Bad Water

[stuandchris]

Hi

I hope some of the construction whizz kids can help me.

I had my house built a year ago and it has a well, however the water was very poor, brown and very tinny. I live in Phuket which is rich in metal elemants in the soil.

After various attempts I installed an outside water filter [mazumo, looks like a tin rocket] This was filled with carbon and seemed to help. It wasn't perfect but at least it was clear and didn't smell.

After 6 months the problem began to re-appear , I replaced the carbon and added an extra because of manganese.

It has gone a bit better but if you boil the water it turns brown, the washing machine has gone brown and stains the clothes as well but the water out of the tap looks ok at first, slight smell though.

Can you suggest any solutions, would additional filter help, dig the well deeper? It is 10 metres at the moment.

I don't know if this makes a difference but it hasn't rained for a couple of months now so the water table has dropped.

Many thanks in advance,

Stuart

[Crossy]

It sounds like you have iron and/or manganese in your water, not directly harmful but as you note unpleasant.

Thess sites http://www.water-research.net/iron.htm and http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension...wqwm/he394.html suggest that an ion-exchange water softener may do the trick if you've not got too much. Does your 'rocket' have a softener (resin) stack? If it does it's probably exhausted and needs new resin (easily obtained).

If you don't have a softener stack you may score by mixing ion exchange resin with your carbon in the single stack, both are cheap

Edited February 20, 2008 by Crossy

[monty]

Replace your filter media with birm.

Available in Thailand, bought it before in one of those shops manufacturing water filters, 10 kg bags.

Birm is specifically used to filter out iron and manganese. Birm itself cannot absorb dissolved iron, but it acts as a reagent oxidizing the dissolved iron, which makes it then possible to get trapped in the filter media.

Same operation as a normal filter, backwash at regular intervals.

More info: http://www.rmmanufacturing.com/cmpnt_pgs/Media/birm.htm

[chownah]

Check to see if anyone around there uses a slow sand filter....this would probably be a tank made from stacked concrete rings and is usually about 3 metres tall...it has a sand bed in the top part which acts as a bioactive filtering media. I have one and it removes the smell 100% and removes iron too. It might not work for your water I suppose....I don't know...it works great for us and water that comes out of the ground with a noticeably disagreeable odor gets cleaned so that it has no odor at all and is pleasant to drink....your results may vary....that's why I suggest to ask around to see if any of the locals know about it. If you do a forum search for "slow sand filter" you will hopefully find some places where I have described and discussed mine.

Chownah

[stuandchris]

Gee thanks kids.

Do you know where Birm can be obtained, we have the normal outlets here but I am shy and don't really want to go Thai places and ask for Birm without looking a total dick !