SITUATION:
This was a pretty common issue on well water in Grafton. The customer had contacted us after identifying stinky, (sulfer smell) in the water and pronounced staining throughout the home. This hit all bathrooms, kitchen sink that was 1 week old and everywhere but the dishwasher.
So the odor was reaching the dishwasher, but it wasn’t showing the telltale signs of iron staining in the dishwasher.
WATER CHEMISTRY:
The water showed 13 grains of hardness. In addition to the rotten egg, sulfur smell, the iron tested at 3 parts per million (ppm). All of the iron was in the ferrous state. This soluble iron was being filtered by the softener to a large extent.
The total dissolved solids were 360 ppm. On the purchase of the home, the arsenic had tested at 9.5 parts per billion (ppb), just slipping under the maximum allowable limit of 10 ppb.
The refrigerator did have a filter, but these are not rated for well water and was actually leaving the drinking water total dissolved solids slightly higher than the raw water.
PLUMBING AUDIT:
This is why we need to test water in the home. We learn a lot. A full line trace of the entire distribution showed soft cold water lines running towards various points of distribution, but the stacks serving the upstairs bathrooms, downstairs bathrooms, and kitchen were all drawing from untreated water. This quickly explains why we are seeing iron throughout the home (from the cold lines), but not in the dishwasher.
THE PROBLEMS:
The problem was really three-fold:
- Correcting Plumbing
- Oxidizing Iron Filter
- Drinking Water
Correcting Plumbing
Instead of three individual conversions on the cold, we recommended full-line treatment, inside and out. This required a smaller plumbing fix for under $100 rather than a more complicated resolution.
Remove Sulfur Smell and Iron via Oxidizing Iron Filter
Our Iron Dagger, an oxidizing iron filter that we’ve found to run circles around the Iron Curtain that we used to carry is the fix. By converting the water softener to simply softening water rather than serving as an iron filter as well, we’ll see significant salt and water savings. This is due to the fact that a part of iron is effectively treated as 51.3 times stronger than a part of calcium. The #1 reason for the iron filter is eliminating the rotten egg, sulfer smell, the salt savings are just a nice secondary benefit.
Drinking Water
The solution here is the best reverse osmosis system out there, the Kinetico K5 will add certainty to the drinking water. Optionally, the arsenic filter can simply be dropped into the K5 for arsenic removal of 99.3% on both types of arsenic.
If you’re dealing with some or all of these problems, we’re here to help. If you’d like a similar analysis run on your water supply, drop us a call or schedule a meeting via the form on this page.
