water conditioner

As some of you know about the big dig I am getting close to getting the new water system online, I was planing to move my 22 year old Culligan water conditioner down into the new basement. I just noticed a crack in the water vessel. At this point considering it's age maybe it's time for a new one.

As I am sure many of you have well's I would like input as to what I may replace it with, what brands do you use and are you happy with it?

Does your water have anything unusual that needs to be treated? Hardness is simple...you can get a simple softener for around $500. Iron or sulfur will require additional equipment.

Rob R. wrote:Does your water have anything unusual that needs to be treated? Hardness is simple...you can get a simple softener for around $500. Iron or sulfur will require additional equipment.

I do have a bit of iron, my system takes it out without anything special.

Sorry to butt in on this but I need some advise myself. I have pretty hard water myself and was thinking about getting a water softener, but i also have the wonderful nice green tint on some fittings. Any thoughts? Will just adding a softener help my situation?

anthony7812 wrote:Sorry to butt in on this but I need some advise myself. I have pretty hard water myself and was thinking about getting a water softener, but i also have the wonderful nice green tint on some fittings. Any thoughts? Will just adding a softener help my situation?

You should really have your water tested. Does anyone in your area specialize in water treatment? Most of them will test the water for hardness, iron, sulfur, etc. for a nominal fee. If the green tint you are seeing is on soldered fittings, it could that whoever did the soldering didn't wipe the excess flux off the fitting.

Rob R. wrote:

anthony7812 wrote:Sorry to butt in on this but I need some advise myself. I have pretty hard water myself and was thinking about getting a water softener, but i also have the wonderful nice green tint on some fittings. Any thoughts? Will just adding a softener help my situation?

You should really have your water tested. Does anyone in your area specialize in water treatment? Most of them will test the water for hardness, iron, sulfur, etc. for a nominal fee. If the green tint you are seeing is on soldered fittings, it could that whoever did the soldering didn't wipe the excess flux off the fitting.

Do you have a greenish tint in the tubs or sinks,if so thats from the inside of your copper pipes deterating for acid water

yeah i get the nice greenish tint on things, ive thought about a low ph water problem. Any ideas on what types of units i would need to fix. Thier are couple water "dealers" around that I will give a ring, but i would like to have some knowledge before some damn salesman plays the im an ignorant buy anything dumbass.

After you get your water checked, you'll have a better idea of what you'll need. The size of the neutralizer will depend on the pH and the acidity of your water. You might not need a softener down stream from the neutralizer. In my case, I did need one because the neutralizer brought the hardness up too far. I would not recommend considering a piggy-back neutralizer and softener. Two independent units would serve you better. Be certain that the control heads are sized for your house lines: 1" lines require a 1" head. I've seen some people with 1" house lines that were choked down to 3/4" because some salesmen sold them the unit.

anthony7812 wrote:i also have the wonderful nice green tint on some fittings.

I had a girlfriend like that. But seriously folks; I've seen a lot of softener systems in my day; wish there was a better way. It's like a machine designed to use up salt and make an income for somebody else.
I used to go up to my brother's house in rockaway, NJ all the time when the kids were little; to fix pinholes in his plumbing copper pipes. They would get tiny tiny pinholes with almost invisible miniture pressurized jets of water. A puddle would appear and then I would locate the leak, drain the pipe, and just torch a little dab of solder on the pinhole and wait for the next one to show up.
That area has really acidic water. The next door neighbors too, pipes always leaking. I've replaced pipes that were literally paper thin! I've heard you can go the pvc pipe route, but also heard that highly acidic water can leach chlorine out of pvc pipe. My brother got all kinds of fancy neutralizer equipment etc. I would never drink the neighbors tap water because I could taste copper in it. They laughed at me when I refused coffee, but I swear that whole family has mental problems; I pointed out they might all have copper poisoning hahahahahha.

I've seen a few houses where the water softener system is plumbed in to the outside spigots, what a total waste of salt. I've seen the salt residue or something white after power washing patio furniture in preparation for repainting at the one place. See that white residue on the cedar steps I just fixed up for the one guy, who has an irrigation sprinkler system.
My brother's ex-wife eventually got a reverse osmosis water filter for the kitchen sink, seems to remove anything harmful.
Even here with the relatively deep well, it seems the water has been getting more mineralized over the years. I get a rusty/mineral buildup on the toilet bowl, have had good results using Zep acidic toilet bowl cleaner. Similar to Lime-Away or CLR. Spritz it in and let it sit overnight- does the trick.

I have very acidic well water, pd=5.7 Over the years I've tried various acid neutralizing systems. All were a pain in the butt. I finally changed all my pipes to pvc or cpvc, completely eliminating any copper. I changed my hot water heater to an indirect model that's a stainless steel tank. I installed it with stainless steel threaded fittings. I buy sink fixtures that are plastic on the inside, the valves plastic or ceramic. It took a lot of effort to find the right components but it was worth it. I now have NO issues.

Dann757 wrote:I've seen the salt residue or something white after power washing patio furniture in preparation for repainting at the one place. See that white residue on the cedar steps I just fixed up for the one guy, who has an irrigation sprinkler system.

That white residue could simply be minerals left behind from the "hard water".

By conditioner do you mean softener? OR is there a conditioner? Never heard that term before.

Anyway, if it's a softener, I've had a Ecowater 3000 series for almost 10 years now. I got it as a housewarming gift. I probably wouldn't have spent that much on my own .. and I certainly would have never paid anyone to install it. It works great. I've disassembled and cleaned the entire unit once in those 10 years after we had this nasty, sulfur / rotten-egg stench in our water. I fixed that by dumping 2 gallons of bleach down my well ( don't ever do that much - trust me on that one ... ), then cleaning all the little internal parts with bleach, plus removing the salt and cleaning the basin as well. But I digress ..

This thing is a fairly high tech unit. Has a little computer in it that calculates water usage, and uses that to decide when to run. I like the water flow & gallon measurements it has. Helped me find a sediment filter problem. We've run a quarter of a million gallons through it so far without a problem. I'm certain they've completely changed by now though ...