Upflow vs Downflow acid neutralizer

[DKH53]

New (to me) house has well water with a pH of 5.5 so I will add a calcite/corosex neutralizer. Studying the options for a couple of hours I am curious why there are so many recommendations to NOT use an upflow type system. From what little I know the upflow requires no power because it doesn't have a timer valve and only needs to be flushed at some high flow rate once a year to maintain it. It doesn't work as effectively at neutralizing at high flow rates but it works well at low flow rates, like when getting a glass of water or filling the ice maker which is what my main concerns are.

I had a water softener at my last house and was constantly annoyed when the thing would backflush. It would wake me up in the middle of the night because it was loud, or after a power outage the clock would be off and it would backflush when I was in the shower and suddenly the pressure would go way down. I'm not excited to add a device to my house that requires I add an electrical outlet, makes noise, and requires me to reset the clock several times a year when the power goes out or Daylight Savings Time comes and goes.

Granted I can only find information on acid neutralizers from the people that sell them so the information is biased. What am I missing that makes upflow systems so bad?

 

[Reach4]

New (to me) house has well water with a pH of 5.5 so I will add a calcite/corosex neutralizer. Studying the options for a couple of hours I am curious why there are so many recommendations to NOT use an upflow type system. From what little I know the upflow requires no power because it doesn't have a timer valve and only needs to be flushed at some high flow rate once a year to maintain it. It doesn't work as effectively at neutralizing at high flow rates but it works well at low flow rates, like when getting a glass of water or filling the ice maker which is what my main concerns are.

Upflow also normally implies no backwashing. Channels can develop and carry the bulk of the flow. You could potentially backwash manually by flowing enough to lift and mix the calcite, but with downflow, backwash gets followed by rapid rinse which helps re-compress the fluffed-up media.

Downflow itself helps compress the bed a bit, and avoids encouraging channels.

 

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[ditttohead]

Consider this, if you were filtering water through a bucket of sand and ran the water up through the media, what will happen to the media? It will simply push the sand away from the water as it flows. For minimal neutralization in controlled flow applications like post RO treatment, an upflow system makes sense. If you are putting the system into a variable flow application like a house which can fluctuate between .5-10 GPM, then upflow is not typically recommended.

 

[Bannerman]

I'm not excited to add a device to my house that requires I add an electrical outlet, makes noise, and requires me to reset the clock several times a year

By adding a calcite and corosex neutralizer, you may find you will then want a softener as the calcite will add hardness to the water. If a softener is to be added, you will likely need to add an electrical outlet regardless.

If you post a recent lab report for your raw well water, perhaps it may help to identify alternate acid neutralization methods that may be suitable for your water conditions.

 

[Water Guy]

By adding a calcite and corosex neutralizer, you may find you will then want a softener as the calcite will add hardness to the water. If a softener is to be added, you will likely need to add an electrical outlet regardless.

If you post a recent lab report for your raw well water, perhaps it may help to identify alternate acid neutralization methods that may be suitable for your water conditions.

absolutely. I had an application with a pH of 5.7 recently and I measured a gain of 5 gpg with calcite. he wasn't concerned about the hardness, but from what I gather soda ash would have kept it at the original 3 gpg. I've found often times it comes down to cost, space limitations or people just plain being afraid of injection. I think it intimidates them because they somehow get it in their heads they'll be drinking chemicals.

 

[DKH53]

Thanks, I appreciate the responses.

We have a private well, I'm not sure what the depth is but I assume it is 200 or so feet because the neighbors on both sides, houses built at the same time, are around 200 feet. Water test results (with sediment filter upstream of faucet) are:
pH 5.5
Hardness 24 mg/L
Coliform MPN <1.0
E.coli MPN <1.0
Nitrate <1 mg/L
Chloride 5.0 mg/L
Iron <0.02 mg/L
Sulfate <5 mg/L
Chlorine None Detected
Manganese None Detected

Based on what I am reading my water is pretty soft already. I understand the Calcium carbonate (carbonite?) goes up with the neutralizer, that is how it works, but I have no idea how much it goes up. Is a softener always used with a neutralizer?

 

[DKH53]

absolutely. I had an application with a pH of 5.7 recently and I measured a gain of 5 gpg with calcite. he wasn't concerned about the hardness, but from what I gather soda ash would have kept it at the original 3 gpg. I've found often times it comes down to cost, space limitations or people just plain being afraid of injection. I think it intimidates them because they somehow get it in their heads they'll be drinking chemicals.

So if I am doing the math right I could go from a hardness of 24 mg/L or 1.4 gpg to a hardness of 110 mg/L or 6.4 gpg with a calcite neutralizer? That puts me in the "moderately hard water" category.

Does the hardness change more, less, or the same with calcite/corosex blend vs straight calcite? Probably a rhetorical question since I need corosex to get pH near 7?

 

[Water Guy]

So if I am doing the math right I could go from a hardness of 24 mg/L or 1.4 gpg to a hardness of 110 mg/L or 6.4 gpg with a calcite neutralizer? That puts me in the "moderately hard water" category.

Does the hardness change more, less, or the same with calcite/corosex blend vs straight calcite? Probably a rhetorical question since I need corosex to get pH near 7?

yes, your math is correct. I don't have experience using corosex, so perhaps someone else can answer that, but it does the same thing as calcite, it is meant to extend the life of the calcite. what I notice however, you have E Coli and Coliform bacteria. you have two options to deal with those harmful bacteria's, the first is chlorination, the second is UV. in the first you could use a calcite or calcite/corosex filter, followed by a softener, followed by a UV lamp OR the second is injection/retention using soda ash/sodium hypochlorite combination followed by a carbon filter. the problem with the latter solution is it might be difficult to obtain a mixture that both gives you a pH of 7 and the required 2 ppm residual Cl after retention.

 

[Water Guy]

I misspoke. mpn for bacteria is in fact safe to drink. I'm acustom to seeing present or not present, detected or not detected. you should be alright for bacteria.

 

[Reach4]

Corosex doesn't last as long, but it is more active in raising the pH.

A "<" in a test result usually means the value is below the sensitivity of the test.

Corosex and calcite both raise hardness, but I don't know the amount of hardness added.

 

[DKH53]

I had the same reaction, I was alarmed at the bacteria count as the last lab I used (different house, different state) reported it as "None detected". I talked to the chemist at the lab and she explained the MPN < 1 is saying the same thing, they could not detect any bacteria. I don't know if the test is different or the reporting is different but I prefer the "None detected", very straightforward and easy to understand.

 

[ditttohead]

All water has bacteria outside the presence of an active oxidizing agent (Chlorine, Ozone, UV chamber etc...) it is the quantity that matters. At a certain point the levels are below what would be easily determined or tested. When doing Ultr-Pue systems, we have tolerances for organics which are insanely low, but even after multiple layers of sanitizing and sub micron filtration, we still detect trace amounts constantly.