Salt In Well Water

naturenut

I have a friend who has had multiple problems with his well, in a house in the construction stage. He just had another quick test done and had about 400mg/l of what they think is salt, the others tests aren't completed yet. The test done was a quick analysis done for particles of multiple things, I am not very knowledable on wells. If it is salt I was wondering if anyone here knows any solutions for treatment.

Teetorbilt

Take samples and have them sent to at least 3 independent labs, not local.

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You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

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AAPaint

I spent about 1 1/2 years in the water filtration industry some time ago. I chemically regenerated the polymer resins used to filter water in industrial applications. The test they did on site was most likely just a disolved solids (which are sometimes called salts) test which tells them how many parts per million of contaminants are in the water. Once it is tested a good water technician should be able to tell you exactly what type of filtration you need for good clean water.

One thing is for sure. If the water has a lot of sodium (table salt) in it, a water softener won't be the solution. All water softeners do is replace things like calcium and magnesium with sodium ions.

Water filtration technology is some crazy stuff. Who woulda thought little plastic beads soaked in hydrocholoric acid and caustic soda would give you clean water?

Anyway, I would think he will need a multi-stage system to give him DRINKABLE water. I hate well water! The first thing would be a UV filter to kill any bacteria. Then an R/O (reverse osmosis) filter, which could then be followed by a softener and/or go to a DI (de-ionizing) filter.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

NHCharger

I have sodium, which is basically salt, in my well. I'm about 4 times over the recommended limit. I installed a reverse osmosis system for the drinking water. It fits under the kitchen sink and can process 25 gallons a day. Enough for drinking and cooking.

AA, you can type alot faster than me. As far as bacteria we alway chorinate and flush the well to kill any bacteria. it is a good idea to test your well every 2 years for bacteria.
I also have a water softener and de-ironizing filter for my entire house. The R/O system can not handle an entire house which is why I have it under the kitchen sink.

Teetorbilt

If you want to get really technical; I grew up in the Bahamas where rain water was guided into cisterns under the house. This WAS water!

I realise today that it contained all airborn residues + bird crap + dead lizards and anything else that worked its way into this simple system. Guess what? I may be all the tougher for it, antibodies and such.

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

JustaFramer

yeah all that anti bacteria stuff is for pussies.

AAPaint

Keep in mind, I was talking of a seriously beefy water cleaning monster system like we had in our plant. Except, we had vessels that held 60 cubic yards of resins each.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

747

Water filtration technology is some crazy stuff. Who woulda thought little plastic beads soaked in hydrocholoric acid and caustic soda would give you clean water?

Wow caustic soda. You have to be cool working with that stuff. If its the caustic i'm thinking of. Its some STRONG stuff. In a diluted concentration its used to clean pipes in the manufacturing and liquid products....Example cool aid going from mixer to machine through pipes into bloc where it gets put into the little square cardboard drinking boxes. Had a friend who did many years ago. He got some caustic on his arm. It burned it.

AAPaint

Yup. Sodium chloride. It's nasty stuff. I've had it all over me before, but we had safety showers for just such occasions. I was hooking detaching one of the caustic feed lines from a resin vessel on a trailer that I didn't know still held a small amount of backpressure and of course a little caustic soda from the regen process. It blew up all over my head, face, neck etc and soaked me with about 5 gallons of water in an instant. The next instant I was butt naked running for the shower! I didn't get any wounds from it, but it sure hurt like hell. Caustic reacts with your skin's own moisture and burns worse than most anything.

We had the caustic, hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid. I could tell you many stories about those chemicals.....I've been burnt by all of em, and none are pleasant, each affects in a different way too.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Teetorbilt

AA, Sodium Chloride (NaCl) is table salt. I believe that you are refering to Sodium Hypochlorite (NaOCl) which is used in the treatment of water and wastewater. Commonly diluted to 10%, it has a Ph of 11, making it bad juju.

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

AAPaint

Oops. See how long it's been?

What I meant was actually NaOH!! Sodium HYDROXIDE!! Here's a cool bit about it. The NaOH is used to regenerate the anion resin which then replaces weak acids with a hydroxide atom. The cation resin which is recharged with hydrochloric acid exchanges hydrogen atoms for positively charged ions in the water. What you end up with is pure H2O in place of the contaminants.

The anions come in strong and weak base, and the cations can be charged with a brine (salt) solution and used as a water softener! There are many variations of systems too. Some may have separate anion and cation beds as well as mixed (anion/cation) beds. Usually 60% cations and 40% anions. Some may just have the mixed bed by itself.

We used to filter water for the electric company to use in their turbines. For them silica (sand) was a big concern. The silica turns into glass when it passes through the turbines spinning at 50,000rpm and can shatter the blades. We had tractor trailers full of huge steel vessels of resin (looked like little submarines turned on end) that we sent out regularly to keep their 10 million gallon tanks full of fresh DI water. At one site, we actually hooked directly up to river water and filtered that to stuff with 0-10ppm and less than 10ppm of silica.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.