ShadowsPapa
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- Bill
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- #1
It's frustrating as heck when you can't get reliable, solid, factual, information from people who sell things.
Backstory -
I've lived multiple places with wells. I know how they work, what to expect, and have had water softeners, iron filters, good wells and bad wells and more.
We moved here in 94. Well existed but I have no idea of the age, other than I suspect it was put in around the time the house was built in 1980. 36" diameter, 50' deep, 35' to water level (other than a drought year). It has a concrete casing that one county report says goes down 10'. In-well pump.
We are also on a septic system. In about 98, the top of the distribution box rotted and caved in, plugging that up and it happened in the middle of monsoon season and when we had a 24 hour rain that would not stop. Water ran to the septic tank, filling it with rain water because of the slope of the ground and the saturation of the ground (trees ROTTED that year). A guy came out and replaced the distribution box with a more modern plastic one. the concrete one was mush
summer 2024, had a free water test by Polk County. Came back "bacteria - present" (no numbers, just "present") and e-coli = present.
Report said not safe for drinking, cooking, boil for 1 minute.
We had it shocked, could only find ONE company in all of central Iowa who would even respond. I believe they really over-did it. Instead of days for the chlorine to go away (via smell AND test packets) it took a couple of weeks. (and of course, I didn't think about it until later, but all experts say - DO NOT let that stuff run into the septic tank - chlorine kills bacteria, good and bad)
We've been using bottled water. Had the test done again, same results. No way I'm letting that same company shock the well again - they not only screwed us out of $1,000 by not filing the correct paperwork and forms, but they really over-shocked things.
I thought - there HAS to be a better way!
So I started looking into treatment or filtration - and came up with the same suggestion over and over and over - UV filtering.
Of course you have to filter for solids first, then the UV, but that's a DUH thing.
So, I started contacting companies who do that - yeah, this is Des Moines. Pretty limited. One company said they won't do any installs if the house is on a well, another did the immediate hard sell bit "I'll test your water and show you that you really need a whole system, softener, RO and more and it won't work unless you do it all.
That led me to my memories of water softeners - how certain states and counties, departments of health, and so on, talk of the sodium and such - and, that brine washing into the septic system.
Some states BAN softeners because of the salts and chlorine that get into the water table. Some septic people say - don't do it, it rots concrete.
And in a drought year, you have that backwash water pumping through..
And he was hard sell on RO, too. I'd already dug into that - for every gallon of clean drinking water, it takes from 2 to 5 gallons of water to make it. Not good on a well when you need to watch water use.
Yes, the water is hard, but not as hard as the water was when I lived in Ankeny and used their city water! We joked about rocks coming out of the faucets. And it's not as hard as the water coming out of the 200' well i had on the farm (the guy said depth makes no difference - it can if it's passing through a lot more layers of certain things, yeah it can.)
So, does anyone here have practical experience with bacteria filtering - like the UV filters?
And - does any of what I've come up with make any sense?
Here's just one example of the government stuff I've been finding - there's stuff from NC, MN and other states, official info -
https://www.scceh.com/Portals/6/Env...Softener Effects on Septic System Handout.pdf
Backstory -
I've lived multiple places with wells. I know how they work, what to expect, and have had water softeners, iron filters, good wells and bad wells and more.
We moved here in 94. Well existed but I have no idea of the age, other than I suspect it was put in around the time the house was built in 1980. 36" diameter, 50' deep, 35' to water level (other than a drought year). It has a concrete casing that one county report says goes down 10'. In-well pump.
We are also on a septic system. In about 98, the top of the distribution box rotted and caved in, plugging that up and it happened in the middle of monsoon season and when we had a 24 hour rain that would not stop. Water ran to the septic tank, filling it with rain water because of the slope of the ground and the saturation of the ground (trees ROTTED that year). A guy came out and replaced the distribution box with a more modern plastic one. the concrete one was mush
summer 2024, had a free water test by Polk County. Came back "bacteria - present" (no numbers, just "present") and e-coli = present.
Report said not safe for drinking, cooking, boil for 1 minute.
We had it shocked, could only find ONE company in all of central Iowa who would even respond. I believe they really over-did it. Instead of days for the chlorine to go away (via smell AND test packets) it took a couple of weeks. (and of course, I didn't think about it until later, but all experts say - DO NOT let that stuff run into the septic tank - chlorine kills bacteria, good and bad)
We've been using bottled water. Had the test done again, same results. No way I'm letting that same company shock the well again - they not only screwed us out of $1,000 by not filing the correct paperwork and forms, but they really over-shocked things.
I thought - there HAS to be a better way!
So I started looking into treatment or filtration - and came up with the same suggestion over and over and over - UV filtering.
Of course you have to filter for solids first, then the UV, but that's a DUH thing.
So, I started contacting companies who do that - yeah, this is Des Moines. Pretty limited. One company said they won't do any installs if the house is on a well, another did the immediate hard sell bit "I'll test your water and show you that you really need a whole system, softener, RO and more and it won't work unless you do it all.
That led me to my memories of water softeners - how certain states and counties, departments of health, and so on, talk of the sodium and such - and, that brine washing into the septic system.
Some states BAN softeners because of the salts and chlorine that get into the water table. Some septic people say - don't do it, it rots concrete.
And in a drought year, you have that backwash water pumping through..
And he was hard sell on RO, too. I'd already dug into that - for every gallon of clean drinking water, it takes from 2 to 5 gallons of water to make it. Not good on a well when you need to watch water use.
Yes, the water is hard, but not as hard as the water was when I lived in Ankeny and used their city water! We joked about rocks coming out of the faucets. And it's not as hard as the water coming out of the 200' well i had on the farm (the guy said depth makes no difference - it can if it's passing through a lot more layers of certain things, yeah it can.)
So, does anyone here have practical experience with bacteria filtering - like the UV filters?
And - does any of what I've come up with make any sense?
Here's just one example of the government stuff I've been finding - there's stuff from NC, MN and other states, official info -
https://www.scceh.com/Portals/6/Env...Softener Effects on Septic System Handout.pdf
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