Brown Well Water

Then go back and ask him what is causing your problem.

And have him define "high iron"; just what would be high enough to do this in his opinion?

You saw the colored stuff in the mineral right? Either you stop that from happening or clean the filter, and there is no other way with an upflow than replacing the mineral, so says logic right?

On my first visit I asked him and showed him the water and he said he didnt know what was the cause and that it was probably silt from the well.

On a second visit we showed him the filter and said the forum suggested Iron. He agreed it could be the cause and suggested a raw water sample as was suggested on here.

He saw the result of the test and said that the iron was low enough not to cause a problem and it does not require a backwash system so it must be soil that collected in it before the new pump was put in.

I have not just been sitting here on the computer expecting you guys to sort it out. I have been running around from company to forum for the past couple of months, changing this filter, that filter, cleaning out ph neutralisers, taking samples, getting results, researching on the internet etc etc.

All I want to know now, as I asked in my previous post but in a different way perhaps is....would you expect brown debris to collect in an upflow ph neutraliser over a couple of months in normal circumstances? (ie with very little to no iron).?

To answer your question: No I wouldn't.

Brown water is water with disolved solids in it. It would pass through the neutralizing filter. It may leave a discoloring for a while, but not collect.

bob...

Demelza said:

All I want to know now, as I asked in my previous post but in a different way perhaps is....would you expect brown debris to collect in an upflow ph neutraliser over a couple of months in normal circumstances? (ie with very little to no iron).?

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Yes!

Or I would not have said you stumbled on the cause and tell you of the problems with using an upflow AN filter.

In some cases a backwashed AN filter will do the same thing, I've seen it many times and the cause is insufficient backwash flow rate and/or the length of the backwash is too short.

The water is clear and no problem most of the time except when we take a bath. Hot or cold tap makes no difference. It starts out clear, then for a few minutes turn brown then just as suddenly turn clear again. Its enough to discolour the bath water yellowy brown and leaves a soft brown rusty or earth looking sediment on the bottom of the bath.

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This is your original question and I still say no. I say your pipes are coated with either Manganese or Iron and it's coming from the pipes. If not, why do you only see it in the Bathtub? Maybe these pipes are older than the others I don't know. You also said you have a new submersible pump. You may have not even cleared the water up in the well since the new install.

bob...

"yes" ..."no"...the plot thickens!

when a thread on a forum goes on too long bits of information are lost in different posts.

I've had all my pipe work inside the house changed to plastic since sept last year. The taps on the bath are in fact new (I thought they were five years old but I've been reminded by other members of the family they are new since last year)

but I'm being told by other "professionals" (not on this forum) that the iron does not need a backwash and would not cause this to happen and to have a backwash would use water that our well may not have the capacity to provide (considering three buildings are using it already!)

I am just going to have to wait until it happens again and reassess. Thanks guys for your input.

A tub flows at a much higher gpm than any other fixture in the house and an upflow filter has a much lower gpm SFR than the same cuft size downflow filter.

So when you ran the tub, you flushed some of this dirt out of the filter. Had you used the tub less frequently, as time went by, you would have seen the dirty water at other fixtures. It had nowhere else to go as it built up.

The filling the unit totally full reduced your flow rate through the filter because there was no space for the mineral to expand as you used water.

A backwashed filter would use like 50-75 gallons to backwash once every 4-6 days. That's hardly enough water use to cause a well a problem. If you added another person to any of the houses, that one person would use 60 gals PER DAY; would anyone say that no one could have any more family members because the well might not keep up? I think not.

A tub flows at a much higher gpm than any other fixture in the house and an upflow filter has a much lower gpm SFR than the same cuft size downflow filter.

So when you ran the tub, you flushed some of this dirt out of the filter. Had you used the tub less frequently, as time went by, you would have seen the dirty water at other fixtures. It had nowhere else to go as it built up.

The filling the unit totally full reduced your flow rate through the filter because there was no space for the mineral to expand as you used water.

A backwashed filter would use like 50-75 gallons to backwash once every 4-6 days. That's hardly enough water use to cause a well a problem. If you added another person to any of the houses, that one person would use 60 gals PER DAY; would anyone say that no one could have any more family members because the well might not keep up? I think not. Plus, the 50-75 gals will be used in two batches of half the total gallons; the first for like 10 minutes at say 4-8 gpm, then a short pause and then the rest over the next 4-8 minutes. The gpm is less than your tub uses when you fill it. About the same as a clothes washer when filling.

The brown is iron that as it sits in the mineral for x minutes/hours and the pH is increased, the ferrous iron is oxidized into particulate matter (ferric iron-rust), causing the brown water in the mineral. Then you run water, the brown water comes out the filter and through the line into the tub (with your highest flow rate gpm). Then the water goes clear because the iron can't oxidize in the filter because there hasn't been enough time for the oxidation process to take place. When there is sufficient time, you have brown water in the mineral, and if you run a high enough flow (gpm) it is flushed up through the mineral; the mineral expands with increased upflow rate; meaning less filtration as the flow increases, and you get a slug of dirty water.

If you want to prove this, don't use the tub for a few days/week. Then one morning first thing, run water at the sinks and then flush the toilets all at the same time, and look for brown water in the toilet bowls and tanks and sinks. Let us know the results.

brown water

I'm no expert either but I have been dealing with a brown water problem. Our area has been identified as having water with a high iron content so we had a filter added to the pump. This cleared up the brown water under normal use but we still see it occasionally when the tank is disrupted, e.g. after a power outage. We recently repaired a leak which gave us some spurts of brown water but more significantly revealed iron deposits inside the pipes. I suspect that such deposits are through out our plumbing. I was wondering if that might be what you're experiencing. If you didn't replace 100% of the plumbing it seems that there could be some renegade iron deposits somewhere in the system.

My questions is how can I clean out the iron deposits in my pipes?

Soluble clear water ferrous iron is dissolved in the water and you can't see it. The rust in your pipes is oxidized ferrous iron called ferric iron. Dissolved oxygen in the water is the oxidizer. Usually only a small amount of the total dissolved iron will be oxidized in the pipes, the rest stays in the water and if there's enough it causes rust stains wherever the water is allowed to dry on surfaces or in toilet tanks and bowls. Or in upflow acid neutralizer filters as the pH is increased as in the above posts.

In some cases heavy chlorine can remove some of the rust in pipes. A product called Iron Out will do it. You could add either to your filter housing without a cartridge in it but, never mix the two. If you have a coating of rust in the lines it won't hurt anything and it rarely causes any problems unless you drain the water from the lines and let it dry in them. Then it flushes out when you run water through them the next time.

Well, I can verify that the rust will flush out. The fuse blew on my pump the lines drained before I got home. I don't think it dried out totally but it took a while to flush out.

I also have pretty low water pressure. The pump guy said the tank pressure is fine so I'm wondering if I have so much rust in the pipes that it's cutting the pressure. Could I try the chlorine flush to clean the rust out? Any other solutions?