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Water softeners. Lol. I'm moving into an old house and the water has left rust deposits everywhere there is water, i.e. shower, washing machine, dishwasher, sink. I've replaced all of these, but need to get a water softener to take out the iron. Question is, do I need a special kind of water softener, or will a salt-based one work ok for the rust? Anyone else on here have a house with a water softener who has had experience with needing to purchase one to remove iron? The water has been tested and it has about 8 PPM iron content.

The old fashioned type will do the job. If it can't quite keep up removing the Iron add in some Iron Out to the salt tank. I do it here at my home all the time.

I like the idea of a salt free water softener. After all lugging those bags of salt around is hard work and gets expensive over time. But, from my reading every single one of them does the process differently and may not be effective for your specific issue. Its a semi new technology and there are not any standards set that I know of.

Here is one Softener Pro's opinion http://www.uswatersystems.com/blog/2007/12/do-salt-free-water-softeners-really-work/

Our previous house was on well water with a lot of iron. IIRC there was a separate filter of some sort in additional to the water softener. What you need will likely depend on the amount and type of iron in the water (IIRC its oxidation state can vary depending on water pH, and the treatment methods differ).

For iron removal specifically, you could use a green sand filter and periodically regenerate it with a strong oxidizer. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that route unless your local expert believes that it is the best solution for the type of water in your area.

In an industrial application, I'm adding chlorine to well water to oxidize iron to the +3 state to precipitate Fe2O3 · x H2O ferric oxide hydrates (orange goo) that can then be filtered out with a sand filter before we use the water in a cooling tower. This is simpler/cheaper than green sand regeneration for our plant environment and it gets the iron levels low enough that the dispersant in the water treatment chemical can keep it in suspension so that it does not foul our heat exchangers.

A friend of mine is on a well and has both a water softener and an iron filter to deal with his water. I think you need an expert in to recommend the best solution for your water.

I got some history on the house. There is a salt-based water softener in the basement that is old and non-functional, but when it was used about 30 years ago it did the job. I will just install a new salt-based system and if it isn't enough I will install a solution that gets rid of the iron before it gets to the softener. My aunt and uncle had a water softener at their old house that burned up outside of Pocatello in a wildfire, and they also have one in their new house above the golf course. He said he only has to refill it with salt about every 4 months. The more I research this though, the more I realize how complicated water chemistry is. I wish I would have majored in environmental stuff in college. Given my passion for solving problems, I would have had a blast with this.

Yes, water chemistry is some crazy sh*t. Aside from minor tweaks to pH, it is the one aspect of beer brewing that I have mostly ignored, because it tends to make my brain hurt. Fortunately my tap water is pretty good for brewing as-is, other than the city putting a bunch of chlorine in it (easily removed with a carbon block filter).

So this question has ended up being kind of "techie" after all.

just brew it! wrote:

it is the one aspect of beer brewing that I have mostly ignored, because it tends to make my brain hurt. Fortunately my tap water is pretty good for brewing as-is, other than the city putting a bunch of chlorine in it (easily removed with a carbon block filter).

Local water works for me as well as it comes from a rather large (and deep) lake.

And yes, there's nothing non-techie about water chemistry. Back when my parents had an inground pool the chem testing kit was large and full of nasty reagents.

Captain Ned wrote:

And yes, there's nothing non-techie about water chemistry. Back when my parents had an inground pool the chem testing kit was large and full of nasty reagents.

The way to go today is to go with a "salt water" pool and run a tiny electrolytic cell to make your hypochlorite bleach in situ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_water_chlorination

I would strongly advise against the sodium bromide solution mentioned in that wikipedia article because bromate is a likely carcinogen.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I would strongly advise against the sodium bromide solution mentioned in that wikipedia article because bromate is a likely carcinogen.

Mom & Dad yanked the liner and turned the whole thing into a giant planter at least 20 years ago. Once they no longer had college-age kids home for the summer their desire for the pool ran into the fact that they had to do the maintenance.