Chesapeake Water Problems, Contaminants & Treatment Options

Guys, Chris here with East Coast Water Quality. Your question is, how do I get this iron out of my Chesapeake well water? Especially, guys, if you're around that Carolina line, North Carolina line, Chesapeake, Hickory, really a lot of the areas there on the outskirts, you probably notice that you have extremely high iron.

There's two types of iron really going to be looking at: ferrous iron, ferric iron, dissolved iron, or oxidized iron. And one of the things you do have as well, which we'll talk about real quickly here, is a lot of times you have the sulfur that runs with the water as well. But in a lot of parts of Chesapeake, it can really vary. A couple miles away, you could have even tannins. That's a different video, but really just talking and staying focused on the iron.

A key part to know: is it ferrous iron? Is it ferric iron? One thing you can really tell is, if you want to fill up a glass, let it sit for an hour or two and just see if it possibly turns orange at all. This is not a scientific test for you, but short version is, if it's oxidizing that fast, it's going to let us know whether we want to use a water softener or an oxidation system.

I will tell you, for us to treat your water, we're going to have to treat it right. We're not desperate for a sale. So, a lot of people run out here, go grab a water softener. We're also the exclusive water treatment dealer for over 25 Lowe's, and we come behind the do-it-yourselfers all the time putting a water softener on iron.

And whether it's ferrous or ferric, it needs to be a quality piece of equipment. And one of the big determining factors on whether you're going to put a water softener or use an exclusive iron system is how many parts of iron are in there. Because when you go to set a water softener, it can take out some dissolved iron. But then you just get to whether you're doing that responsibly or not.

Because if you're going to put a water softener on, let's just say three, five parts of iron, you're making that water softener work so hard because you're having to up those settings. You're going to have to put your regular hardness into the water softener, which is all it's designed to do, which is take out calcium, magnesium ions and trade those for sodium ions out of your brine tank. And that's fantastic. Has nothing to do with full-blown iron, especially in some of these areas that we're talking about there in Chesapeake.

You will take the life of that water softener, even if it's a high-quality piece of equipment like ours on our Protector Series line. We're not going to put those in unless we know that it's the proper amount because if you're making that water softener regenerate every single day or every two days even, that's just not what they're designed to do.

So really, when it comes down to the iron, if we're getting over a couple parts iron, we're always pushing into what's called an oxidation system. And our Iron Sulfur Breaker, which is what's behind me on the screen, is typically going to be our solution.

Now, sometimes we have to use an oversized Iron Sulfur Breaker. They can be geared more towards sulfur. They can be geared more towards the iron. But the number one thing it does, it takes out all that iron right out the gate before it ever runs into a water softener, before it goes into anything.

No matter what you're facing there, you could have sulfur, you could have tannins. For some companies that may be watching this, this is really educational for many, but the first thing you absolutely have to do is get the iron right. The iron has to be out.

Now, without getting too technical, the pH also has to be at least 6.0 as well for these iron breakers to work and sulfate systems and stuff like that. Not on the sulfur if it was exclusive sulfur. But for the iron, we do need to make sure the pH is right.

But if you don't remove that iron, it's going to tear up everything else that's in line as you go down. Depending on what you're facing, because you could start with iron, you could have tannins, you could have crazy hardness, but all that has to be treated first.

Really, the best way to treat these iron sulfur issues is going to be the Iron Breaker to take that out. If you have sulfur, I can just guarantee you this is going to be a separate video. If you have sulfur, we are absolutely, even if it's one part of iron or half a part of iron, we're going to go to our Iron Sulfur Breaker because there's no way to oxidize that gas without taking it out unless you're using chemicals, which one thing you'll notice here at East Coast, we're not going to use chemicals unless we absolutely have to.

The maintenance, the longevity of those chemical feeders and things like that, we stopped using them several years ago.

So, I hope this video helps a little bit. I'm sorry if you're facing that problem there. Chesapeake is beautiful. However, you get into the well water areas and a lot of you are facing this problem. Give us a call if you have any questions.