· Some companies claim to use “High Capacity”, “Premium”, “Superior SS-T60” or S-759 Resin. It is no better than the standard Resin. They are usually chlorine resistant – That’s all, folks! It doesn’t soften any better. It doesn’t remove iron any better.( in fact it has a smaller capacity for both and lasts half as long). It certainly doesn’t cost thousands of dollars more, c’mon!!
· An “Iron Breaker” will not kill bacteria. It will not remove more than 2ppm of Iron or Hydrogen Sulfide for more than 6 months to 1 year before costly reloading of the filter bed. It is the least effective way of removing iron, but there are companies out there charging $5000 for it.
Our system is the absolute best, proven, and guaranteed way to remove any amount of iron and hydrogen sulfide. With no relaods, and very little maintenance.
An “Iron Breaker” with a .4 gram ozone generator attached to it is NOT an ozone injection system. It only draws in ozone once a day at 2:00 AM. (Ozone’s half life is about 8 minutes.) So, I guess it is an ozone system… for about 8 minutes a day. C’mon!
Our system injects 3 grams of ozone per hour…Every time you turn on the water!!
· A Fleck 5600 Control Valve will not backwash any filter bed at more than 7 gallons per minute. (Most filter beds require at least a 10 gallon per minute backwash flow rate!) You must have a Fleck 2510 with no drain restrictor or a 2750.
· “Greensand” or “Turbidex” or "Pyrolox" or "Birm" all require 12 gallons per minute!! We don’t use any of these.
· Some companies claim to have many different kinds of media in a “one take fix it all” system – maybe they should read this too.
Anthracite must have at least 1 cubic ft. bed depth to effectively filter anything, adding a 1/4 cubic ft. is a waist of space.
Carbon should never be used to remove the “rotten egg” smell unless you only need it to work for a month.
Sulfurstat is a made up word by “Haigue” – don’t waste the $4000 – Bacteriostat is KDF (kinetic degradation fluxion)it is awesome. We use it too!
Garnet is gravel. Quartz is gravel - used to keep the other fine mesh media from packing itself around the distributer cone at the bottom of a softener or backwashing filter system. In no way does garnet or quartz provide polished, extremely high quality water. My point being… in order for a “one tank fix all” system to work it would have to be 18 inches in diameter and 7 feet tall. There is NO one tank system that will remove hardness, manganese, iron, sulfur, taste, and odor, Chlorine, balance the PH, and kill bacteria… Here it comes… C’mon!!!
We think there are three groups of water treatment dealers:
1. "The Dumb Blonde". (No reflection of hair color). This is someone who starts out with the best of intentions, is told by his suppliers what should work, installs the equipment properly, and then when it doesn't work, goes nuts making numerous service calls to your house to try and fix your water. This also includes making dozens of phone calls to his supplier to try and understand why your water still smells. He then either spends quite a bit of his own money to get the system to work, or he removes the equipment and refunds you your money, thats if your lucky. . . The lesson learned - don't mess with stinky water!
2. "The Rip-off Artist". This is a dealer that intentionally sets out to relieve you of thousands of dollars for equipment that will absorb the smell for about a month or until your check clears - whichever comes first. There is a dealer of a nationally known franchise that installs dozens of direct pressure/air pocket water treatment systems that simply don't work. Technically, they might work, but you better have WM for Water Master stamped on your forehead. Their systems require too many adjustments and maintenance for the average homeowner to keep up with. I have been cutting them out for years. This dealer has been installing them for years. When you call him to fix the system, he then charges top dollar for the adjustments. At some point you can't afford either the cost or the hassle - (That is usually when we get to meet you - when you are good and mad! Lucky us.)
3. "The Non-profit Professional". This is a dealer that started out in the "Dumb Blond" category, and has taken his time, a lot of money, and has worked through the problems associated with making water treatment systems that actually work. This dealer has usually earned the equivalent of a masters degree by making dozens and dozens of 'free' trips to clients houses over a period of many years - for the privilege of making little to no profit.
Years ago, we started out in the "Dumb Blond" category and have long since moved up? to the status of the "Non-profit Professional". A major part of the problem with the water treatment industry is that suppliers only understand the basics of conventional wisdom about smelly water. There are three primary things that lead dealers into problems:
1. The Amount of Smell Varies in the Water: Almost ten years ago, we installed a direct pressure 'Provector' system made by 'Water Soft' on a brand new well. This equipment had an air injection venturi that used the air to oxidize the water in the long pipeline to the house. The oxidized H2s and Iron and Manganese in the water then went into the off-gas tank and then into a multimedia filter where the oxidized 'junk' was removed. It worked great since the water had a smell of less than 5 PPM. Six months later, we got a call saying that the system didn't work. Since we were still in our 'Dumb Blond' years, it took us three trips out to the client's house (50 miles away, of course) to figure out that the smell in the water was now testing at 12 PPM. This job was the first time that we used OZONE to cure the problem. How were we to know that the smell would increase in the water once the well began to be used. It turns out that this is a common problem. Of course, in all of the water treatment classes I've attended over the years, I don't recall ever hearing that this problem takes place. The end result is that we have to install heavy duty water treatment systems that will cure potential problems, while we compete against dealers that quote fixing the bare minimum, or lesser water problems. Good luck after a year.
2. Direct Pressure/Air Pocket Systems Don't Work: The national franchise crooks in our area, and others, use a chemical feed pump that injects chlorine in the incoming water line, or an air pocket system just after the pressure tank. This chlorinated smelly water feeds into a retention tank where the solids oxidize. (It makes the slick solids grow large enough for a filter to catch them IF there are HOURS of contact time) Then the chlorinated, barely oxidized, and still smelly water goes into one type of filter or another. (Sometimes its all in one tank..then your really in trouble...Again, good luck after a year) That filter catches the oxidized particulate. Great. Then the clean, still smelly water enters another filter - this time a carbon filter. All the books say a carbon filter will absorb bunches of smell. It does - for about thirty days. We don't care what the books say, what the formulas say, what our suppliers say, and especially what our competition says. They are all wrong about how much smell carbon - any type of carbon will remove. (We have experimented with cheap carbon all the way up to carbon that cost us $250 a cubic foot). NOTE: Air pocket systems will not kill bacteria, in fact in most cases they only make it worse. The slime assosiated with Sulfur or Iron bacteria will gum up and clog the filter bed. If you live in Silverado on the Brazos, south of Weatherford YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
3. Other Junk in the Water: Trying to remove the smell in the water is like getting into a fist fight with some guy - and then all his buddies jump in to help beat you up. The PH of the water cannot be low. The Hardness (liquid rock, to keep it simple) has either got to be low or be removed, and then, what about the sodium that often times is hiding under the smell and taste of H2s water? The Hardness traps the smelly gasses and generally gums up and blocks any oxidation process.(Unless Ozone is used) Only after the smell is removed, is the only time we will use carbon, generally just to polish the water giving you the taste your looking for. Ozone is the most powerful oxidizer on the planet that can be used in water.
At this point, you are probably reaching for the phone book to dial up your local realtor to sell your house that has the stinky well. In our area there is a prominent realtor that calls us to quote on providing water treatment systems for properties that he is involved with. He tells us that if he walks into a house and smells the nasty hydrogen sulfide gas, he automatically devalues the property $10,000 per $100,000 of initial value. . . Ouch!
If you sense that we have a little bit of an attitude about water treatment . . . We do. We started out in the pump business years ago and have found out the hard and expensive way that we couldn't get out of doing water treatment because of the integration of the pumping equipment, storage tanks, and the water treatment equipment. We spend 600% more time keeping up with water treatment trends and changes. We drive more miles on bid jobs that we never get due to the overall cost of our heavy duty water treatment systems. We get hammered by people that have spent all of their money with the 'Rip-of Dealers' and then want us to magically make their junk equipment work - for little or no additional cost. And then, after all of the time we we spend educating our clients, they expect the equipment to work forever with no cost of maintenance.
YOU CAN HAVE CLEAN, NON-SMELLING WATER, LONG TERM.
We have developed hard earned proprietary methods in conjunction with finding and testing equipment (some of it outside of the water treatment industry) that will deal with clearing and removing the smells - and we don't care how bad the water is. The costs start at about $2500 and go up to about $5800. We used to try and explain our systems in this forum, but we don't need to educate our competition anymore than we already have.
So don't let your dream property pass you by, we do have a reliable system for making great water.