Author Topic: dealing with hard water  (Read 12964 times)

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jlsoaz

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dealing with hard water
« on: June 05, 2016, 04:02:47 PM »
the water here (near Nogales, AZ, USA) is pretty seriously hard and as far as I can tell there is no one perfect solution to this. 

My present solution is:

1) drinking and cooking water:
hard water provided by the utility->
water softening using either NaCl or KCl->
Reverse Osmosis Unit removes most (not quite all) of NaCl or KCl->
water distillation (remove as much of the remaining salt as I can)->
any waste goes to septic.

2) landscape water:
no processing - this just comes from the utility

3) all other water for washing, etc.:
hard water from utility->
softened with NaCl or KCl->
any waste flows to septic

There are various pros and cons. 

Failure to soften the water means that cleaning is more difficult.  I have also heard different schools of thought as to whether it is healthy to drink such hard water, and then there are different opinions about whether it is healthy to remove the minerals.

There is more than one area of energy and water use to process the water (water softener is plugged in, and uses up some water, distillation requires a substantial amount of energy, reverse osmosis unit I think uses up water?, energy expenditure of going to store for bags of NaCl or KCl).

KCl around here is very expensive (about USD $24 per 40 or 50 pound bag as versus about USD $4-$6 for NaCl bag) and very difficult to get.  However, given all the prominent comments about the dangers of consuming sodium (in particular), it seems advisable to consider issues that may come up if one softens with NaCl.  I'm not convinced that consuming much of either Sodium Chloride or Potassium Chloride is great for a person).

If anyone has any thoughts, they are welcome.  I guess I'd quickly add that I probably won't immediately (or even in the mid-term) jump on any recommendations.  For one thing, some things can be expensive.  For another thing, there are a lot of complicated pros and cons to consider about the many suggestions that one might run into, in this area.  Often devices recommended as being salt-free may have considerable drawbacks.  Long-term, some sort of rainwater harvesting is an option ... but there are only a couple of monsoon seasons per year around here to gather the water, and so one concern is I'm a bit wary of drinking water that may sit for months and months in a cistern of some sort (not to mention all the other aspects of that, such as the expense, permits, etc.).

 

zracer

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2017, 03:47:00 PM »
Keep the reverse osmosis in your plans. I've been drinking utility water from various cities and towns throughout Nevada since last summer. Now I have nerve problems in my hands and feet from now arsenic poisoning. Some people can handle the arsenic, others cant. Reverse osmosis is the cheapest most effective way to remove it.

oztules

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2017, 04:47:58 PM »
I built a solar power reverse osmosis unit for battery water and drinking water.
The water is not good for you nor bad for you, it is inert, but will detox your system if thats what you want. I like it.  It is about 1ppm.
One 250 watt solar panel makes about 600-1000liters per day.

It is the way to go, as it also provides water for peoples battery systems across the island for free as well.

We have the cleanest air in the world apparently, but the wife still won't drink tank water from the roof.

...........oztules
Flinders Island Australia

george65

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2017, 07:20:55 PM »

I believe you get a lot of sun where you are.  What about a solar Still ( or several) for your Cooking/ Drinking needs?
Can be very cheap to Build and literally costs nothing to run.

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2017, 03:25:20 PM »
Keep the reverse osmosis in your plans. I've been drinking utility water from various cities and towns throughout Nevada since last summer. Now I have nerve problems in my hands and feet from now arsenic poisoning. Some people can handle the arsenic, others cant. Reverse osmosis is the cheapest most effective way to remove it.

Thanks, certainly a cautionary tale.  I have indeed kept the RO unit going, and have recently paid for some upkeep on it.  I have dropped this matter of distilling things for now, as that seemed like overkill.  During the maintenance process, the Culligan repair person indicated the tests on my RO unit showed low ppm, and things were functioning well.  I think in the long run I could harm the RO unit if I fail to put salt in the water first with the water softener.  I have indeed been lax about that, as I don't like putting so much salt ultimately into my property (through the septic) over the decades, but I guess I will keep doing it.  (I'm told that the RO unit will function on hard water, but would not last as long between required maintenance or filter replacements, something like that.)


jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2017, 03:27:21 PM »
I built a solar power reverse osmosis unit for battery water and drinking water.
The water is not good for you nor bad for you, it is inert, but will detox your system if thats what you want. I like it.  It is about 1ppm.
One 250 watt solar panel makes about 600-1000liters per day.

It is the way to go, as it also provides water for peoples battery systems across the island for free as well.

We have the cleanest air in the world apparently, but the wife still won't drink tank water from the roof.

...........oztules

Thanks, I'm confused are you talking about Reverse Osmosis or about some sort of electrolysis or distillation using the power from your solar panels?  You may well be talking about RO (I'm not knowledgeable really about most of this) just want to make sure I understand what you built.

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2017, 03:29:03 PM »

I believe you get a lot of sun where you are.  What about a solar Still ( or several) for your Cooking/ Drinking needs?
Can be very cheap to Build and literally costs nothing to run.

Unquestionably if I stay here and save enough money and time, then I will put them into harvesting water.  I hadn't thought so much about a "solar still" (which I will look into) as about "rainwater harvesting" but in any event, it would be a good way in my view to continue to move forward with my home and its sustainable and independent aspects.

oztules

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2017, 04:39:32 AM »
We are talking real/true reverse osmosis only.

Running at about 150-200psi. Because of it's cycling system, drain water is about the same as product water rates, cycling through the membrane is about 6:1.
Total power to run it is now down to about 3.5 amps from a 24v solar panel.... usually about 1.5-2lpm. Long summer days you can get in the >1000liters per day..... winter only about 500........... Colder water and shorter days. ( viscosity goes up as temp drops.)


..............oztules
Flinders Island Australia

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2017, 12:03:30 PM »
We are talking real/true reverse osmosis only.

Running at about 150-200psi. Because of it's cycling system, drain water is about the same as product water rates, cycling through the membrane is about 6:1.
Total power to run it is now down to about 3.5 amps from a 24v solar panel.... usually about 1.5-2lpm. Long summer days you can get in the >1000liters per day..... winter only about 500........... Colder water and shorter days. ( viscosity goes up as temp drops.)


..............oztules

Ok, thanks.

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2019, 04:14:19 PM »
Update on all of this, fwiw:

- I have removed the salt water conditioner (or whatever it's called).
- I have removed the reverse osmosis unit, which I wasn't keeping up very well.
- I had to spend money to replace some fixtures which had been damaged over the decades by the hard water, or whatever it was that destroyed them.

That left me with:
- Relatively Hard water coming into the house (hard enough to count on further damage to fixtures or pipes, and difficulty in getting soap going for laundry and dishes).
- some question of how much salt is left in the home system.  Discussions with one or two locals indicate they think it may be some time before all the salt clears.  I have a salinity detector, and it seemed to be saying that salt is still coming out of all my spigots, and was slightly coming out of the RO Unit previously.

Also:
I appear to have found a plumber I can rely on, and who is open to future projects, such as rainwater harvesting.

So, further measures I have taken, for now:
- all drinking water now is distilled until I figure out a better way.  There is a fair amount of "stuff" coming out of the drinking water, but it is unclear to me if it is all just minerals, or if some of it may be salt.
- need to order additional testing strips or equipment to verify if there is still salt before I go back to drinking tap water.
and three somewhat expensive longer-term measures:
1) a somewhat expensive carbon filter on the whole house.
2) 2 different kind of "fringe" and (for me) expensive devices to try to rearrange the mineral molecules so they are not doing so much damage:
a)
https://easywater.com/residential/product/no-salt-conditioner/
b)
https://www.ecoflow.co

Also, it should be noted I'm on a septic system, and only have 1/2 acre.  I haven't really done much research on this, but am kind of assuming that the salt over the years might not be a good thing for my septic and my yard.  So, once I have verified that there is no more salt going into the septic system, I'll be happy about that.

dnix71

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2019, 08:29:44 PM »
I have an inlaw who lives on about an acre just north of Tampa with both well water and a septic tank. Even with filters and RO the well water is nasty (smells like rotten eggs) and was so foul that my niece and husband would only drink bottled water. They moved because of problem with water and the septic tank not working at all in the summer when it rains.

They moved to an acre and a half 50 miles north. That land has a well and septic tank, but both work well. The difference is the well is more than 200 feet deep. The water is so clean it tastes better without treatment than most city water I have consumed. I was suprised at how clean the water was and was told there was a spring on the property than doesn't flow now.

In real estate the phrase is "location, location, location." The new location is higher ground and closer to the major fresh water aquifers in central Florida. The area is still largely rural, so there is less demand on water supplies.

JLSOAZ : my suggestion is to go with compost toilets so you aren't peeing on your water supply, and hiring a well driller to see if going deep would find clean water. Only use that water for drinking, bath and washing clothes. Get a modern washing machine. The newest use far less water.

Issues with water in the desert southwest include arsenic and selenium from agriculture water reuse, and natural radioactive contamination. Even in Florida where it rains a lot, arsenic has built up in Lake Okeechobee sediments to where the muck cannot even legally be used for commercial fill.

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #11 on: February 25, 2019, 04:40:39 PM »
I have an inlaw who lives on about an acre just north of Tampa with both well water and a septic tank. Even with filters and RO the well water is nasty (smells like rotten eggs) and was so foul that my niece and husband would only drink bottled water. They moved because of problem with water and the septic tank not working at all in the summer when it rains.

They moved to an acre and a half 50 miles north. That land has a well and septic tank, but both work well. The difference is the well is more than 200 feet deep. The water is so clean it tastes better without treatment than most city water I have consumed. I was suprised at how clean the water was and was told there was a spring on the property than doesn't flow now.

In real estate the phrase is "location, location, location." The new location is higher ground and closer to the major fresh water aquifers in central Florida. The area is still largely rural, so there is less demand on water supplies.

JLSOAZ : my suggestion is to go with compost toilets so you aren't peeing on your water supply, and hiring a well driller to see if going deep would find clean water. Only use that water for drinking, bath and washing clothes. Get a modern washing machine. The newest use far less water.

Issues with water in the desert southwest include arsenic and selenium from agriculture water reuse, and natural radioactive contamination. Even in Florida where it rains a lot, arsenic has built up in Lake Okeechobee sediments to where the muck cannot even legally be used for commercial fill.

Thanks, this is really interesting.  I do have a friend about 15 miles away on a well in a neighboring town and she has been mentioning radioactivity as a concern.

One clarification from me - I am on city water, not on a private well.  They in turn are probably drawing from some deep well.  As far as I know (subject to some upcoming tests I guess) in 15 years here I've not seen any signs that the city water is particularly problematic other than the hardness.  My recent plumber seems helpful and open-minded and soon we are to test (more thoroughly than usual) the water, so I'll try to post if there are any unusual findings.

At some point I'll probably install, or look into installing, some rainwater harvesting.  Now that I've found someone who is open to working on that for me, it's dependent on finances.

Mary B

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #12 on: February 25, 2019, 05:05:36 PM »
Make sure to check laws on rainwater harvesting! Many states now restrict or ban it!

dnix71

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #13 on: February 25, 2019, 08:25:41 PM »
You sit on the border with Mexico and your city water comes from the Santa Cruz river. The river starts in the US crosses into Mexico and returns. Your sewage treatment is, well, not intelligently positioned. Look at the map. Your treated sewage flows across an international border and then back again.  From there it flows back to the Gila River and to Phoenix.

I lived in Chattanooga many years ago and they did a similar stupid with the Tennessee American Water Company pulling water to treat and sell to the city from downstream of the city's sewage discharge pipes on the Tennessee River.

Before I went to school at UF in Gainesville, they had been discharging treated sewage into a sinkhole. At the start of very quarter of school the entire town would come down with an intestinal bug, given the name "Gainesville Grip." People knew it had to be the water, so someone put dye in the treated effluent and sure enough, it turned up in the city's well about 4  hours later. They moved the city's water supply.

I don't know if it's a fetish or not but too many places drink their own piss, intentionally or not. In south Florida we dump all our treated sewage out to sea. The cost of removing nitrates is too high to justify recycling that way. In Tampa, they sell the effluent for commercial irrigation.

JW

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #14 on: February 25, 2019, 10:56:21 PM »
Quote from: dnix71
I don't know if it's a fetish or not but too many places drink their own piss,

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/waterrecycler.html

I know that when on ships that sailed to America is was forbidden for sailors to drink sea water and were severely punished for it as they would have delusions.

Human kidneys can only make urine that is less salty than salt water. Therefore, to get rid of all the excess salt taken in by drinking seawater, you have to urinate more water than you drank. Eventually, you die of dehydration even as you become thirstier.

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #15 on: February 26, 2019, 11:22:32 PM »
You sit on the border with Mexico and your city water comes from the Santa Cruz river. The river starts in the US crosses into Mexico and returns. Your sewage treatment is, well, not intelligently positioned. Look at the map. Your treated sewage flows across an international border and then back again.  From there it flows back to the Gila River and to Phoenix.

I lived in Chattanooga many years ago and they did a similar stupid with the Tennessee American Water Company pulling water to treat and sell to the city from downstream of the city's sewage discharge pipes on the Tennessee River.

Before I went to school at UF in Gainesville, they had been discharging treated sewage into a sinkhole. At the start of very quarter of school the entire town would come down with an intestinal bug, given the name "Gainesville Grip." People knew it had to be the water, so someone put dye in the treated effluent and sure enough, it turned up in the city's well about 4  hours later. They moved the city's water supply.

I don't know if it's a fetish or not but too many places drink their own piss, intentionally or not. In south Florida we dump all our treated sewage out to sea. The cost of removing nitrates is too high to justify recycling that way. In Tampa, they sell the effluent for commercial irrigation.
(Attachment Link)

good story about Florida and as far as I know you have some good points about Nogales and the SC River, but a few added points:

I am in Rio Rico (about 10 miles North) so we have a different utility.  I'm not sure what exactly the Nogales utility does, how many wells, etc.  There is a relatively expensive/good water treatment plant as far as I know (keeping in mind that there are only in the neighborhood of 50k people in the entire county, so such a facility is not an everyday undertaking), and so I think a lot of the bad things that come from Mexico are treated pretty well.  As well, there is a decent amount of cross-border cooperation.  However, some things do go wrong and there is a lot of wrangling among the US agencies as to who will pay for what, going forward, such as when there is storm that brings out weaknesses in the system, and-or when an important part of the system breaks.

Not all the issues are about Mexico.  A buddy of mine who has been here all his life has pointed to other concerns, such as past water contamination on the US side from an industrial plant, and some future concerns about lead that contaminates some land from an old shooting range that started as a US Army range but has evolved from there.  There is also historically some mining in the area and this can lead to water concerns.

In any event, this is not to say that your points are off the mark.  I can't find information about the wells that my utility uses or their location, but here is some basic info fwiw:

https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=AZ0412011

https://libertyutilities.com/who-we-are.html

The parent is a Canadian company:
http://algonquinpower.com/our_business/

dnix71

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #16 on: February 27, 2019, 04:26:07 PM »
You use the Santa Cruz river, too. The utility company map shows it to be just west of I-19. The river is a few hundred feet on the other side of the interstate. It's all the same watershed. You have a Robert Trent Jones 18 hole golf course built in 1971. They must be a good neighbor to still be there after almost 40 years. Golf courses use reclaimed water, but they also can severely pollute the aquifer with fertilizer and pesticides if they aren't careful. In Florida they used to be used for tertiary waste treatment, but now tertiary is the standard and reclaimed water is almost potable (except for nitrates, which is good for the grass).

Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #17 on: February 28, 2019, 02:56:32 AM »

Total power to run it is now down to about 3.5 amps from a 24v solar panel.... usually about 1.5-2lpm. Long summer days you can get in the >1000liters per day.....

Goodness.  I have 3.5 acre-feet / year water right at the Nevada place.  That could deliver a tenth of it as battery-grade water.

A near-dewpoint water chiller could get me air conditioning at about 4 gallons / day / ton refrigeration (TR), and using neraly deionized water I wouldn't have to blow down anywhere near an additional gallon or two per TR
 to keep the heat exchangers clean.

I'm curious:  What is the brand/model of the reverse-osmosis device, and what does it take for maintenance?

Quote
winter only about 500........... Colder water and shorter days. ( viscosity goes up as temp drops.)

That thing's running just under a hundred watts.  Almost none of it is spent replacing the heat of solution from extracting the salts/minerals from the water, so that's nearly a hundred watts of heat.  Much of it ends up in the product and waste water.

Seems to me you could build a counter-current heat exchanger out of a few feet of copper pipe and use the heat i the output water to warm the incoming raw water in the winter, and get your winter production up to the summer levels for essentially free.  (It also cools the product water.)

With a hundred watts of heat your exchanger doesn't have to be TOO efficient.  Your main problem would be keeping it from getting TOO warm for the reverse osmosis machine - which you could avoid by using a mixing valve between the heat-exchanger output raw water and a bypass.  (I'd try to find something like a thermal - rather than a pressure-balancing - shower control valve to automate that.  Since it's futzing around with the INPUT water you don't even have to worry about the valve metal contaminating the output water, because the ions won't make it through the filter.)

==============

Though it isn't timely, one thing I've been looking for is the patent for an invention I heard of many years ago.  It was a very efficient water purification still - so efficient at scavenging heat that the inventor at first had the patent application rejected as supposedly being a perpetual motion machine.

Basic idea was twofold:

First it was a low pressure still.  It achieved this by being tall - in the 30 foot range.  The vacuum was provided by the weight of the water in the up and down plumbing.  The condensed product and waste water pulled the vacuum, which also pulled up the raw water.  At low pressure it takes a LOT less heat to boil the water.

Second, the product and waste flows down vs. the raw water up were in a counter-current heat exchanger, scavenging nearly all the heat to be reused.  (In principle, if this heat exchanger and the insulation around the whole thing were 100% efficient, you'd only have to provide the heat of solution lost to purifying the water.  In practice they're not, so you need to add more.  But it's FAR less than you'd need to boil away that water at atmospheric pressure.)

=========

I seem to be haunted by counter-current heat exchangers these days:
 - The near-dewpoint chiller uses up to four:
     - Air-water, to pre-cool the air and preheat the water before they hit the evaporator packing.
     - The evaporator packing itself is counter-current and does some heat exchange:  Water flows down, air up.
     - A water-water isolator if the chill water loop to the cold air delivery is not also the contaminant-exposed evaporative loop water.
     - A water-air exchanger to cool the air using the chill water.  That really needs to be counter-current if you're in an environment where the dewpoint is only 20ish degrees below the desired room temp.
   (A nice thing about dewpoint evaporative systems is that, unless you have a HELL of a big water vapor source in the conditioned space, the air cooling coils don't get cold enough to generate condensation that needs to be disposed of.)
 - Two for the reverse-osmosis filter suggestion.  (One using the product water, the other the waste water, to preheat the raw water.)
 - One for the highly-efficient still.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2019, 03:16:50 AM by Ungrounded Lightning Rod »

Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #18 on: February 28, 2019, 03:11:19 AM »

Human kidneys can only make urine that is less salty than salt water. Therefore, to get rid of all the excess salt taken in by drinking seawater, you have to urinate more water than you drank. Eventually, you die of dehydration even as you become thirstier.

Or you can cry.  A LOT.  Tear glands can make water saltier than sea water.  (Some sea mammals adapted to life in the ocean by enormously expanding their tear glands.)

(It works by another counter-current hack, between the blood vessels and tear ducts, letting the ion pumps work across a low and constant ion gradient.)

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #19 on: May 24, 2020, 07:43:22 PM »
By way of follow-up on this thread here a year or two later:

- With respect to protecting my pipes and helping the water get soapy, and with respect to the molecule-manipulating devices I had on the water lines, there is a sort of "how the heck would I know if they are doing any good?" verdict.  I haven't detected any particular improvement or reduction in water pressure or descaling or scaling.  I still have one of the devices connected to my relatively new/expensive hot water heater, but I don't know yet if it's doing any good.  For soaping up the water for dishes or laundry, I add a bit of extra chemical and hope for the best.

- With respect to my drinking water concerns, I am not ok drinking hard water forever.  I started manually distilling one or two gallons per day, and then I remineralize the water a bit in a pitcher system advertised to do that.  For the long term on this side of things, I have been trying to investigate this very expensive whole-house solution.  It is not a reverse osmosis system, but is a "nano-membrane" system and I think has some similar aspects to reverse osmosis.  A big holdup in my trying to research it is that there are no 3rd party independent reviews I can find on this.  I think nano-membrane technology may generally be used for agriculture or larger scale commercial or utility?  I don't know.  If anyone knows of any useful-looking 3rd party reviews of this product, or of similar, or discussions of it on some discussion forum, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

https://www.raindanceh2ostore.com/nano-water-filter-softener.html

Mary B

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #20 on: May 25, 2020, 03:54:05 PM »
Spendy, they say it is basically RO but not as high of rejection(lets some minerals through). I use RO for drinking water and just add minerals but I have software for beer brewing that can let me match water from around the world... for washing I just use a little more soap...

My water overall isn't bad, EXCEPT for sulfate levels that are unfit for drinking(can cause the runs... ), makes a load of laundry smell like wet dog... dryer sheets fix that. That and the massive amount of chlorine they dump in making it smell like a swimming pool some days.

jlsoaz

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #21 on: July 05, 2020, 04:58:52 PM »
Spendy, they say it is basically RO but not as high of rejection(lets some minerals through). I use RO for drinking water and just add minerals but I have software for beer brewing that can let me match water from around the world... for washing I just use a little more soap...

My water overall isn't bad, EXCEPT for sulfate levels that are unfit for drinking(can cause the runs... ), makes a load of laundry smell like wet dog... dryer sheets fix that. That and the massive amount of chlorine they dump in making it smell like a swimming pool some days.

Looking at another round of a plumber making me aware of even more damage to this or that from the hard water, I made a decision and bought the whole-house nano-membrane.  It will probably take me weeks or months to get someone to install it once it arrives, but we'll see.

bigrockcandymountain

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #22 on: July 05, 2020, 05:16:59 PM »
I'm watching your thread here with interest.  Our well water tests at 1100 ppm.

It is also high iron, so makes everything orange.  I grew up with this water, so i don't see it as a huge problem.  My wife doesn't like it much though.

We don't drink the well water, just wash with it.  We have a beautiful spring 2 miles away that we haul our drinking water from.  It is 300ppm but tastes amazing.

SparWeb

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #23 on: July 06, 2020, 02:09:02 AM »
Good luck with your new system.  I hope the improvement is worth the effort.

I confronted a lot of misinformation about well water trying to sort out problems in my house after I moved in.  Eventually the solution was to remove all of the filtration equipment, shock the well with chlorine, and it's been fine ever since.  The alternating bacteria and strange discoloration was due to contamination of the filtration system itself.  There is sometimes an iron-reducing bacteria in my water.  I know it's back when the mat in the bathtub turns orange.  I do shock chlorinate the well every few years, run it into the house, and purge out the brown sludge that comes out, but less and less of that every time, too.  Normally good water, and I'm thankful for that, and visitors like the taste of my water.

Lastly, I re-test my water every year.  I have an annual record of water quality going back 16 years now.  If there's ever a natural gas well casing that goes bad in my area, I'll have a stronger case against the culprit.
I would like to compare my test result with yours, but my reports come back in metric, and I don't think you can convert easily to ppm.  The average hardness is about 90 mg/L and total dissolved solids is 550 mg/L and they vary by 30% year to year, but steady overall.
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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #24 on: July 06, 2020, 02:37:53 AM »
I would like to compare my test result with yours, but my reports come back in metric, and I don't think you can convert easily to ppm.  The average hardness is about 90 mg/L and total dissolved solids is 550 mg/L and they vary by 30% year to year, but steady overall.

Ppm depends on the measuring units in use; in metric, it's simple:

1 ppm =1 mg/L.

In the US, maybe not simple?:

1 ppm = 0.058419 grains per US gallon.
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bigrockcandymountain

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #25 on: July 06, 2020, 09:05:28 AM »
Yep mg/l is the same as ppm. 

Good idea to keep an eye on things.  Gas well casings do go bad pretty regularly. 

How deep is your well and how do you go about shocking it? I am just wanting to do that with mine.  It actually just quit producing and had to be redeveloped last month.  I think it was an iron bacteria problem.  Lots of sludge in the filters etc

SparWeb

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #26 on: July 06, 2020, 12:44:20 PM »
OK, now your wells are in context.  Yeah, those two are pretty widely spread apart in quality - my well sits in the middle for TDS.

My well is only 32ft deep.  Last year it got a pump-down test and scored 21L/min (5.5 GPM).  There is a provincial law that requires operators of oil/gas wells in an area to test the water wells of area residents, which they do every ~5 years.  My own tests fill in the remaining years.  The results are somewhat consistent from lab to lab.  Interestingly, the results from the company labs usually have higher TDS and sulfates than the lab I go to.  They take samples from the well, I take it from the house.

I have a detailed process in this document from the gov't of Alberta - seems to have been recently updated so here's the latest copy.

* Alberta Deep-water-wells-that-last-2019.pdf (15601.48 kB - downloaded 244 times.)
If you're not keen to get a 15 MB download, I can split off the chlorination pages into a smaller file.
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SparWeb

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #27 on: July 06, 2020, 12:46:56 PM »
More at this link, if you need it:

https://open.alberta.ca/publications/0778530582
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bigrockcandymountain

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #28 on: July 06, 2020, 02:00:16 PM »
That is very much what I need.  Thank you.

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #29 on: July 18, 2020, 01:47:25 PM »
Thanks.

I'm not very handy, and not particularly interested in do-it-yourself, and I don't live off-grid or on a well, but I think one point in common with some folks here is this matter of confronting disinformation about some of the issues with our homes and systems. 

I struggle to define what I want for my house and transportation and food, and then get it done.  At the same time, some of my work involves aspects of business analysis, and I tend to try to tie in my own home/learnings with my thinking at work.  In the long-term case of:

"How to solve the residential hard water conundrum, and whether hard water should even be treated as a conundrum?"

one of the interesting things to me is that I haven't sensed that much urgency among profit-seeking enterprises to come up with step-change improvement over:
- salt water based systems
- molecule-manipulation systems.

For that matter, there doesn't yet seem to be the sense of urgency of 21st century enlightened human society to have a more exact and clear idea of how to define healthy drinking water (I think there's some disagreement on some points), and then how to get there. 

I do think it happens sometimes in business that profit-seekers do not immediately rise to the occasion and tackle an area of potential demand that may (or may not) be going under-served.  Some players with fresh ideas may eventually see that as an opportunity.  Depending on the exact area, it may turn out to be a false hope of an opportunity, but I think a lot of this depends on the exact area and personal judgment as to whether there is an issue and a market worth addressing.

Good luck with your new system.  I hope the improvement is worth the effort.

I confronted a lot of misinformation about well water trying to sort out problems in my house after I moved in.  Eventually the solution was to remove all of the filtration equipment, shock the well with chlorine, and it's been fine ever since.  The alternating bacteria and strange discoloration was due to contamination of the filtration system itself.  There is sometimes an iron-reducing bacteria in my water.  I know it's back when the mat in the bathtub turns orange.  I do shock chlorinate the well every few years, run it into the house, and purge out the brown sludge that comes out, but less and less of that every time, too.  Normally good water, and I'm thankful for that, and visitors like the taste of my water.

Lastly, I re-test my water every year.  I have an annual record of water quality going back 16 years now.  If there's ever a natural gas well casing that goes bad in my area, I'll have a stronger case against the culprit.
I would like to compare my test result with yours, but my reports come back in metric, and I don't think you can convert easily to ppm.  The average hardness is about 90 mg/L and total dissolved solids is 550 mg/L and they vary by 30% year to year, but steady overall.

bigrockcandymountain

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #30 on: July 18, 2020, 03:11:40 PM »
Jlsoaz, you are right.  There is no consensus as to what good drinking water is.  I personally think 0ppm reverse osmosis water is a bad idea.  Water that pure really wants to have some minerals.  I can see it taking them out of your body. 

Obviously, something like 100ppm arsenic is way worse than 100ppm calcium or sodium. 

That being said, in the rural setting here, it seems everyone and his brother is selling some miracle water improvement filter / treatment etc.  Most of them are pretty useless from what I have seen. 

Sparweb, thanks for the shock chlorinating advice.  The water seems better for sure.  I will repeat it in a month or so, and then go to a once a year treatment. 

SparWeb

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #31 on: July 19, 2020, 02:24:03 AM »
jlsoaz,

They seem to be the famous name in water treatment:  "Hey Culligan Man!" still rings a bell for people over a certain age.  They market heavily on trust and service.  The system I ripped out of my house because it was the source of contamination was a Culligan system.  I called them and they wouldn't sent a technician out for weeks, while I couldn't use my water.  That gave me time to isolate the hoses to the two tanks, repeat the shock chlorination, and re-test.  The results came in long before Culligan was due to show up - and it was all clear.  The tanks were out of the house and I cancelled with Culligan.  (On hindsight, I should have let the guy arrive and given back their malfunctioning tanks.  Instead I had to haul them to the dump myself).

BRCM,
Very glad to hear it!  See you in the pub; we'll raise a glass of the essential liquid.

On the subject...
I was talking to my Dad last week, when the subject of the water at their house came up.  They and their neighbours have had hit-and-miss results with their wells. The majority getting very salty water from anything drilled at depth and most resorting to a shallow "sand-point" to get anything clear of minerals.  But the sand points are all vulnerable to organic contamination so they all put in UV or they don't drink it. 

It was a reminder that good water is a blessing to any house that has it.
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Mary B

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Re: dealing with hard water
« Reply #32 on: July 19, 2020, 01:16:59 PM »
Jlsoaz, you are right.  There is no consensus as to what good drinking water is.  I personally think 0ppm reverse osmosis water is a bad idea.  Water that pure really wants to have some minerals.  I can see it taking them out of your body. 

Obviously, something like 100ppm arsenic is way worse than 100ppm calcium or sodium. 

That being said, in the rural setting here, it seems everyone and his brother is selling some miracle water improvement filter / treatment etc.  Most of them are pretty useless from what I have seen. 

Sparweb, thanks for the shock chlorinating advice.  The water seems better for sure.  I will repeat it in a month or so, and then go to a once a year treatment.

450 to 550ppm of sulfate make my water taste horrible and smell like wet dog. Also at the upper end of what is safe to drink, it can cause stomach issues.