Hard water - need advice

[Addicting]

That's interesting. Not to disagree but I've never seen that before. Our softener system, several softeners and multiple water heaters, have been on septic for 20 years. It's a 2000 gallon tank and 600 feet of Infiltrator septic. Adding to that our soil is very clay like. It sounds like the leach field was undersized. An Infiltrator system adds %30 to a rock and pipe system.

I think it may be undersized, but meets the requirements of the county. I don’t think the previous owners did any maintenance and it didn’t have a filter. So some of the fines leached into the wells causing that black muck. I would say that is what plugged the bottom up but the grey sand completely encapsulated the whole system.

Now, it has an inline filter that we clean every couple years. Hopefully that along with monitoring the amount of salt we use will get us through our time there.

 

[Sheltowee]

Illegal to do where I live. Yeah, it's an incredibly stupid regulation

Can collect rainwater for outdoor use but, as you point out, is prohibited for drinking water or indoor household uses. CRS 37-96.5-103.

 

[Bonasababy]

Wouldn't too much salt partially settle out in a holding tank? And if it's dissolved, move just fine through the lines and into and out of the drainfield?

Never heard of that issue. Wonder if the substrate around the drainfield was not ideal....clay in the soil?

Thankfully we are on sand, and the new codes went overboard--three tank system then gets pumped uphill to the drainfield which is really big. Planted shorter rooted prairie stuff over all of it to keep tree roots out. Even with just the two of us though it looks like we need to pump it out every couple of years--was hoping it would last longer than that. Found a bad flapper in a downstairs toilet which was sending a lot more water down it for some months so wondering if fixing that might ease things.

 

[DentEater]

Rough. My buddy got a boil water notice. Have you tried any filters at all?

 

[buckbull]

The click bait title was not intended! I wish i was thinking about fishing. I do have a whole house filter. This is a hunting cabin i have permanently moved into. I use to have to replace the heating elements and anode around 3 years when I was only using water during the hunting season. my water line is 2 miles from the main delivery line and I'm the only one using water regularly on that 2 mile stretch. I'm at the very end of the line. Not sure if that has something to do with it. I just replaced the heating elements/anode again and they are less than 1 years old. All ate up. I didn't think about calling the water department for the number, I'll do that today and see if they have any recommendations for treatment. I still want to do my own testing as you guys pointed out, this really seems excessive.

 

[beagle001]

Just as a FYI if you get a softener and are on a septic be prepared to have issues. We only got 13 years out of our drain field before the salt plugged it. I don’t know how much salt the previous owner ran but our hardness isn’t bad. I go thru about 10-15 bags a year tops. That salt filled the pores of the soil and basically made it waterproof. The backup of water post septic tank was over 1200 gallons of water. That all had to get pumped out of the dry wells and drain field before we could do any excavation.

We ended up having to dig the entire drain field up and remove the sand and stone. Once backfilled with new stone 1’ below the salt line the system went back to draining fine.

Thanks for the nightmare fuel…

 

[Redmt]

But do you replace the anode rod as required? I'm guessing not...

I'm going to stand corrected here. There IS an anode. I was under the mistaken impression that an anode was for electric water heaters only. I have another anode on order for my propane heater. Ya learn something new everyday. Thanks for the information.

 

[Bob-WY]

Funny the solution to some water issues is to remove the annode rod

 

[Redmt]

Funny the solution to some water issues is to remove the annode rod

The anode rod does not cure any water problem. It is supposed to extend the life of the water heaters under some conditions.

 

[buckbull]

Good grief. Called the water department and the hardness is 29.6 gpg. 7.5gpg is considered hard, 10.5+ is very hard.

 

[huskyhunter]

In the country with well, and we have very hard water and lots of iron where we are at in central MN. I'm not sure if it helps with the hardness at all, but put in a whole house iron filter(looks kind of like a water softener) and that has seemed to make a big difference in the amount of water stains that we are seeing. We also have a water softener that is in line downstream of the iron filter.

 

[Nick87]

Thanks for the nightmare fuel…

No kidding.

 

[Addicting]

Thanks for the nightmare fuel…

Just wanted folks to know that salt has to go somewhere and it won’t solidify in your main tank. Most never give it a thought. I know I never did before I discovered what was happening. By that time it was too late to do anything else.