Virginia Beach Water Problems, Contaminants & Treatment Options

You've got some well water out there in Virginia Beach. Frequent things we experience out there are tannins, iron, different types of iron, hydrogen sulfide (sulfur), hard water, and pH issues. It can be kind of ruthless in certain places. If you're out there in the Pungo area, Princess Anne, or some of the deeper areas getting closer to the North Carolina line, everywhere can be a little bit different, but we experience a lot of the same things throughout these areas. A lot of times, you can get lucky with the pH.

Now, that pH, again, we'd like to see at least 6.2. Even 6.0, I'm okay with, but once you get below that, even 6.0 can be a little bit risky for getting other water treatment equipment to work. Again, these are supposed to be educational videos. I can't go into everything. In fact, if you're a competitor trying to learn some of these things, that would be great too because we come behind systems all the time. We are Lowe's water treatment experts as well. We have over 27 Lowe's where we're the exclusive water treatment dealer. We come behind the do-it-yourselfers as well. You can have everything lined up perfectly, but if that pH isn't right, the equipment isn't going to work, especially iron filters, water softeners, and even tannin systems.

So, pH has got to be fixed correctly.

Then we get into the hardness in the water. The hardness can be extreme in some places, and in some places it can be a little softer. I like to use the term "survivable." If you're watching this and you have water that you can't even imagine because you just bought a home, I use the term survivable. When I say survivable, I don't mean you have bacteria or something you're really stressing over that you need to target. I'm talking about iron specifically. Tannins can fall into this category too, but if we just stay with iron, if you have high iron, you are not removing it with a water softener. Yes, you can make it better, and it can seem like a miracle the next day when you put one in because it's trapping some of it. But when you have high iron in some of these areas, you've got to go after an iron removal system first before you start running it into a water softener.

That's a whole different video: can a water softener remove iron? Some of the places out here have extremely high iron, and then it's ferric iron, which is oxidized iron. You're not trapping that with a water softener anyway. You can take out some dissolved iron with a water softener, but when you get into ferric iron, you have no chance, and it will destroy everything after it. That includes your appliances and every piece of water treatment equipment that may have been properly installed after the iron filter.

Then you have tannins. Tannins are a different animal all by themselves. The order of the equipment is so important when you have tannins, hardness, and iron. Depending on how much hardness you have will determine where the tannin filter goes. Iron filters will not remove tannins. Chemical feeders will not remove tannins. Water softeners will not remove tannins.

If you're wondering what tannins are, hopefully you're finding our website and videos educational and not just a bunch of products being blasted at you over and over again. That's something you're going to want to look into a little more throughout our site.

Now, I will say this about tannins. You could have a sales rep come out and tell you that you have extremely high tannins. What does that mean? I say tannins are only a problem if they're a problem to you. Tannins can have a light tea-looking color. They can have no color. They can have a kind of foul, earthy smell—not the rotten egg sulfur smell we haven't talked about yet, and not the metallic rust smell you're going to get with iron.

You could have tannins and they not be an issue. They may not have a smell, they might not have a color, and they may not be bothering you. That's a whole different topic when you get into alkaline water, organics, and different things there.

Keep in mind, if you don't want to feel overwhelmed and you have a genuine interest in improving your water, we'd love to come out and do a test for you and see what it is that you need—and what you don't need. Sometimes that's really the important part when you get salespeople coming in. Don't pile up a bunch of equipment that you don't need.

One thing we're never going to do is put more equipment in your home than you actually need because every time you add a system, you add the head of the unit. I call these three extra leak points: the inlet, the outlet, and the head. There are a lot of things you can do in one tank, and you may not need two tanks. Before you know it, you get the right salesperson in there, you've got a family of water treatment systems, six tanks lined up, no water pressure, and something that's ready to leak every time you blink an eye.

Having the right analysis is really, really important.

Just to give you a little education on Virginia Beach well water, some of the things you're experiencing—I don't want to say they're typical—but in some of these areas it is pretty frequent to have iron, sulfur, hardness, and occasionally tannins. Of course, you could have a variation of all of these and not have every one of them, but they are pretty common.

We're experienced in dealing with it. If you want an expert, give us a call. We definitely have more videos if you'd like to do your research before talking with anyone. You can also request service through the website, and you can even auto-book your appointment.

Hopefully this helps, and thank you.