Is my well water normal?

[Steve973]

A hardness test strip came with my SpectraPure CSPDI 4-stage RODI unit. I tested my well water, and I got a reading of somewhere between 0 and 50 ppm, so we'll call it 25 ppm. We have some sediment and I installed a sediment filter, but that seems really low. The TDS meter is reading about 33 on the first line, and of course 0 at the output. Is this normal, or am I really lucky?

[Steve973]

Ok, well that's embarrassing. I just read the manual and it explains just about everything. I'm well within the limits of using the more-restrictive (green) waste restrictor tube to run the unit at 2:1. I'm pretty surprised that the TDS of our tap water is 33!

[jedimasterben]

33? Damn! Mine is ~320 and hard as rock.

[Muddy Waters]

I'm curious what my water will come out to be ( once I get the test kits that is ) . only thing I know so far is my "city" water had a nitrate reading of 10 and 1.5 on iron i believe it was.

 

must investigate this "green restricter tube" I thought all rodi units operate on a 4 to one ratio. so this is intriguing.

[AZDesertRat]

Do you have a handheld TDS meter or an inline? Most inlines are installed with the IN probe after the RO membrane and the OUT probe after the DI so they are not reading tap water TDS.

The handheld can be used anywhere so can test tap, RO only and RO/DI.

25 ppm is very soft water for most wells, thats less than two grains hardness.

 

What is your water pressure, this is another important factor when setting up a RO/DI system?

[Steve973]

I have a 3-line TDS meter. It checks incoming tap water, after the RO membrane, and after DI. The readings, respectively are around 33, 6, and 0. The hardness strip read very, very low. It was close to zero. The pH is a bit low at about 5.9, though. Our well pressure tank is set to 60psi.

[AZDesertRat]

You are one lucky person! The pH is a little low but the TDS and hardness are amazing.

 

I am surprised the pressure switch is set at 60, usually they are much lower since it makes the system cycle more often to maintain that pressure when most fixtures and applicances don't need that much.

 

Can you bottle up a few thousand gallons of that and send it to me.

[Steve973]

Well tanks are typically set at 40/20, 50/30, or 60/40. It's usually a pressure differential of 20 psi. Do you think that makes it cycle more? I don't really know, but it doesn't seem like it would.

[AZDesertRat]

Yes, it does. At higher pressures you compress the air bladder in the captive air tank more.

I used to drill wells and install pumps for a living and we rarely set the pressure switch any higher than necessary to match the fixtures in the dwelling. Pumps and labor to round trip them get expensive.

[Steve973]

When you adjusted the pressure tanks, did you fill the air bladders to a certain PSI? My tank has a diaphragm, which is a bit different than the bladder design, and the instructions indicate to keep the pressure to 2-3 PSI under the pressure that it cuts on. So for a setting of 40/20, the air pressure would be at around 18 psi. At 60/40, the air pressure would be set to around 38 PSI. That should keep the compression similar, I'd think.

[GHill762]

our well water varies from around 400 to around 550 depending on how much rain we've had.. 33 is phenominal.. that's lower than local city water (but the city water is disgusting, it's yellow and usually either tastes like chemicals or dirt..), pretty amazing that our ~400 TDS well water is clearer and tastes better than city water that is <50 TDS..