Water Softeners and Air Filtration Systems - Purchasing a new-construction home w/ well water - are these bad statistics?

The water was tested when they drilled the well I Think in late 2005. Numbers looked like this:


pH - 7.3
Color - 10
Odor - 1
Turbidity - 1.9
Iron - .27
Hardness - 13
Sodium - 3.3
Chloride - 2.0
Sulfate - 7.0

How does this all look? What kinds of additions to the system will I need (currently no filtration at all)? And, (roughly) how much am I going to pay for all this?

Thanks!

Parafly9,

It would help a lot if you included the "units of measurement" rather then just "7.3, 10, 1.9" and so on.

No test for bacteria?

A two year old water test is not indicative of what the water is doing now.

Living on well water is more complicated than living on a water system. Well water treatment requires some education, a lot of homework, and routine maintenance because you are responsible for making your water safe and nice.

If I were you I'd start by...

First, get a complete water test from an independent lab. This is a MUST DO because without it everything is a guess. A quickie water test from Sears or a water softener company won't be complete. They only test for the "profitable" stuff.

Second, hit the Yellow Pages and call at least three local water treatment pros who deal with well water. Make sure you call at least one of the big dogs like Kinetico or Culligan and at least a couple independent pros. DON'T TELL THEM YOU HAD YOUR WATER TESTED.

Give each an opportunity to offer suggestions and provide you with a quote to meet your water treatment needs. IGNORE ANY THAT DON'T TEST YOUR WATER THEMSELVES as they can't speak intelligently to water treatment without knowing what needs to be treated.

Ask lots of questions. Warranty, parts & labor, how long? Install, permits required, licensed plumber? Routine maintenance required and costs? Do they stock parts? Response time for emergency (water leak) calls? If they don't explain things to your satisfaction that is a good indicator of how you'll be treated after the sale.

After they've gone use your water test to compare with their's. Are all your treatment needs being addressed?

Ask your neighbors if they have any water treatment experience. They might tell you who's good or who to avoid.

Come back here and post the specific recommendations and hardware with the costs and we'll give you our opinions.

Thanks for the very helpful post!

This test was done by an independant lab (Premier Laboratory LLC) on 5/24/2005. I understand that is a little older, but I would expect they might still be similar anyways. The well had been completed on 5/18/2005.

Here are the units:

pH - 7.3 pH Units
Color - 10 Units
Odor - 1 Unit
Turbidity - 1.9 NTU
Iron - .27 PPM
Hardness - 13 PPM
Sodium - 3.3 PPM
Chloride - 2.0 PPM
Sulfate - 7.0 PPM

As far as bacteria - there is a Coliform # which is = 0 col/100ml.


I will call some labs but right now we just have an accepted offer on the house and we haven't signed a P&S yet. I'm trying to see if I can get some more into the P&S for the house so I was wondering really quickly which of these look like they would need to be fixed so I might add in $1000 for a water softener or $800 for a filtration system or whatever. I'm not sure what the systems cost at all.

I mentioned in a different thread I am nervous about this system anyways, it's a new construction house but the well only has a 700 gallon capacity (in 600 ft depth) and has a yield of only 2.5 GPM which is low IMO. I don't even know how I will water the lawn (which is probably around 1 - 1.25 acres).

As far as neighbors, there are only eight houses on the street and only two of them are currently occupied. The rest are still for sale and 2 are still building in foundations.

Well water can change in a short time, 2 years is not an accurate indicator of the current water condiitons. Bacteria can come and go and come and go. If I'm drinking the water I want a complete water test right now.

If you're the seller then you have your bread to butter but if you're the buyer then you have an entirely different piece of bread.

To be fair to both buyer and seller, a competent local water treatment pro who treats well water should be brought in to do a sight inspection and offer a quote on what is needed to provide adequate amounts of quality water to the occupants.

Don't be in a big hurry and find that haste costs you thousands shortly after the transaction.Buyer and seller need more to resolve this than help from a DIY forum.

I agree with Justalurker about age of test. Having said that, the most likely contaminant to change over time is coliform. But it's easy and inexpensive to treat. So even if you don't get a current test before buying the house, be sure to get one before moving in. Most mortgage companies will require it anyway.

To answer your question, here are some standards published on my own recent test. Note they are stated in mg/L instead of ppm. When it comes to hardness, mg/L is the same as ppm. Assume this is the case for minerals.

chloride 250 mg/L
sulfate 250 mg/L
sodium 20 mg/L
iron 0.3 mg/L
lead 0.015 mg/L
nitrate 10 mg/L
hardness 125 mg/L (this is subjective)
pH 6.8 to 8.5

I haven't seen specific limits / recommendations on color, ordor or turbidity.

Your test is missing nitrates, a key measurement in my opinion (mostly the result of lawn and crop fertilizer). As for a softener, you're blessed with soft water. It would be a waste of money. pH is also very good (although pH tests are notoriously inaccurate unless sample is processed within a few hours of test).

I've had three houses with wells and love not having to pay for water / sewer bill. Electrical consumption of pump is only a few dollars a month. Also I've been blessed with excellent water quality -- wells *can* be pretty aweful! At least, you should taste the water. Also, ask about depth and fllow rate of well (often stamped on well head), and depth of water table. Perhaps ask a couple of neighbors if anyone has run out of water.

I hope this is helpful.
David

Parafly9,

I was wondering about your test results. You didn't include TDS. The reason I say that is you have your hardness at 13ppm and your pH is 7.3 which is slight alkaline. Maybe your hardness is actually 13 grains per gallon. At 13ppm you would have less than 1 gpg hardness, and although not impossible in natural waters, very rare. And you pH would more than likely be below 7, which would be acidic.

No problem if that is the case, that is a mistake commonly made. But, you water would not be soft, in fact it can be considered extremely hard.

Iron above 0.2 ppm is considered a nuisance iron causing staining.

Just wanted to find out more abuot your results,
Andy Christensen

I posted that in another section, that is a huge concern for me. Well is 600ft deep, has a yield of 2.5 - 3 GPM, and holds +/- 700 gallons of water.

This concernes me because i have probably an acre of lawn I am going to need to water and I don't know how the heck I am going to manage that on that little bit of available water with the low refresh rate. not to mention that it's hydroseeded and for the first two weeks you are supposed to water the line like 3x per day.

I am definately going to get an updated test before we close on the house (May 25th) but was just curuios inthe meantime about the stats.

Oh - and

Nitrate --> .38 ppm

If the only water available to service the house's consumption was a well that only flowed 2.5gpm that lawn would become astro-turf pretty quick.

Is that lawn necessary?

Parafly9,
Andy Christensen

I don't see TDS anywhere on the results....

In the "units" column it does say "ppm", unless they messed up the chart somehow.

The chart looks like this:
BACTERIOLICAL RESULTS
PARAMETER, RESULTS, DL, UNITS, MCL
Total Coliform, 0, -, col/100mL, 0

THE BACTERIOLOGICAL RESULTS ARE ACCEPTABLE FOR POTABILITY STANDARDS

CHEMICAL RESULTS
(MCL's have been established for the following parameters:)
PARAMETER, RESULTS, DL, UNITS, MCL
Nitrite , ND , .010 , ppm , 1.0
Nitrate , .38 , .10 , ppm , 10

ALL OF THE ABOVE PARAMETERS MEET THE ESTABLISHED MCL'S FOR POTABILITY

(MCL's have not been established for the following parameters:)
PARAMETER, RESULTS, DL, UNITS, MCL
pH , - , 7.3 , pH Units , 6.5 to 8.5,
Color, 10, - , Color Units, 15,
Odor, 1, - , Units, 3,
Turbidity, 1.9, .10, NTU, NE,
Iron, .27, .050, ppm, .3
Hardness, 13, 3.8, ppm, NE
Sodium, 3.3, 1.0, ppm, 20
Chloride, 2.0, 2.0, ppm, 250
Sulfate, 7.0, 5.0, ppm, 250

THE ABOVE RESULTS ARE USED IN DETERMINING ASPECTS OF WATER SUCH AS STAINING, ALHTOUGH NO MCL'S ARE SET BY THE GENERAL STATUTE, THERE ARE RECOMMENDED LIMITS THAT ARE USED BY PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS AND WATER TREATMENT SPECIALISTS IN THE INTERPRETATION OF WATER QUALITY

KEY TO TERMS
COL - colonies
mL - milliliter
ppm- parts per million
NTU - turbidity level
AL - action level
cv - Certified Vendo
OUT - out of range / exceeds limit
mcl - max contamination limit
rl - reccomended limit
nd - none detected
ne - none established
dl - detection limit