water treatment?

Question

does anyone have experience with the two units that I have linked to below? are they good units? i am looking for an alternative to Reverse Osmosis and Clorine to clean my well water for use in the home and garden

http://store.unbeatablesale.com/prtc038.html

http://pure-air-water-systems.stores.yahoo.net/puwhwhhowapu.html

Answer 1

The 1st unit is just a UV that will kill off bacteria. This is only partially useful as water still contains other contaminates.

The 2nd unit is an activated carbon with prefilter. Depends on the usage the activated carbon will need to be replace on a regular basis. For garden and lawn use, the water does not need this treatment. The activated carbon does not 'remove' bacteria at all.

Both units are insufficient in my opinion.

I use a RO unit that has both prefilter and carbon filter. It also has a UV sterilizer for the 'good' water coming out of the RO unit. I retrofit a peristaltic pump at the reject end to help improve the rejection ratio (the 'good' water versus the reject water) as well as a membrane flush kit to help flush the membrane surface on a regular basis to prolong the membrane life.

My recommendation is a RO unit for the drinking purpose and store the reject water into a storage tank and use it for the garden, lawn, pool, etc.

To prolong the RO unit, I would also recommend installing a water softener for home use. The water will pass through the water softener before going to water heater and to rest of house. The softened water then goes to the RO unit which is only used for drinking and ice making.

There are two types of RO membranes, TFC and CTA. CTA is a cellulose composite membrane and it requires chlorine in the water (city water) to keep bacteria from forming on it. TFC is a thin film membrane and it does not require chlorine in the water to function properly. TFC is perfect for well water and is cheaper than the CTA type.

I would also recommend a conductivity meter (portable one will do $50 to$100) to monitor the water coming out of RO unit to determine when it needs replacement. If the membrane is not puntured, the water output will reduce through time. Change out the membrane when the output is too low. One the other hand if the membrane is puntured, the quality of the water is compromised and the conductivity meter will be able to pick that up.

Answer 2

For the garden, there is no reason not to use well water straight out of the ground. For domestic water, the first thing you need to do is to figure out what is in the water that you don't want to have in it. Typically, this is calcium, magnesium, and iron, but there may be bacteria or other issues also. The ultraviolet thing, or chlorination, will take care of bacteria if that is a problem, but Ca, Mg, and Fe require other action. Ca and Mg can be dealt with by:
- A zeolite type softener, which exchanges the Ca and Mg ions for sodium ions. Lots of these around, and for really hard water, the system of choice. They require salt, and a place to dump the wastewater from backwashing.
- Magnetic softeners, which use a magnet to cause early recombination of the metal ions with dissolved carbonate. Requires subsequent filtration to get rid of the resulting precipitate.
- Reverse osmosis. Works best of the water is not too hard, but wastes a lot of water. Has the advantage that it will get rid of iron as well as the other metals.

The iron can be removed by an activated charcoal filter.

Answer 3

Hey, http://www.aguavert.com/ is looks relatively simple, apparently that model pictured, they can do about 30k gph with that little thing, they have bigger models too. thanks all :)

Answer 4

top Water-get it? After the water is dealt with for its illnesses, this is top!! Water medical care? i admire this one! Water Works!!!! this is catchy too! Do you have a variety? good success on your new journey! i want a variety of works for you!!!