Well water treatment system cost

[cookingqueen123]

I just bought a home on well and septic. The previous owners had a very expensive system, cholrinator, carbon filtration, water softner. I had the people that installed the system come and look at it today to teach me how to use it. It wasn't working correctly.

Everything seems to work with the exception of the carbon sand filter system. He gave me a price of $1500 to replace and install with an auto timer.

I know the system was around $5000 when they installed it. The place had been rented for the last year and it was obvious they did not maintain the system. I am lucky not more is wrong with it.

Is this a fair price? I know zero about these systems and would have no idea if I was being taken for a ride or not. Please advise.

 

[minniesfriend]

Take a look at this site.

http://www.waterboss.com/index.shtml

I have both a Water Boss softener and whole house filter installed, and they work great! Both have auto timers. I don't know what the units cost now as I've had them for 4-5 years, but I know I spent well under $1000 for both at the time that I purchased them. I contacted Water Boss and found a local dealer, and simply had him order them for me. My father-and-law and I installed them.

Assuming your filtration is whole house, you should be able to replace the filter you have with this one. The Water Boss filter contains a sand like media that filters the water. All you have to do is add more media each year. WaterBoss will sell you the media in 5 lb packages. Hope this helps!

 

[rock_doctor]

Why do you need it??? Is your well contaminated? You only need to chlorinate it if you are sucking in biological contaminants, such as you are getting waste from your septic or somebody elses.... The carbon filter system is to improve the taste or smell of the well water or to remove chemical contaminants. I would take a sample of your well water (before treatment) and have it tested for biological and chemical contaminants. If there are none, then you don't need this stuff. If it were me, i would start with a real water sample. Not the joke tests the water softener people do. The system may have been installed to give the previous owners "bottle water" quality water. If you do really need it and then determine what chemicals are in the water. A carbon bed, which is usually activated Anthracite Coal, may be able to be replaced with filters or maybe you can rebuild the system yourself. I would see if there is a water quality person in your area that does not sell water treatment systems and have him/her come and do an evaluation. Technically as a tax payer, upon request the EPA is supposed to come and take a look but that may take a decade....

 

[cookingqueen123]

There are really high levels of iron in the water. It's not contaminated per say, just really brown and very hard.

 

[mistysue]

Cost can vary wildly by what is in your water.
If you don't want to replace the $1500 system, you can use the softener salt that cuts down on rust and put in a small whole house carbon filter that you open up and replace the $20 tube every few months for about $200 installed. You can buy these anywhere and it will cut down on your water pressure, but ours hasn't cut it enough to be a problem. We have one of those and then filter our drinking water with an extra filter system. It might be worth looking into whether this is an option for you.

That said, if your water is really bad you do need to determine how you will treat it because deposits can ruin your appliances and cosmetically damage everything in your house that running water touches.