simpler with some key unions I installed in the piping.

I hope this helps some other poor person afflicted with low quality well water.

Chris

 

[setsailsoon]

Folks,

We're now moved in the house and I just need to address some minor pool permit conditions and I'll be off to the races on the pool. I've learned a lot about the well water I'm using and started thinking about the first fill. My hardness isn't a huge issue since it's only about 170 ppm and the 1 ppm sulfides should dissipate naturally but I'm now a little concerned about the tannin content (about .5 ppm.) Last thing I want to do is stain my brand new plaster. Since the tannin level is so low seems like I should be able to just fill the pool with treated water and only regen once or twice if I get any tannin breakthrough and just not use water in the house for couple days. Does this make sense to y'all? If I get this wrong and I do end up with slightly yellow tannin water can I just wait a month or so after the plaster cures then SLAM the tannin out of the water and plaster?

Chris

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Tannins can be found in pool water all the time when people let leaves rot in their pools or they let the pool turn into a “swamp pool”. When swamp pool water is black colored, one of the main components are tannins. When tannins do stain plaster they usually leave a dark yellow/brown stain. However, tannins are susceptible to chlorine oxidation and will go away from bleaching.

Question - are you able to source any water suppliers near you that could bring in a water truck with some fill water? It’ll be expensive but you could get the pool half filled and then top off the rest of the way with your water.

Any tannins that make it into the pool water should dissipate as soon as you start to chlorinate.

Try this - grab a clean white 5 gallon bucket from the hardware store and fill it with the water you intend to use on the pool. If you see any yellow/brown, throw in a tablespoon or two of liquid bleach to simulate a SLAM. See what happens to color over time.

 

[setsailsoon]

Tannins can be found in pool water all the time when people let leaves rot in their pools or they let the pool turn into a “swamp pool”. When swamp pool water is black colored, one of the main components are tannins. When tannins do stain plaster they usually leave a dark yellow/brown stain. However, tannins are susceptible to chlorine oxidation and will go away from bleaching.

Question - are you able to source any water suppliers near you that could bring in a water truck with some fill water? It’ll be expensive but you could get the pool half filled and then top off the rest of the way with your water.

Any tannins that make it into the pool water should dissipate as soon as you start to chlorinate.

Try this - grab a clean white 5 gallon bucket from the hardware store and fill it with the water you intend to use on the pool. If you see any yellow/brown, throw in a tablespoon or two of liquid bleach to simulate a SLAM. See what happens to color over time.

Matt,

That makes a lot of sense. I'll try the test today. We know people that have had water trucked in with mixed results and it looks like there are companies that will truck in highly purified water. I haven't gotten prices yet but I bet it is pretty costly. I think the bad experiences came from lower cost truckloads of fire water. Looks like I have some more research to do. If I can get the bucket test done and verify it will work that's definitely my lowest cost. I can rig up supply from my irrigation well and not even mess with softening. Our tests for iron have all shown negative.

Thanks once again for the help with my well "learning".

Chris

 

[setsailsoon]

OK, I thought I was on easy street with the wells then I messed up the resin. Everything was working fine then we started getting a sort of nasty smell not rotten eggs more like fishy or dead fishy also the water didn't feel as soft as it normally does. So I started reading a lot about tannin resins (anionic resins). Turns out the need to be regenerated way more often than traditional softeners. Tannins build up and can cause the exact odor we had. And when they build up a lot it can be very difficult to recover. Being a good TFP'er I did some testing. Sulfides were zero but TH was sky high... went to check the softener and found my power supply had tripped. Had a temp power supply with it's own breaker. It probably had not regenerated in 3 weeks!

So reading about ways to recover and I came upon resin cleaners. One is Rust Out and I had some in the garage so I gave it a try. Bad mistake! Water stunk with a pungent strong odor that led to a total purge of the system. We couldn't stay in the kitchen unless water ran with 2 exhaust fans on full blast! Took all day draining, refill, drain then purge the house to get to just tolerable. While waiting to drain I was doing more research and came upon this article that says only use citric acid for anionic resin. My rust out is a very strong acid and I think some perchlorate compounds. Not sure if this caused the problem or not.So I bought some citric acid from Duda Diesel and cleaned again yesterday. It's way better now but still not the pristine water we had 'till I messed up so I'm going to replace both resins and start again. I'm using Purolite C100 and A860. Any comments from the mad scientists (@JoyfulNoise @JamesW or others) on this?

Chris

PS I hate to say this but I feel like I'm going through the Jandy Jxi heater fiasco again... mostly self-inflicted damage

 

[ajw22]

PS I hate to say this but I feel like I'm going through the Jandy Jxi heater fiasco again... mostly self-inflicted damage

Some people call it a learning experience.

Others of us appreciate watching the reality show.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Separate the processes. You really can’t efficiently remove tannins AND minerals with the same bed. You’ll always run into unequal loading.

I would suggest using ResCare for cleaning. It contains phosphoric acid and an ADBAC based cleaner.

 

[setsailsoon]

Separate the processes. You really can’t efficiently remove tannins AND minerals with the same bed. You’ll always run into unequal loading.

I would suggest using ResCare for cleaning. It contains phosphoric acid and an ADBAC based cleaner.

Thanks Matt. Yep I will definitely need a separate housing down the road. Just extended the concrete pad to make room. I'd like to experiment a little with anionic resins in the meantime. So for the interim I'm reducing the cationic resin bed capacity to match every 3 days for the tannin. This also reduces salt consumption to match. Any idea what the difference is in the 850 or 860 purolite resin? Both are available and the few articles I could find seem to indicate 860 is a little better.

Chris

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks Matt. Yep I will definitely need a separate housing down the road. Just extended the concrete pad to make room. I'd like to experiment a little with anionic resins in the meantime. So for the interim I'm reducing the cationic resin bed capacity to match every 3 days for the tannin. This also reduces salt consumption to match. Any idea what the difference is in the 850 or 860 purolite resin? Both are available and the few articles I could find seem to indicate 860 is a little better.

Chris

Do you have a spec sheet or a link to the resins? It might be the degree of cross linking in the polymer to increase resistance to oxidation or it could be related to the resin bead size which impacts flow and head loss through the exchange bed.

 

[setsailsoon]

Thanks for the quick reply. Here's what I found.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks for the quick reply. Here's what I found.

So the difference is in performance characteristics. If you look at the 850, its a gel-type resin. These types of resins tend to have higher capacity but they tend to swell and shrink a lot with regeneration and so they physically degrade faster. The 860 resin is a macro-pore type resin which means the resin beads are like Swiss cheese with tiny pores in them. These features allow the resin to swell and shrink less and absorb the mechanical forces better BUT at the cost of having a lower capacity than the gel type.

So, in your situation, you have to decide if you really need the higher capacity and thus the shorter resin life OR if you can live with a little less capacity but have a longer lasting resin bed. Typical residential softener and conditioner makers try to shoot for a 10-year bed life so that customers feel they are getting good benefit for their investment. A commercial operation that needs consistent results would probably care less about resin bed lifetimes and would just shoot for the most capacity they can get and then dump the resin when it stops performing at the level they need.

 

[setsailsoon]

So the difference is in performance characteristics. If you look at the 850, its a gel-type resin. These types of resins tend to have higher capacity but they tend to swell and shrink a lot with regeneration and so they physically degrade faster. The 860 resin is a macro-pore type resin which means the resin beads are like Swiss cheese with tiny pores in them. These features allow the resin to swell and shrink less and absorb the mechanical forces better BUT at the cost of having a lower capacity than the gel type.

So, in your situation, you have to decide if you really need the higher capacity and thus the shorter resin life OR if you can live with a little less capacity but have a longer lasting resin bed. Typical residential softener and conditioner makers try to shoot for a 10-year bed life so that customers feel they are getting good benefit for their investment. A commercial operation that needs consistent results would probably care less about resin bed lifetimes and would just shoot for the most capacity they can get and then dump the resin when it stops performing at the level they need.

That makes sense Matt and thanks much. I have plenty of room for extra anionic resin since I'm cutting the capacity of the cationic in my next run so I'll go with the 860. There is room for 1.5 cu ft in my 10X54 tank so I'll go with .5 cu ft of each. This should still give me about 75% excess capacity for the cationic resin with a 3 day regen cycle even on our max water consumption days and it will be a little over 2x the amount of anionic resin I ran previously (that worked fine until I messed it up). Eventually I'll just add another separate tank and control head for the anionic resin as you suggest. I poured concrete this past weekend for the larger pad that makes more room for my peroxide injection and the new cylinder. Eventually I'll get this right!

Chris

 

[Darin]

By the way 10 grains of hardness is not hard. Around here you would not even consider softening until 18 or so. My well is 25 and i have never had a problem with it but then i have a vinyl liner.

 

[mgtfp]

By the way 10 grains of hardness is not hard. Around here you would not even consider softening until 18 or so. My well is 25 and i have never had a problem with it but then i have a vinyl liner.

There is a difference whether water is too hard for "normal" use, or for use as pool fill water. In a pool, calcium accumulates by replacing evaporation losses (i.e. water molecules leaving the pool, but calcium molecules staying) with fill water. It really depends on the local rain/evaporation ratio if calcium will accumulate. As soon as you have more evaporation than rain, calcium will accumulate. How fast depends on calcium content of the fill water.

 

[setsailsoon]

By the way 10 grains of hardness is not hard. Around here you would not even consider softening until 18 or so. My well is 25 and i have never had a problem with it but then i have a vinyl liner.

Darin,

That's an interesting comment. I guess acceptable hardness level is to some degree depending on personal preference and what's acceptable to the owner in terms of impact. My previous house had a well that was about 18 grains per gallon. When I researched to find out what levels are acceptable I found 10 grains per gallon is considered the breakpoint between hard and very hard. This is pretty consistent regardless of the classification entity. What's not very consistent is what levels are tolerable that do not create long-term damage. A lot of this is also dependent on personal preference. We prefer very soft water just because we like the feel of it. My Brother's family can't stand soft water. They've been used to hard water and they do not like the soapiness feel that's hard to get rid of. My wife can't stand The deposits on glassware and showers that are very difficult to remove even with moderate hardness around six grains per gallon. So to me, it is pretty easy to soften water and I do like the fact that deposit build up on my expensive condensing water heaters is minimized with soft water. On top of this it makes my wife happy. So it's an easy choice to get down to very soft levels and it doesn't cost much in the long run. Now much less based on perception is sulfur level and tannin level. They are by far the limiting and difficult part of treating my well water. It's kind of like the commercial says "cost of happy wife? Priceless!"so I end up with a pretty expensive complicated system that includes peroxide injection, air injected catalytic carbon, anionic resin bed and cationic resin bed.

Thanks for your reply and I hope this is helpful.

Chris

 

[Darin]

if accumulation of hardness from evaporation was a concern then a yearly half or 2/3 pump out and refill would be cheaper and easier than any hardess removal.
After all it takes a lot of energy and water to remove hardness for pool use. House fixtures and happy wife is another story...

 

[Methuselah]

... went to check the softener and found my power supply had tripped. Had a temp power supply with it's own breaker. It probably had not regenerated in 3 weeks!

I took an old volt sonalert (beeper) and hooked it up to a battery through the NC conacts of a relay, plugged into the same outlet as my freezer in the attached garage, leaving the relay energized with a wall wart.

Any power failure and the sonalert rudely reminds us the gfi has tripped...