Any water experts? Need help with filtering system.?

Question

I have 1 well that supplies 2 homes & 2 granny units. I'm looking for people who know what to do, no guesses please. :)

Well test results:

Total alkalinity mg/l 188.1

Total hardness gpg 13

Total iron mg/l 0

Total manganese mg/l 0

pH 7.1

Total dissolved solids mg/l 270

Visual appearance clear

Nitrate (NO3) mg/l 50

We basically have hard water that is high in nitrates. We are getting differring opinions/ideas on how to proceed.

We would like to get the nitrates out. We are concerned with a softener because we don't want the sodium left for the plants/lawn & reverse osmosis wastes too much water.

Is there any way to get the nitrates out?

If we can't get nitrates out, what is the best system to go with? Would a UV filter work? Would magnets work?

Should we filter at the pump or at each house?

What are the pros/cons?

Is there a website that can explain the different methods?

If the softener is the only way, then we have to do that. But just want other views. :)

Answer 1

Uv is better at sterilizing and not very effective with most chemicals, though I understand it will help with iron. And yes reverse osmosis wastes a lot, and no magnets won't help. You probably want to go with activated charcoal but still I would drink bottled water anyway. You might want to also go with the higher sodium levels as that won't be enough to harm the plants, but still go with bottled to drink. At least with activated charcoal and/ or a softener you can get clean and have clean clothes but you want to use a good filter to drink from like the ones advertised that you can put in place for drinking and then remove, or just keep bottled to drink and cook with. I found that having to drink a LOT of bottled water, that you will find a brand that you think tastes GREAT! And yep, they are all different. Check into activated charcoal>

Answer 2

Your water isn't very hard at all, or at least comapred to the well water in north central Missouri.  The water in my mom's well is 72 grains hard.  Metal pipes plug full of lime, ice cubes have lime crystals form on them, soap doesn't suds and so on.  Water softeners are ok except that for every pound of mineral you remove, they use around one pound of salt.  The harder the water, the more salty the water tastes.

Nitrates aren't much of a threat to adults and older children, but infants can't metabolize it and end up with "blue baby syndrome".  The nitrates prevent their hemigloben from carrying oxygen and they literally suffocate.

The pH is good and no iron to stain fixtures, so actually the water doesn't sound too awful bad to me at least.  Why do you think you need to treat the water?  Is it causing problems?  If your clothes come out clean and you want better tasting water, you might try an under sink reverse osmosis filter and charcoal filter.  That way the only water you treat is that which you drink.  Saves a lot of money.  And your yard isn't going to give a rip what the water is like, so there's no use in wasting money in treating it.

Answer 3

Please see "slow sand filters" in wikipedia. Nature has its own ways to purify water. This is the best. No "cons", only pros