Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: Private Water Treatment Advice  (Read 2862 times)

certain-death

  • Joined Dec 2016
Private Water Treatment Advice
« on: April 02, 2020, 04:28:21 pm »
Hi All,

Hope everyone is keeping well during these strange times.

With all this spare time on our hands I’ve found myself thinking about jobs around our smallholding.

One of the main things that annoys me and needs attention is our private water supply. I’ve been doing some reading up but found my brain getting fried with all the terminology.

Basically our issue is that our toilets and sinks often get orange water stains and sometimes our boiled water turns orange. The water doesn’t taste very nice out the tap either, my wife describes it as a bloody taste.

We have a treatment shed which consists of a pressure cylinder, a softener with brine tank, a mesh filter and UV lamp. There’s also another big blue cylinder that I believe is another filter of sorts (it was added when we bought the house as it failed the water test)

The softener valve head is temperamental due to poor servicing from the last owners, I find myself having to manual force a regeneration usually after we notice the boiling water is orange. There’s other times when it seems to regenerate every day. The memory battery connector is knackered which isn’t helping imo. This results in excessive salt tablet usage. My plan is to add a microcontroller at some point and integrate into our home automation system so I have better control on what it’s doing and when

My main question is what maintenance should be carried out on the resin in the tank, can we change the medium or is it a case of replacing the full softener system?

Is there anything else we should look to add to the system to help stop the orange staining problem? Been reading up about reverse osmosis filters but not sure if this would benefit us any?

Is it worth adding a TDS sensor to indicate if the filtering is doing an adequate job?

Any advice is appreciated

Thanks

Perris

  • Joined Mar 2017
  • Gower
Re: Private Water Treatment Advice
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2020, 08:24:38 am »
Trying to get rid of it seems really hard. Perhaps you could bottle and sell it instead?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalybeate

arobwk

  • Joined Nov 2015
  • Kernow: where 2nd-home owners rule !
Re: Private Water Treatment Advice
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2020, 07:01:48 pm »
Now to be absolutely clear, I know pretty much nothing about hi-tech water purification systems and it all sounds rather complicated.  All I know about is slow sand-filtration systems (although I have yet to actually implement one):  would one of those do instead ?

As to colouration and "bloody" taste, my immediate thought is iron.   

Above probably not very helpful - hope you get sorted soon.

alang

  • Joined Nov 2017
  • Morayshire
Re: Private Water Treatment Advice
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2020, 04:33:19 pm »
If i was you i would be checking at every point of the filtration system and see where this orange colour is coming from. It's all well and good replacing filters and pumps but, what about the pipes carrying the water? Have they been done? Have they been purged with proper cleaner if they are metal? Crack open the connectors at all points and have a look to see what you find.

On the farms i have worked on, all our drinking water has come from a bore hole and has gone through a filter sock and UV filter system. Yes the taste isn't great but at least i know it's safe.The 'untreated' water is used for the toilet and stains it like mad. So i know the filter systems are working properly as the kettle isn't gummed up.
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Backinwellies

  • Global Moderator
  • Joined Sep 2012
  • Llandeilo Carmarthenshire
    • Nantygroes
    • Facebook
Re: Private Water Treatment Advice
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2020, 07:32:23 am »
Can't help you directly ….  can just say about ours …. it comes from a spring and   water so soft here a pea sized bit of shampoo more than enough for long hair.  Water here is acidic.

we have big plastic blue filter thing (filters should be changed regularly (or washed if reuseable ones)… and a UV lamp ….  apart from occasional frog blockages it all works OK.   We get blue stains when mixed with soap in bath … copper I assume.

We get fab drinking water but you must run the tap for ages first.
Linda

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oor wullie

  • Joined Jun 2012
  • Strathnairn
Re: Private Water Treatment Advice
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2020, 06:02:47 pm »

We get fab drinking water but you must run the tap for ages first.

If you have to run the taps to get better tasting watter I'd suggest there is some bacteria contamination in your pipes.  As water sits stationary it picks up the taste and smell from the pipes and you are then flushing out the previously stationary water with fresh water.

Its not uncommon and not dangerous (unless you end up with H2S gas) but, my experience is it won't go away unless you kill all the bacteria in the pipes.

This happened to my borehole a couple of years ago, I topped a couple of litres of thin bleach into the borehole then opened the taps in the house until I was happy the bleach had gone through the system and was all out.  I then ran the taps a bit more.

gandygoose

  • Joined May 2020
Re: Private Water Treatment Advice
« Reply #6 on: May 19, 2020, 11:33:25 am »
"Big Blue Thing" sounds like pH treatment for acid water.  If that's working you shouldn't be getting blue stains, if it's not working then all your copper pipe is being corroded.  We had loads of problems from this in our last place.

Does your local authority do testing?  Done by Environmental Health in our area, although there's a charge.

 

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