My well water is a nightmare and now that I am remodling my house I need to deal with it. My newly tiled shower (6 months ) appears to have permanent water stains. My new toilet of the same age has already developed a rust ring. My new shower have acutally started plugginh plugging up with calification. We have lived withh this for years because we bought the house as a dump and intended a complete revamp. We are about to tackle the kitchen so I need to deal with this before any new fixtures go in. Do I need a water softner, a filter or both ?? What are my options? what do I need to know? I realize that I have to get thhe water tested to get all the information but I know I have rust and calcium. Thanks
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You need to get the water tested, as you state. A water softener can remove a small amount of iron, but if you have a lot you may need a separate iron removal system.
A "media" filter (paper filter) ahead of the water softener can keep out a fair amount of the silt and some of the iron in some cases. But a media filter on a well is sometimes not recommended since it can breed nasty bugs.
The tests will show the levels of the minerals you are going to remove and determine the type and size equipment for the number of people in your household.
We have a house we just remodeled that has a well with bad water. The biggest problem for us was the smell/taste - sulpher? rotten tasting. I guess we also had some rust spots, but the fixtures were so old that it might have been more from age than anything. Anyway, I would also recommend getting the water tested so you will know exactly what you are dealing with.
Whatever you do you may want to do it in stages to see exactly how each part of the system helps (or doesn't). You may find that you don't need everything - we started with a whole house (large) cartridge filter that catches the bigger stuff first. From there, we split into zones and used smaller carbon cartridges. From there we have water softeners that we haven't installed yet because those first 2 steps have almost completely cleared up the taste/smell issues. We will get them in eventually since we've already bought them, but I found it interesting that we suffered through 50 years of nasty water because we though we would need some expensive solution. Those filters only cost about $100.
Jamie
Interesting! THanks for the input.