Had Fleck 9100 installed last January and my water is still brown

**coxdrum48** · 07-22-2010, 08:11 AM

I'm at the end of my rope here. We have very high Iron (9.0 PPM) in our well water. Our old water conditioner was not giving us consistent clear water. We paid a company to make modifications to our system. The moved the acid neutralizer to after the water softener and install a Fleck 9100. Then it goes through the chlorine injector at finally a Color/Taste/Order tank. All the tanks were "rebedded" also. It seems that it has never worked right since they installed it and we still get brown and yellow water. The company that installed it has come out 10 times (each time is a day off work for me) and it still doesn't work. They also ran my irrigation system through the conditioner side saying this system could handle it (we had orange sidewalks). They always try to blame me for messing around with it or using too much water. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.
lantz

**Gary Slusser** · 07-22-2010, 08:44 AM

My thoughts.... SUE THEM! Really, sue them in small claims court. First write them a letter and send it certified return request and tell them to find out what other than you is causing the problem and fix it or you will sue them after 30 days. And then do it. If they say it's the volume of water you use, that is their fault then for not sizing the equipment correctly; or if the equipment was there and they didn't sell it, they should have told you it was too small and they should have walked away unless you bought larger equipment.

They do not have the order of the equipment right and you shouldn't be softening irrigation water, as you see, it doesn't work and you'll probably end up killing the vegetation because of the added sodium; which with 9 ppm of iron plus whatever hardness, is very high. 7.85 mg/l of added sodium per grain per gallon of ion exchange with 4 gpg per ppm of iron alone = 36 gpg plus the hardness and 2x the manganese if any.

Chlorine first, properly sized retention tank, backwashed turbidity filter preferably Centaur carbon to remove the chlorine and clarify the water, AN filter and then softener.

And get the irrigation water before any equipment and use an iron filter or polyphosphate feeder that will sequester the iron on the zones where the staining is a problem; or better yet, tear out the grass and plant stone, mulch etc. or allow nature to take control.

**Bob999** · 07-22-2010, 10:29 AM

I agree with Gary Slusser that the installation of equipment is wrong. I also agree that use of softened water for irrigation is bad. If the system has an acid neutralizing filter, chlorine injection, and a retention tank virtually all of the iron should be precipitated at that point and a simple mechanical filter could be used to filter the precipitated iron before irrigation.

Whether a lawsuit is your best approach is, in my view, less clear. If you have correctly described the install then the designer/installer clearly doesn't know what they are doing. But even if that is true bringing a lawsuit and winning doesn't guarantee you will collect any money or get the problem resolved and there are very likely to be significant costs associated with pursuing a lawsuit and unless you have reasonable prospects of getting that money back and some resolution of your problem it is likely not to be a good use of your money.

**coxdrum48** · 07-23-2010, 09:12 AM

Thanks guys. I had another guy come out yesterday and he found a bunch of issues with the install (though he was very proffesional about not critisizing someone else's work). First thing he did was test the water and of course found Iron. The other guy never tested the water after the install other than to smell it. Then the Brine refill was only running long enough to fill a 600 gallon tank with about 2" of water. I called the original guy back in Feb and said "we are using ANY salt", he said it's a very efficient system. The Chlorine injector pump setting was 80. he set it to 40. the Carbon filter was running every night. he changed it to every 4 days. Any lastly the old guy was selling me this Potassium Chloride (expensive) stuff and said never use Iron Out. the new guy said get the orange bag salt. Water seems better already. he has me doing manual regens morning and evening until tomorrow. We'll see how it all works out. Oh and the pipe they put in to hook in the irrigation goes from 1" down to 3/4". Not sure about sueing although he really put us through a lot of trouble but I can barely keep my wife from driving over to his shop and tearing him a new one. That I don't wish on anybody...except maybe him.
Thanks,
Lantz

**Gary Slusser** · 07-23-2010, 10:40 AM

To file suit in small claims court, usually done at the local courthouse, is like $50-$75. That is the total expense unless you lose work the day of the hearing; or hire an attorney. If you win the 'judge' will tell the guy to remove the equiipment and refund your money or an amount of money. And if he doesn't you get the Sherrif etc. to get it or file a lien on his house etc. and tell everyone you can about this guy.

If your filter requires potassium permanganate, you can't stop using it without causing problems.

I suspect your problems are not going to go away permanently until the equipment is installed in the proper order.