Water Quality from Filtration System

[mahjongguy]

Due to the city water supply restrictions in Pattaya, we have just started adding well water as needed. Being just 200 meters from the beach, the well water has a lot of something dissolved but I don't know how much is calcium and how much might be sodium. The TDS of the well water is 625. After passing through 10" tanks of charcoal and resin, the TDS is actually higher, around 665.

 

I'm not concerned at the moment about drinking water; I'll investigate that later if I can find a decent lab.

 

For now I just want to know, at that TDS level, how much risk is there to the faucets, the showers, the washing machine? This is a small house but none of those items were cheap and there's nothing fun about plumbing repair.  

[bankruatsteve]

A good quality faucet made from stainless steel, brass, pewter, or certain alloys can resist high mineral content reasonably well.  The strainer is an exception - I de-scale ours about every 6 months.  The cheap faucets and valves will corrode within 1-2 years.  I haven't seen any evidence of ill affects to PVC except where it will gum up ball valves and cause to stick.  A water softener will bring the TDS down to low level and more expensive ionizers can pretty much eliminate TDS.

[mahjongguy]

That's reassuring to hear.

 

This is the part I don't understand: the well water is going into the big 10" resin filter at TDS 625 and coming out at TDS 665.

 

What is the benefit of that filter stage? What is that resin doing for me?

[bankruatsteve]

7 minutes ago, mahjongguy said:

That's reassuring to hear.

 

This is the part I don't understand: the well water is going into the big 10" resin filter at TDS 625 and coming out at TDS 665.

 

What is the benefit of that filter stage? What is that resin doing for me?

Yah, that doesn't sound right at all.  How often do you regenerate?  I've never owned one so no experience here but I'm told that regular backflushing is important.

[mahjongguy]

We had the big filters installed a few months ago, in advance of the expected rationing here. Didn't start using them until now. Have only run about 2,000 liters so far. 

[bankruatsteve]

Again, I'm not much help with the larger filters other than what I have seen from others but that has no resemblance to the water softeners I have seen in the states.  ??

[Lacessit]

19 hours ago, bankruatsteve said:

A good quality faucet made from stainless steel, brass, pewter, or certain alloys can resist high mineral content reasonably well.  The strainer is an exception - I de-scale ours about every 6 months.  The cheap faucets and valves will corrode within 1-2 years.  I haven't seen any evidence of ill affects to PVC except where it will gum up ball valves and cause to stick.  A water softener will bring the TDS down to low level and more expensive ionizers can pretty much eliminate TDS.

A water softener does nothing to bring the TDS down. Sodium ions are substituted for calcium and magnesium ions. The benefit is derived from calcium and magnesium ions no longer interacting with the fatty acids in soaps, no more ring of soap scum in a bath or sink. Or deposition of calcium/carbonate/sulphate scale.

Deionizers are either reverse osmosis filters, or combined cation/anion ion exchange columns. As you say, both are expensive.

 

[Grusa]

On 5/18/2020 at 2:34 PM, beau thai said:

are the xiaomi type pen quality monitors (190bht) any good for at least checking ppm for drinking water??

Absolutely, yes.

 

Our mu baan water supply is from a borehole, supposedly filtered, stored in one of those steel mushroom towers, and distributed through 30year old pipework. It arrives at our house full of rust and sediment, and is as hard as nails. 

The monitor pen tests our incoming water at 600+ppm.

Water from Makro, 6litres various brands, measures anything from 30-60ppm out of the bottle.

Drinking Water from our RO filter is consistently 10ppm or less. The previous one, which went faulty and had to be replaced, used to give 12-13ppm.

Water from roadside coin-op RO dispensers, very variable, mostly you don't want to know and the green slime is a bit off-putting.

Our communal swimming pool runs at about 200ppm, but it's not a well kept system and frequently turns green. Our management is incapable of understanding basic pool chemistry!

 

The ppm monitor also measures water temperature, in this hot weather the incoming runs at 28C. One day it hit 32! That's hotter than the cool wash program in our washing machine!

[rwill]

I paid around 70K for my system. It only has 1 pump though.  That is with a auto backwash system.  It would be about 20K less with a manual system. I go through a 40 kilo bag of salt per month, 350 Baht.  Getting the filter media changed out costs around 7K.

[bankruatsteve]

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

A water softener does nothing to bring the TDS down.

Thanks for the correction.  I incorrectly associated lime scale with TDS.  I'm pretty sure softeners get rid of lime scale, yah?

[Lacessit]

5 hours ago, bankruatsteve said:

Thanks for the correction.  I incorrectly associated lime scale with TDS.  I'm pretty sure softeners get rid of lime scale, yah?

Yes, as I said by substituting sodium ions. Lime scale usually starts kicking in at 70 - 80 mg/L calcium ion concentration, a certainty above 100 mg/L

[grobec]

You might try

https://www.pwe.co.th