Filtered Well Water Overall Drinkability?

Hi Everyone:

We bought a house built in 1957 with a well, no septic tank, uses city sewer line. The well is 180 feet deep and puts out 17 gpm without problems. The water column is 80 feet down.

*There is no city water hooked up. *I had the water tested and wanted to share the results and get some insight. *The test was done through a spigot at the well head.

Water test results: * * *(certified lab, 100 items, pesticides, inorganics etc).
PH 6.9
Tds 350
Clear no odor (or taste by my test)

Everything was undetectable with the following exceptions:

Flagged as abnormal:
Coliform: 1 (reference <1). The last coliform test before this was negative in 2007.
No E. Coli
Nitrates 11

Flagged as detectable but within range:

Sulfate 21
Chloride 53
Arsenic .006
Calcium 71.4
Magnesium 8.96
Silica 73.1
Sodium 19
Potassium 2.6
TDS 350

I have installed a new well seal and cleared out the earwigs and debris that had accumulated within the well pump control box that was communicating with the top of the well and shock chlorinated, however I am assuming the worst, I.e. that there is a contaminated aquifer deep down and the nitrates will not go away. *I may be wrong but I want to assume that for now. *I am going to recheck bacteria and nitrate in a week or so.

I am currently setting up a sand master sediment filter, centrifugal, 200 mesh/74 microns right off the well head, as I have noticed sandy sediment in the toilet tanks and the well churned up some sediment when I shocked it, although it is usually clear.

After the sand filter, the water output will split to my irrigation and enter the house. *The house inlet will then pass through a nitrate ion exchange filter stage, and a standard Aquasana prefilter, UV, KDF, etc that comes with their EQ 300 well whole house filter system. *That will be the house pretreatment that goes to the faucets, showers, appliances etc. *Lastly, the kitchen sink will have a point of use reverse osmosis and be the source of drinking water.

Questions:
Assuming the aquifer/well for my house are going to stay "contaminated" what will be the quality of the water that enters my house using the filtration system I described?

What will be the quality of the water from my kitchen sink with the further addition of the RO?

By quality, I mean as free of impurities as our municipal water? *

As free of impurities as the best bottled water, for example something like Aquasana or Sparkletts that treats water that has already been municipally treated? *If you don't like those waters, just substitute whatever is considered to be the cleanest commercially available drinking water.

I am speaking as someone with two small children and I am also a healthcare professional*and want to optimize their health. *I want nitrates to be undetectable, not 10 or 5, and I don't want them exposed to other risks in the shower or drinking water.

In the worst case scenario I would just hook up to the city water, and I could use some of the filters, but the cost is $50,000 to hook up to the city water (thats not a misprint) and I would like to avoid it if the water I have will be just as good.

Thank You in Advance for any Insight or Experience you might share.

The sediment filter is simple and cheap, good idea.

Nitrate Ion exchange filter, please give us more information. Is this going to be a disposable ion exchange filter, or will you be using an automatic metered regeneration system with a nitrate selective resin?

The Aquasan EQ-300 is a great and simple system design for municipal supplies with chlorine. Your well does not have chlorine. It will remove many heavy metals, and other contaminents. This is not a bad system to have, just not usually the right system for you specific application. The pre filter (5 micron) is a must on this design to prevent fouling of the media beds.

What UV? What model number and make?

The arsenic level is getting close to the limit, but is not a skin absorbed contaminent. Since your drinking water will be RO, you will be fine. The rest of the numbers are no big deal, except for the silica levels, these wont hurt you, but they can cause problems with glassware, spotting, etc.

I would retest the coliform. Debris, organic matter, etc getting into the well head can be the source. Be sure to sanitize the lines as well when you do the shock treatment.

I would highly recommend plumbing in a bypass for the Aquasana system. I have seen many of the pre-filters crack over the years. I personally do not think it is a filter problem, more of a poor installation problem. People hang the weight of the plumbing on the filter and over time I have seen many crack. You can live without filtered water for a few days, it is hard to live without any water at all.

FYI, municipal water can be the exact same well water you currently have, they are simply under strict testing standards and need to eventually meet all standards. Eventually means that many smaller municipalities will be able to put off complete compliance for a considerable amount of time if their water meets standards a majority of the time. Many munical water supplies will use some pretty lousy water, then blend it with better water just enough to get into compliance. I would not invest 50K into hooking up to a municipal supply. Just have your water tested every year, and be sure to maintain your water treatment equipment. Your water is actually fairly good.

I would recommend a self regenerating nitrate removal system if you are looking for very low nitrates, but... are you going to be drinking the shower water? A properly designed and maintained small RO system will get you down to the 1 ppm range considering your incoming level of 11. RO systems will typically reduce the Nitrates by 90+%.

Hope this helps

I agree that the simplest and least expensive thing is an under sink RO in the kitchen for drinking and cooking water and leave the rest of the plumbing alone. UV is always a good idea for almost any well system too.

Pb3000 said:

We bought a house built in 1957 with a well, no septic tank, uses city sewer line. The well is 180 feet deep and puts out 17 gpm without problems. The water column is 80 feet down.

*There is no city water hooked up. *I had the water tested and wanted to share the results and get some insight. *The test was done through a spigot at the well head.

Click to expand...

I think you mean the static water level in the well is 80' deep. The water column is from there down to the inlet of the pump. A submersible pump should be set from 10-15' off the bottom of the well if it is a rock bore type well. But in many cases wont be. If it is a screened well, then it varies as to the depth of the screening.

Unless there was public sewer back in 1957, which is very iffy, the neighborhood may have been having problems with contaminated wells and eventually the government came along running sewer line past the place and requiring everyone to connect to it and to disconnect their septic tanks.

Shocking a well can cause problems for the pump, drop pipe, power cable if a submersible pump, the casing and the water quality.

I don't see a listing in the test results for nitrites. You are allowed up to 1 ppm and then you add the nitrites to the nitrates and are allowed 10 ppm combined. You are over the 10 for nitrates through. Either are serious and especially for infants under 6 months old and pregnant women; it's dangerous.

Pb3000 said:

I have installed a new well seal and cleared out the earwigs and debris that had accumulated within the well pump control box that was communicating with the top of the well and shock chlorinated, however I am assuming the worst, I.e. that there is a contaminated aquifer deep down and the nitrates will not go away. *I may be wrong but I want to assume that for now. *I am going to recheck bacteria and nitrate in a week or so.

Click to expand...

I suggest that once a well shows Coliform and/or nitrates, you should not assume a good test result means there is no problem. You should assume that at any time in the future the well will be contaminated. That's based on my 20 years of testing and then treating hundreds of wells contaminated the same as yours.

Pb3000 said:

I am currently setting up a sand master sediment filter, centrifugal, 200 mesh/74 microns right off the well head, as I have noticed sandy sediment in the toilet tanks and the well churned up some sediment when I shocked it, although it is usually clear.

Click to expand...

The naked eye can see particles down to 50-45 microns, so the 74 microns is not going to do much except remove large chunks. Why do you want that type filter if you are going to use a sand filter? There would be no need for it, but what is the need for the sand filter? What you think is sand in the toilet tanks could be little balls of hardness scale. Put some in vinegar and if they dissolve, they aren't sand.

Pb3000 said:

After the sand filter, the water output will split to my irrigation and enter the house. *The house inlet will then pass through a nitrate ion exchange filter stage, and a standard Aquasana prefilter, UV, KDF, etc that comes with their EQ 300 well whole house filter system.

Click to expand...

I think the nitrate filter should be after the softener. And I do not suggest Aquasana. You will do much better buying separate pieces online, even if you hired a plumber to install it instead of installing it yourself. But you should install it yourself even if you have to learn how to do it. And of course the UV light goes online last. And the RO is fed after the UV.

BTW, I forgot to mention this above.. chlorination and nitrates is not a good thing. IIRC chlorinating water containing nitrates can cause carcinogens.

Pb3000 said:

Assuming the aquifer/well for my house are going to stay "contaminated" what will be the quality of the water that enters my house using the filtration system I described?

What will be the quality of the water from my kitchen sink with the further addition of the RO?

Click to expand...

You will have very high quality water as long as you keep the equipment maintained properly.

Pb3000 said:

By quality, I mean as free of impurities as our municipal water? *

I am speaking as someone with two small children and I am also a healthcare professional*and want to optimize their health. *I want nitrates to be undetectable, not 10 or 5, and I don't want them exposed to other risks in the shower or drinking water.

Click to expand...

With the advances in water testing, I don't think there is a situation where the nitrates will be undetectable if someone really gets down into ppbillion etc.. And I don't see the need for that.

Pb3000 said:

In the worst case scenario I would just hook up to the city water, and I could use some of the filters, but the cost is $50,000 to hook up to the city water (that's not a misprint) and I would like to avoid it if the water I have will be just as good.

Click to expand...

Your RO especially but actually all of it will be better than any 'city' water and equal to bottled water.

Dittohead, Tom and Gary:

Thank you so much for all of your insights.

The nitrate filter is a disposable ion exchange that Aquasana will send me for an additional $700.

The initial Sandmaster by Lakos filter is just to have a nonobstructing sediment filter that cleans up the water enough to send to the sprinklers via one pipe. The other pipe goes to a prefilter, KDM/charcoal (Aquasanas filters) and a UV stage. Finally it will get the RO under the counter.

Gary, I do like your idea of getting the filters individually, versus Aquasana. I can still return the Aquasana as it is sitting in boxes in my garage and under 90 days. I looked at a couple of other setups. I would be interested in other DIY setups that might be better. I will install or have a bypass installed in either case.

Thanks

If I wanted to do it myself, what are the most reputable, "industrial strength" brands?

I imagine I would need a prefilter, main filter (charcoal or KDM), and UV stage. For my 2500 sq ft place with 4 beds, 3 baths, 17 gpm from the well, what size filters would suit me?

The only reference point I have in terms of capacity is that the Aquasana main filter I believe is about 48 inches tall, while the other larger filters I have found (for a whole house solution) were only 24 inches or so. Can you direct me toward some high quality large size filters that I could hook up in series? How big to they have to be? I don't know what type of UV filter comes with the Aquasana, but I imagine it is not top end.

Pb3000 said:

If I wanted to do it myself, what are the most reputable, "industrial strength" brands?

Click to expand...

No brand name equipment with Autotrol, Clack and Fleck control valves on any brand resin or mineral tanks like Structural Fibers. That equipment is sold by independent online and local dealers and the equipment is off the shelf stock so you can get parts/service from many dealers unlike a lot of the national brand equipment.

Pb3000 said:

I imagine I would need a prefilter, main filter (charcoal or KDM), and UV stage. For my 2500 sq ft place with 4 beds, 3 baths, 17 gpm from the well, what size filters would suit me?

The only reference point I have in terms of capacity is that the Aquasana main filter I believe is about 48 inches tall, while the other larger filters I have found (for a whole house solution) were only 24 inches or so. Can you direct me toward some high quality large size filters that I could hook up in series? How big to they have to be? I don't know what type of UV filter comes with the Aquasana, but I imagine it is not top end.

Click to expand...

Yes, send the boxes back to Aquasana and get a refund, then get into how to size a softener etc. at the link in my signature. You may need to contact them for a return authorization number. Tell then it is too small if you have t ogive then a reason for returning it for a full refund other than the freight. Be prepared to have them refuse the return and refund.

BTW, a 48" tall tank is not even a 1.5 cuft, usually it is a 1.0 cuft. A 1.5 cuft requires a 10" x 54" tank.

Any online or local water treatment dealer can sell you what you need in any size it has to be.

You need to have a size that is capable of treating your peak demand gpm flow rate based on how many people and what fixtures are used at the same time. You don't want to use a disposable cartridge filter for nitrates, based on what you said, you need a regenerated nitrate filter. That is a water softener with nitrate specific anion resin in it and it has to be large enough for that peak demand flow rate I mentioned. The sq ft of the house has nothing to do with that; only the highest gpm the filter has to treat sizes the filter, softener and UV.

The UV has to be a Class A. The RO is based on how much water it needs to make per day and how fast that water is used. And no pre filters except for the UV and your irrigation but only if needed on the irrigation.

Glad to see someone has come on board with Class-A UV systems. Most manufacturers recommend 5-micron prefilters for their Class-A systems.

Class A makes sense, but the cost is often quite difficult to stomch. I prefer to use UV as part of a redundant system especially when it is being used for drinking water applications, not a sole source of sanitization. The class A is designed to prevent water from being used if a UV system fails in any way. This is critical if it is your only source of water sanitization.

ditttohead said:

The class A is designed to prevent water from being used if a UV system fails in any way. This is critical if it is your only source of water sanitization.

Click to expand...

I've sold and installed a few hundred UV lights and never heard of one that did that unless you added a solenoid valve controlled by the light; class A of B. I never installed a solenoid valve and some of my equipment was used to comply with state regulations and was inspected by the state.

True, when we did class A it was usually done well beyond the requirements and was inspected by the FDA. We would install shut offs that would be triggered when a system had a failure of any type. Otherwise, alarms, etc do nothing unless the user hears it and reacts, instead of bypassing it or disabling the alarm. This was reserved for critical applications, pharmeceutical, electronics manufacturing, etc. Now we usually build in a simple redundancy system so if one of the systems fails, the secondary unit should do the job. Redundancy for bacterial control has gotten extremely cheap and simple in the past few years. For drinking water, redundancy is very important for the most dangerous items. Arsenic, bacterial issues, virus, cysts, certain chemicals, etc.

Here we are talking residential.

I can't recall anyone with a UV light that didn't hear the alarm.