Spring water - domestic treatment plants

[RogerS]

Does anyone have any experience of this? Costs? Issues? Problems ?

TIA

 

[stevep]

I doubt very much that you will get anything straight off the shelf which will 'cure all', although there are probably companies who claim to sell it ! There are many different contaminants which could possibly be in the water source. The plant would need to be tailored around these, you would need a proper analysis carried out to determine what exactly is present and needs removing. Feel free to pm me if you would like more information.

 

[adidat]

a friend of mine showed me a well in his front drive, just covered with a train cover. lovely thing made of of hand cut stones! curiosity got the better of me and I put a hammer on a string down to see how deep it was and it was 6m! still has all the pump in place when it was once used as a source of water!

adidat

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A friend had a smallholding in 1976 that was off mains with its own well. He was delighted he had his own supply when the standpipes were brought in up til one morning South West Water turned up with a huge tanker and drained it dry - they still had rights over it.

 

[Harbo]

Sorry I cannot help Roger but as a youngster we used to drink well water and unpasteurised milk etc straight from the farm.

Those were the days?

Rod

 

[graduate_owner]

We had a bore hole dug about 10 years ago. It is 50m deep and at that depth there is likely to be excessive amounts of group 4 metals(?) especially iron and manganese. The installer fitted a Crystalrite system to remove these impurities, followed by a filter and then a U V tube. We later fitted a pH correction unit. Our flow was not enough for a direct bore hole to house system, so we have a large storage tank fed by the bore hole pump, then the treatment bits, then another pump to provide pressure, via a pressure vessel. The pressure vessel holds a couple of gallons of water under pressure, so the pressure pump doesn't have to keep switching on and off so prolonging it's life.
The whole lot cost about £6500 inc VAT. We had the water tested by our local authority and it met all required standards. It tastes good too, no chlorine etc.

Now for your situation - obviously you don't need the work or expense of drilling the bore hole or buying the bore hole pump. The Crystalrite will remove dissolved impurities, if there are any. That bit was about £500 or so if I remember correctly, but not sure.The filter will remove particulate impurities, and that was relatively cheap. The UV cost a few hundred and is essential because it will sterilise the water. It doesn't kill all the bugs but it does prevent them from reproducing. The storagd tank was a few hundred too.

We have it serviced annually, which involves testing the Crystalrite, changing tye UV lamp and filter etc. That costs us about £160. We also need to add salt to the system. The Crystalrite automatically backwashes every 7-8 days wnd the salt has something to do with regeneration of the filtering medium. This is ordinary water softener salt and costs us about £100 a year.

I would think in your situation the solution might be a storage tank, for guaranteed supply of water. A filter and UV set up, and a pressurising pump and pressure vessel. At a guess I would estimate something like just under £1000. Add on a few hundred for pH correction if your water is acid? Acid water attacks your plumhing, it dissolves the solder joints first ( so I'm told) but in our case if dissolved the galvanised base of the immersion heater, then the element itself, and made pinholes in the copper cylinder - that was before the bore hole, when we had quite aggressively acid spring water.

I hope this essay has been helptul. Do ask if you need further information.

K

Edit - problems. Pressure pump failed under guarantee, replaced foc. Water tank is in small shed which had to be well insulated against freezing. Crystalrite etc is in an adjacent small shed, again insulated. For winter protection I installed an electric thermostatic heater in both sheds - just in case. Cost about £20 each. No other problems so far. If we get a serious freeze up plus an electricity cut we could have issues, but I could then use a paraffin or lpg heater.

K

 

[whiskywill]

The Crystalrite automatically backwashes every 7-8 days wnd the salt has something to do with regeneration of the filtering medium.

I work in water purification and was not familiar with Crystalrite but now know that it is an inert polymer coated with titanium oxide which adsorbs the inorganic compounds such as iron , lead etc., onto its surface. The salt is used to regenerate the saturated "resin" by eluting (loosening) the collected inorganic compounds from the surface of the polymer beads and sending them down the drain.

Why did you need to add a pH correction unit? I came across a reference claiming that Crystalrite raises the pH level to 7, which is neutral, but also removes lime from the water. This sounds contradictory to me.

Iron can similarly be removed by using a manganese dioxide and sand combination but salt is not used for regeneration. The filter is backwashed to remove the build up of iron on the media.

 

[graduate_owner]

Hi Whiskywil,
You probably know far more than I do about all this, I'm repeating what the installers said (and perhaps not repeating it with full accuracy). However after installing the system we were still getting the tell-tale blue staining in the bath although not as bad as with the spring water. The maintenance man tested the water and found it was still slightly acidic and suggested adding the pH correction unit, so we did. No more blue staining and the water pH level is now fine.

K

 

[Beau]

Yes we are on a spring. We just have a coarse filter and lime cylinder as our water would otherwise be very acid. Very easy to add a finer filter but it slows the flow so need reasonable water presure or a presure set. Easy DIY job including storage tank and presure set for around £500 but this was around 7 years ago.

 

[RogerS]

What an amazing forum ! So many excellent and informative replies. Many, many thanks to all =D>

 

[RogerS]

Yes we are on a spring. We just have a coarse filter and lime cylinder as our water would otherwise be very acid. Very easy to add a finer filter but it slows the flow so need reasonable water presure or a presure set. Easy DIY job including storage tank and presure set for around £500 but this was around 7 years ago.

What happens when the spring runs dry ?

 

[Beau]

Yes we are on a spring. We just have a coarse filter and lime cylinder as our water would otherwise be very acid. Very easy to add a finer filter but it slows the flow so need reasonable water presure or a presure set. Easy DIY job including storage tank and presure set for around £500 but this was around 7 years ago.

What happens when the spring runs dry ?

It's only done that once in 40 years and that was 1976. Even then a dribble would come through at night. We also have a well that is not normally used but in 76 we used it's water for everything but drinking.

 

[graduate_owner]

That's where a storage tank comes in handy. Ours stores about a cubic metre of water. Of course if your spring runs dry then so will the tank in a few days, but you can fit a float valve to cut the power to the pump so it won't run dry and get damaged.

K

 

[No skills]

Some of this sounds quite complicated, are RO filters not used for drinking water anymore?

 

[RogerS]

That's where a storage tank comes in handy. Ours stores about a cubic metre of water. Of course if your spring runs dry then so will the tank in a few days, but you can fit a float valve to cut the power to the pump so it won't run dry and get damaged.

K

Can you fit a whole-house pump to these systems ?

 

[graduate_owner]

Yes Roger, our bore hole / storage tank system feeds the whole house with plenty of flow and pressure. The pressure vessel was a worthwhile extra, now the pump doesn't have to keep starting and stopping anywhere near as often.
Also, we don't pay water rates, but with maintenance charges, salt, emptying of septic tank, electricity costs etc (eventual replacement of kit??) I'm nit sure we gain financially. As I said though, the water tastes really nice.

K

 

[Beau]

Yes Roger, our bore hole / storage tank system feeds the whole house with plenty of flow and pressure. The pressure vessel was a worthwhile extra, now the pump doesn't have to keep starting and stopping anywhere near as often.
Also, we don't pay water rates, but with maintenance charges, salt, emptying of septic tank, electricity costs etc (eventual replacement of kit??) I'm nit sure we gain financially. As I said though, the water tastes really nice.

K

You don't think you save financially?

I am sure we do. Water rates in the South West I think around a £1000 per year. That's one hell of lot of kit, electric, lime, salt and almost anything else. Doubt we have spent a £1000 in total on our system in 7 years but I do all the maintenance.

 

[Beau]

That's where a storage tank comes in handy. Ours stores about a cubic metre of water. Of course if your spring runs dry then so will the tank in a few days, but you can fit a float valve to cut the power to the pump so it won't run dry and get damaged.

K

Can you fit a whole-house pump to these systems ?

Yes very easily and very little more cost than a one good shower pump.

The way our system works is the water comes through the lime cylinder to start with. This has a diverter so you can adjust PH. The water then goes into a storage tank. The advantage of having the storage after PH correction is it evens out any goffers of lime you might get from water sitting overnight in the lime cylinder. Then we have the pump and presure set which came together. The pump pushes the water through the filter and on to the of the house. Fitting a pump requires a storage tank as generally a spring supply wont have the flow to keep up with the pump when it's running. The neighbours on the same supply just have a filter and PH correction and rely on the head from the spring for presure. Less presure but cheap.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes Roger, our bore hole / storage tank system feeds the whole house with plenty of flow and pressure. The pressure vessel was a worthwhile extra, now the pump doesn't have to keep starting and stopping anywhere near as often.
Also, we don't pay water rates, but with maintenance charges, salt, emptying of septic tank, electricity costs etc (eventual replacement of kit??) I'm nit sure we gain financially. As I said though, the water tastes really nice.

K

You don't think you save financially?

I am sure we do. Water rates in the South West I think around a £1000 per year. That's one hell of lot of kit, electric, lime, salt and almost anything else. Doubt we have spent a £1000 in total on our system in 7 years but I do all the maintenance.

Yes, ours is metered and we don't waste (two adults , one child), water the garden or (he spits ) wash cars. It's about £850 p. a. - in our old house three years ago it was rated, and about £1250.

 

[graduate_owner]

Well, ( no pun intended) I didn't realise water rates were so expensive, as we haven't paid any for over 20 years. I had a relative who opted for a water meter and I seem to remember she was very pleased with how reasonable her bill had become, although she did live on her own and was very frugal with her water usage. I certainly don't call £1000 reasonable though.


K