Iron Removal

[Pat]

OK, Doc, fine by me.

Pat

[raykos]

Hi GONO2,

By no stretch of imagination am I a water expert, but when we first built our house we too had a problem with reddish brown residue in the commode, washer, sinks, etc. So, what I did was install a sediment cartridge filter in the main line feeding the house.
As I said, I'm no water expert, but the cartridge filter worked for us and in comparison to some of the other systems, it's really inexpensive. The only downside is having to periodically change it, which really isn't all that big a deal.

[Pat]

raycos, You had sediment, fine insoluble mineral material like clay dust, in your water and a mechanical filter could remove it. The OP has clear water iron. His problem material is in solution, i.e. dissolved and a mechanical filter such as worked for you and like the one I have won't help.

Some dissolved materials can be removed by reverse osmosis which is "sort of" a mechanical filtration process but I'm not so sure RO will help much with clear water iron.

Some of the methods of handling it react it to produce an insoluble precipitate and then filter that.

Pat

[stumpfield]

GONO2: Did you get a solution to your iron water problem? I'm having similar problem with my well. My iron content is much higher than yours. 18ppm and the color of my well water looks like very light tea. I hope water expert will respond. Thanks in advance.

[jimmyj]

We have 4ppm iron in our water (don't know what kind of iron though). After 12 years of living with it (and the related iron bacteria that grew inside the back of every toilet), we finally broke down and got a high quality system. I cannot say how happy we are with it after years of ruined stuff. The system is a greensand unit that backflushes with potassium permangenate once a week or so. Then the water goes through a water softener and finally through a UV filter. The water is AMAZING now. The price was painful, but I'll tell ya I wish we did it when we first moved here because I have now had to replace both showers, both toilets, all of the taps in the house, both bathroom sinks, our dishwasher and many many many items of clothing because they were so badly stained they would not clean anymore. We were using hydorchloric acid to clean the toilets for goodness sakes.

It cost over $2000 and we had to save up for a while for the system but in the long run it will be so very worth it.

Good luck.

P.S. We had tried just a greensand iron remover with the potassium permangenate and it worked pretty good so you maybe can use just that part. I'm not a trained water technician though by any means. Maybe get a second opinion.

[stumpfield]

jimmyj: Thanks for the post. I'm wondering why you choose greensand over birm filter? Is there an advantage using greensand over birm? I read on google search that birm filter does not require adding anything and little maintenance. What's the downside for using birm filter?

[jimmyj]

We chose it only because that is what the plumber recommended. We finally found a guy who was trustable vs a salesman and I did not even know there were other types.