Apex, NC Water Treatment & Water Filtration
Explore Apex municipal water quality, drinking-water filtration, whole-home treatment and private-well solutions from East Coast Water Quality.
Start With the Water Issue You Want to Solve
Apex homeowners may be looking for better-tasting drinking water, help with a specific municipal-water concern, or treatment for a private well. Choose the topic that best matches what you want to improve at home.
Water Quality Report
See where Apex water comes from, how it is treated and what the latest official report says about local drinking water.
View the Apex water report →Water Problems
Explore detected contaminants, disinfectants, taste or odor concerns and other household water questions.
Explore Apex water problems →Reverse Osmosis
Learn about highly filtered drinking and cooking water from a dedicated point-of-use system.
Explore reverse osmosis →Water Conditioners
Compare whole-home treatment for the water conditions and comfort goals you want to address throughout the house.
Explore water conditioners →PFAS Water Filters
Compare filtration options for homeowners who want additional protection against PFAS and other targeted contaminants.
Explore PFAS filtration →Well Water Treatment
Find treatment guidance for iron, sulfur odor, acidity, tannins, hardness and other private-well conditions.
Explore well-water treatment →Free Water Test
Learn what ECWQ checks during an in-home water evaluation and schedule a visit for your Apex home.
Schedule a free water test →All Water Systems
Compare East Coast Water Quality’s full lineup of whole-home and drinking-water systems.
View all products →Understanding Apex Municipal Water
Apex drinking water comes from B. Everett Jordan Lake and is treated at the jointly owned Cary/Apex Water Treatment Plant. The 2024 report describes a multiple-barrier process that includes activated carbon, ozonation, clarification, filtration, disinfection, pH adjustment and corrosion control.
The municipal report classifies Apex water as moderately soft, with an average hardness of about 1.9 grains per gallon. Private wells are different: iron, sulfur and other conditions can vary from property to property and require their own testing and treatment approach.
How to Treat Iron and Sulfur in North Carolina Well Water
Read Transcript
How to remove my sulfur or my iron in my North Carolina well water.
Guys, whether you're in Pasquotank County, across the Virginia line, Currituck County, we can keep going down the coast and come west. A lot of you are facing generally about the same thing in most well water. There are tannins and other things that you run into, and of course we could put out a long list.
This video is really targeting the sulfur and the iron, what to look for, and how to treat it. We'd always advise you, if you want a free consultation, give us a call. We can do a lot of things over the phone. Sometimes we do have to test in person to see whether this is oxidized iron, ferrous iron, or ferric iron.
Some of you guys, when you're moving into the home, they require you to have that well water test, and it's usually just a bacterial test. They don't care whether you can do a load of laundry or not. They just want to know if you have salmonella or E. coli. That's basically one of the main tests that you have to get done, even for refinances and things like that.
This video is just geared to point you in the right direction a little bit and to also give you a little bit of comfort that, as crazy as that water may seem, it may be coming out orange, all of it's treatable.
Water's water. It was at some point in a really nasty state whether you're on city water or well water. The city does a lot of the things that we're going to do here prior to them sending it through all the pipes and coming into people's homes.
With iron, there are two types: ferrous and ferric iron. You want to know whether or not this iron is oxidizing early or not, and then the level of iron. You can remove a little bit of iron, especially when you get into dissolved iron. Up to about two parts of iron is kind of a good number to be thinking about. I would stop trying to remove that with a water softener after that. It has to be dissolved iron.
We are the exclusive representative for over 25 to 27 Lowe's all the way down the coast, even getting west off the coast of North Carolina. We come behind people doing it themselves all the time. The associates, we love them in Lowe's and we love them in Home Depot and other places. They're doing their best with the knowledge they have, and sometimes they tell you, "Yeah, get this system here."
Especially for the sulfur, we were mainly talking about the iron to start off with, but that's a gas. You cannot take that out with a water softener. Yes, some things happen over the first two or three weeks, especially if you've got a carbon system or something. They'll help you for two or three weeks. Then you start to see those things get saturated, but that gas has to be oxidized out.
Back to the iron. If you're ever really over two parts of dissolved iron, I'd really be looking into an exclusive iron system. Behind me, you can see the Protector Series Iron Sulfur Breaker. It is a beast. It does oxidize and take out all of the iron, and we do a lifetime warranty on that equipment. It's a one-year labor warranty. Five years down the road, we couldn't stay in business if we couldn't get our labor covered if you had to have something done to it.
These machines will take out all the iron. Especially if you have any sulfur with that iron, we're straight going to that. It'll do both of those at the same time without using any salt.
It's not softening the water. That's a big difference. If we go back to taking out two parts or less of dissolved iron, you can do that with the water softener if it's not oxidized iron.
Again, we're only a phone call away. This doesn't have to be overwhelming, taking a bunch of crazy notes.
I will tell you, for the people that shop online and really go look at all the Chinese equipment on there that says Aqua this, H2O this, if their equipment was quality, they would have a dealer putting them in. As a water treatment company, I can just tell you, you can't stay in business if you're not using quality equipment because of the service costs when you have to honor those warranties and come back and come back and come back. Two or three calls and you took the profit out of your transaction already.
Using quality equipment is paramount when you're messing with iron. Iron ends up being like a tar or resin. It sticks to about everything it touches. Then it starts to accumulate on itself.
But ferric iron, if you have oxidized iron, let's just say that water's even slightly coming out orange, get water softener out of your vocabulary. You're going to have to go to an iron system that exclusively removes the iron before you ever run that into a water softener or anything else that you're going to try to filter out.
When you get into the iron, pH does need to be at least 6.0. One of the things, if you're chasing multiple problems, just know that you always have to take that iron out first. If you're chasing tannins, if you're chasing hardness, all of that equipment will be destroyed with iron if you don't remove it first.
In the spirit of trying to keep these videos short and sweet, we're going to close that out right there. Just keep in mind, with the sulfur, the Iron Sulfur Breaker here will take out all of that at one time. It doesn't use salt. In the most extreme circumstances, sometimes we have to upsize those.
We use these systems for irrigation as well. We'll go on these 20-foot irrigation wells in neighborhoods where they're staining their sidewalk, staining their house, and we'll use those systems to take that out as well.
Again, it's awesome because they don't use salt. I hope this video helps you guys out. Give us a call. Check out our videos. We have a ton of videos for all kinds of situations, especially with well water.
We try to make these videos educational, not blasting you with a product the entire time you're sitting here trying to learn something and having to close out screens and all that stuff.
Hope you enjoyed it. Any more questions, check us out or give us a call. Thanks.
What You'll Learn in This Video
- The difference between ferrous (dissolved) iron and ferric (oxidized) iron in North Carolina well water
- Why a water softener may handle small amounts of dissolved iron, but isn’t appropriate for higher levels or oxidized iron
- Why sulfur cannot be removed with a water softener and needs to be oxidized
- How an Iron Sulfur Breaker can remove both iron and sulfur without using salt
- Why pH needs to be at least 6.0 when treating iron with an iron removal system
- Why iron needs to be treated first before addressing other well-water problems such as tannins and hardness
Whole-Home Treatment and Drinking-Water Filtration
Whole-home conditioning, reverse osmosis and targeted PFAS filtration solve different problems. The right choice depends on whether you want to treat every faucet, improve drinking water at one location or address a specific contaminant concern.
Whole-Home TreatmentApex Water Conditioners
Improve water throughout the home with treatment selected for your household’s water conditions and comfort goals.
- Treats showers, sinks, laundry and appliances
- Whole-home treatment selected for the home
- Professional installation
Drinking-Water TreatmentApex Reverse Osmosis
Get highly filtered drinking and cooking water from a dedicated faucet, with refrigerator connection available where practical.
- Targets a broad range of dissolved contaminants
- Improves drinking-water taste and clarity
- Alternative to bottled water
Targeted FiltrationApex PFAS Water Filters
Apex’s 2024 report lists PFOA and PFOS as non-detects while reporting several other PFAS compounds in UCMR sampling. Homeowners who want additional treatment can compare whole-home and point-of-use options.
- Whole-home and point-of-use options
- Designed for targeted contaminant reduction
- System choice based on treatment goal
Well Water Requires Property-Specific Testing
The Town of Apex municipal report describes treated surface water from Jordan Lake. A private well is a separate water source, so its iron, sulfur, pH, tannins, hardness, sediment and other conditions need to be evaluated at the property.
If you are seeing orange staining or smelling a rotten-egg odor, the North Carolina well-water video above explains why the type and level of iron—and whether sulfur is present—matter when choosing treatment.
Municipal water and well water should not share one generic recommendation.
Apex municipal water is treated before distribution. Private-well treatment should be selected from the conditions found at the individual property.
Professional Water Treatment With Long-Term Support
Apex Service
Water-treatment consultation, installation and service for homeowners in Apex, North Carolina.
Professional Installation
Insured work performed under a Master Plumbing license for proper system placement and connection.
Ongoing Maintenance
Available service for reverse osmosis filters, sanitation and continued system performance.
What Homeowners Say
★★★★★“I love how the water feels and tastes now!”
Lisa — Wilmington, NC
★★★★★“This has greatly improved the quality of our water to our whole house & helped to make us feel better about moving to this area. It feels cleaner, us healthier, & less wiorried overall. Low maintenance & easy installation process.”
Kellyn — Hampstead, NC
★★★★★“Spaghetti sauce tastes better. Coffee tastes better. It's much easier to clean the shower. The dishes in the dishwasher are much cleaner.”
Mary — Kure Beach, NC
Apex Water Treatment Questions
Where does Apex drinking water come from?
Apex drinking water comes from B. Everett Jordan Lake in the Cape Fear River Basin. It is treated at the Cary/Apex Water Treatment Plant before being distributed to Town customers.
Is Apex water hard?
The Town’s 2024 report classifies Apex drinking water as moderately soft and gives an average hardness of about 1.9 grains per gallon.
Does Apex use chlorine or chloramines?
Yes. The treatment process uses chlorine for disinfection, and chlorine and ammonia are added separately to form chloramines before water enters distribution.
Were PFAS detected in the 2024 Apex water report?
The report lists PFOA and PFOS as non-detects in 2024 UCMR sampling. It reports detections for PFBA, PFHxA and PFPeA, while several other listed PFAS compounds were non-detects.
What is the best water treatment system for an Apex home?
It depends on your water source and goal. Reverse osmosis is a point-of-use option for highly filtered drinking water, while whole-home systems address water throughout the house. Private wells should be evaluated separately because conditions vary by property.
Do you treat private well water in Apex?
Yes. Private-well recommendations depend on the conditions found at the home, including whether iron is dissolved or oxidized, whether sulfur is present, and the water’s pH.
Find the Right Water Treatment System for Your Apex Home
Schedule an in-home water evaluation or explore the Apex water-treatment page that matches your concern.
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Hampton Roads VA / Northeast NC
3400 Airline Boulevard, Portsmouth VA 23701
757-966-7600
Jacksonville NC / Morehead City NC
2582 NC-24, Newport NC 28570
252-777-5151

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1026 Appleton Way NE #130, Leland, NC 28541
910-807-2300

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313F Highway 70 East, Garner, NC 27529
919-238-9900