Rusty well water, anyone have a well with rusty water? Ours is about 30 foot deep with a metal well casing. Our water is stained with rust and stains the sinks, tubs and toilets.
Any advice from well owners on how to filter or clean the water?
Thanks in advice.
Mike

My well is 240' deep and we have hard water. Lotsa rust. A good over sized filter in line changed monthly works for us.

There are a couple of ways to deal with iron in the water. For moderate iron a softener will often take care of the problem. A good filter will do it as well. For more iron and dissolved iron there are systems similar to softeners that will take the iron out. I had one on our shallow well back in Maryland. The one I had used Potassium Permanganate to rejuvenate the bed. Those systems work very well but they are something of a pain to maintain because of the potassium permanganate. The other method is to inject chlorine into the water which oxidizes the iron out of the water. I don't like chlorine personally so that system was a non starter for me right from the get go.

Call a water professional in your area and see what they recommend. My experience is over 15 years old and technology has moved forward since then.

we have several "rusty" wells, and the best solution we have found is the Culligan water system. After the initial hookup they charge us about 30/month and then a 100 once a year, in most cases, to purge the tank.

You're getting free iron supplementation.

Softeners take out hardness which is iron , calcium etc. Filters do nothing for hardness.

If you are on a septic system, and install a softener, do not run the softener drain into the septic. The salt will kill the bacteria and kill your leach field.

Lots of debate over whether or not softeners affect sewage disposal fields. May be just the extra water involved overloads the system. I would rent from a water conditioning company a iron removal tank(s). Saves you the trouble of messing with KMnO4, which stains everthing a bright purple. Won't soften,but then you didn't mention hardness as a problem.

All wells leave Mineral Deposits and some worst than others . Water Filter is the best answer to the problem

You should look into an ozone system which will oxidize the iron and allow it to be filtered out much more easily. A friend of mine installed one and it work much better than any other system they had tried (and they did try a few). It also eliminated the rotten egg (sulfur) odor that they also had put up with forever.

The newer softeners use less water than a load of clothes and the amount of salt that enters the leach field is negligible. They're nothing like the old ones.

Rock, that's good to hear.Different type of zeolite?

I don't know what they do different. My wife's been watering her house plants with soft water from a new one for over a year with no ill affects at all.

Have you had your water tested to determine concentrations of contaminants?

Rock, soft water would have no ill effects on plants. The hardness ions(calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese) are simply replaced by sodium ions. Salt(sodium chloride)would be bad for the plants in high concentrations is used to regenerate the zeolite. but maybe I'm telling you something you already know.

Plumbing problems and Concrete questions always seem to bring out all the "experts".

Blueboat, nothing personal but with a well at 30 feet,and water that is staining house fixtures, you need advice from people who actually deal with this stuff.

I deal with Water Quality on a daily basis, and I can tell you most of the info presented here is erroneous, or close to it..

Get the water tested, is the Iron Ferric or ferrous?

With a well as shallow as 30 feet I suspect Tannin's might even be present..

Don't wait until all the fixtures are stained beyond repair, if their not already..

Just a hint beyond what other said, you better check the anode in your hot water tank.

Had a place in Missouri with a well. Water had a lot of iron in it. Got a water softener installed and that helped. Then later checked the well and found a leak at the connection near the surface and the water was running leaking back down the outside of the iron pipe run. Fixed the leak and the iron problem disappeared.

TF