Centaur Carbon Filter ?'s

[ditttohead]

Getting the dosing "right" is actually very easy on a solution feeder. The worst case is that you may slightly overdose but the gac tank will take care of that. The pellet feeders will dose some large amounts of chlorine intermittently when water is not flowing, the water will sit in the feeder and the chlorine level will go very high but the contact tank will dilute that out and even so the gac will easily handle very high doses of chlorine. and as stated before, the strange trolling that goes on here is tired and old. The water motor style dosers give consistent dosing regardless of flow rate. 7% hydrogen peroxide is fairly safe to work with. 35 & 50% should only be used in commercial applications, never residential. I look forward to hearing how the system works out for you. And... Most of the real professionals on this site recommend against iron removal with a softener. I agree with them. It works, it is not the best solution. Advancements in technology have made iron removal simple, cheap, and efficient.

[Gary Slusser]

Getting the dosing "right" is actually very easy on a solution feeder. The worst case is that you may slightly overdose but the gac tank will take care of that.

Have you given him instructions or, what do you base that on and why couldn't he under dose just as easily as over dose? With 4 ppm of iron he may have iron or other types of bacteria that adds to the chlorine demand that can not be estimated prior to figuring the solution strength or the volume of the dose. Or are you going to make another blanket statement disagreeing with that?

The pellet feeders will dose some large amounts of chlorine intermittently when water is not flowing, the water will sit in the feeder and the chlorine level will go very high but the contact tank will dilute that out

That is not true of the model I suggested. It is a venturi and doesn't work unless water moves through it. And since the chlorinated water is going into a mixing/retention tank full of water (as is a normal retention tank) and the unit is not a constant flow chlorinator, the water that goes through the chlorinator that has no chlorine added also adds to the dilution in the mixing/retention tank and that brings the level of chlorine down. That's why you can not get an accurate free chlorine residual test result (thereby you should not test for residual chlorine in the system I suggested) as you do with a solution feeder (that is a constant feed) and regular/normal retention tank.

and even so the gac will easily handle very high doses of chlorine. and as stated before, the strange trolling that goes on here is tired and old.

Type more accurate, informative, educational and helpful posts and I wouldn't have to correct you so often.

Most of the real professionals on this site recommend against iron removal with a softener. I agree with them. It works, it is not the best solution. Advancements in technology have made iron removal simple, cheap, and efficient.

One of those professionals, a retired plumber, has said in a private forum here not seen by nonmembers that he never was into water treatment much more than selling a softener once in awhile. Another has not said what he does or if he is in the industry. Both have been banned here under other names and one of them with many other names. So that leaves you and as we see you usually say I'm wrong and put down what I say and how I say it and call me unprofessional and a troll when I question what or how you say it, or correct you as in this post.

Chlorination is what was being discussed and it was specifically for iron removal. None of the chlorine systems that have been suggested are new technology, simple, or cheap (as in inexpensive). A retention tank alone is hundreds of dollars more than the increased cost of SST-60 resin over the cost of regular mesh resin and a turbulator distributor tube. Or do you want to disagree with that too?

[Tom Sawyer]

Yep, and one member here has been banned from a dozen diy forums, care to guess who that is LOL and one member here was the moderator of this forum for a short time until well.......you can guess the rest LOL. Oh and one member here has never held a license to install or service filtration equipment or well pumps, guess who ? Ah credibility, you just can't buy it and you sure can't fake it.....at least not for very long.

Oh yea, who's the retired plumber? Can't be me. I still hold my masters license's and my filtration and pump installers licenses and my RSES license and my gas fitters license and my oil and solid fuel license and my instructors license and my teaching license and last I checked, it's still my name on the company checks. LOL

Note also that other than offering the OP my advice, I have stayed out of the rest of this mess right up until the proceeding post which is the usual rehash of misrepresentation and out and out lies.

[Mikey]

If you are willing to accept the issues with chlorine introduced prior to the pressure tank then with injection it can be done with out purchasing a large solution tank and diluting the chlorine solution because household bleach is 5-6% solution as sold and this can be used with a properly sized Stenner adjustable injection pump for direct injection. Using a smaller container and undiluted bleach solution for injection virtually eliminates problems with solution stratification and changes in solution strength--but at the cost of more frequent solution refill.

Some experts/opinionators/vendors/whatever recommend injecting prior to the pressure tank, which seems to me to make a lot more sense. I have 2 pressure tanks from 2 manufacturers and both recommend it. The main concern among those that don't is that it will shorten the life of the bladder, but both of my manufacturers say that's no problem if the solution is well mixed (which, of course, it's not, if injected after the pressure tank). The preferred sequence of one source is pump->injection->holding tank->pressure tank->GAC etc. I modify that slightly by inserting one of those swirly mixing tanks into the chain: pump->injection->swirly mixing tank->pressure tank->holding tank->GAC etc. (I keep the holding tank to maintain a long contact time for disinfection.) There is often concern expressed that that would put the pump pressure switch too far from the pump, but I haven't seen any evidence of that here. One day I'll put in a differential pressure meter to get something quantitative.

[Gary Slusser]

Unless you do as you have done with the additional equipment ahead of your pressure tanks, the solution isn't fully mixed with the water stream before a pressure tank either.

The problem with injecting before the pressure tank is that the oxidation starts at the point of the oxidizer's injection. That causes substantial sediment formation in the outlet of the injector, the water line and the pressure tank if the reason for the chlorination is due to iron in the water.

The pipe past the injector starts to block up and that reduces flow. Plus, since the pump comes on before the pressure tank fully empties, the sediment builds up in the pressure tank.

In JohnF10's situation with 4 ppm of iron, that is going to happen very quickly and a reduced flow prevents the carbon filter from backwashing correctly and that leads to carbon filter failure and that causes more flow reduction and a corresponding pressure loss in the house.

Other possible problems with a blockage from the injector to the pressure tank is that can cause a higher than normal pressure in the well line from the submersible pump to the injector. If it gets high enough, it can exceed the working pressure of the plastic parts you have between the submersible pump and it's controlling pressure switch and weaken them leading to failure. Or blow a submersible pump off plastic drop pipe. That can happen because the pressure switch will not see the pressure in real time, there can be a lag while the pump builds pressure in the system ahead of the injector. The injector can block up also.

Another potential problem is creation of a vacuum between the pump and injector if your check valve in/on the pump's outlet fails. That can collapse any plastic mixing/retention/holding tanks very quickly. Then the next time the pump comes on it runs spewing water everywhere out of the crushed tank/plastic parts until the well runs dry, the pump burns up or someone shuts off the power to the pump.

The best way is to inject after the pressure tank and have a correctly sized retention tank keeping the length of pipe from the injector to the retention tank as short as possible. But with iron water, any length of any type pipe will eventually block up.

[Tom Sawyer]

Gary is correct here in his assessment of using the pressure tank. It WILL cause problems. There was a local company around here that put lots and lots of those systems in using the pressure tank and I can't count how many we had to go back in, clean out the lines, try and flush the tank out and in some cases replace the tank and re-route everything to a retention tank. Good money for us, not so good for the customer and that company has gone down the road so to speak. One of these days I might get around to asking the folks that write up the instructions, just what in hell they were thinking. Maybe they were thinking they could sell more equipment LOL

[ditttohead]

Agreed, a retention tank is the correct way to do it, not the pressure tank. A pressure tank will work for a very short amount of time, but problems will arise. Not sure what the other ramblings of the one guy on here who has never held a license, certification etc was all about. It must be a conspiracy since everybody but one person on this site agrees that the op is on the right track and should do just fine with his chemical dosing pump (water motor design) and hydrogen peroxide, which can easily be converted to chlorine if he so desires.

[Mikey]

The Dome on a 12" tank is .13 Cu. ft.

How is this calculated for a tank of a given diameter -- or is it not calculated, but given in a table I haven't found yet? I thought it would be half of a sphere, but doing that calculation for a 12" tank results in 0.26 cu ft. Doing the reverse calculation starting with 0.13 cu ft gives a diameter of 9.5", implying a tank wall thickness of 1.25 if the 0.13 cu ft volume is correct. Are the tank walls really that thick? Or am I assuming something wrong here? I'm trying ultimately to find the bottom dome volume of a 10" tank.

[ditttohead]

Actually, the calculation is an estimate and changes by each tank manufacturer. It is not a true dome like half a ball, so the actual amount is usually charted, not calculated. I will add that chart to my next catalog, if I remember, I will post the most common dome capacities on Monday. The wall thickness also changes by each manufacturer and manufacturing technique. For the most part, they are all close enough so a chart will be accurate enough.

[Mikey]

...I will post the most common dome capacities on Monday. The wall thickness also changes by each manufacturer and manufacturing technique. For the most part, they are all close enough so a chart will be accurate enough.

Thanks. I've got a couple of empty tanks, one 10" and one 8" I could actually measure, but I doubt it'd be worth it.

[statin]

Hello, I am curious how this project turned out. I actually am planning a similar project and surprised to find someone doing the same. If by any chance if the OP could either PM or post his results. Thanks, John

[statin]

I am in the planning stages for a similar install as the OP. Would using an old water heater for retention tank be ok? If not what kind of tank? Thanks, John

[Mikey]

I'm using a 120-gallon galvanized tank the original installer provided. I would prefer a Polyglas tank of the same size, similar to those at: http://www.cleanwaterstore.com/contact-tank.html, since the geometry of the bottom drain facilitates draining the gunk out -- the steel tanks usually have an inverted-dome bottom, with the drain about 10" up. The size of the tank is dependent on several things, reviewed here: www.nmrwa.org/resources/training/ChlorineContactTime.pdf. The design of the tank also affects the size -- if its internal design makes mixing more efficient, you can reduce the size of the tank. One such tank can be found at: http://www.apwinc.com/retention_tank.html. Acccording to the patent, in that tank "A series of baffles in the mixing chamber are arranged in sinusoidal or saw-tooth pairs that can be oppositely arranged, so that the mixer turns a drop of water into hundreds of micro-bubbles of rotating fluid, which allows the chemicals to exit the mixer and react with fluid in a storage tank as much five times faster than previously known." Presumably this would improve the "baffling efficiency" referred to in the PDF from near-zero in an ordinary tank to something greater, perhaps close to 100%. Your mileage may vary. I'm going to try one.

Having seen the inside of "an old water heater" tank, I wouldn't use it for much of anything.