James "Cubby" Culbertson wrote:
"louie" wrote in message
ups.com...

My last home had a well with horrible sulphur and iron (as well as all
of the usual hard minerals). We installed a carbon filter much like
the 5600 you link to in series with a normal water softener. They
worked very well, however... you need to realize that you'll probably
need either chlorine or hydrogen peroxide to disinfect the carbon media
during the backflush. We ran for about a year before the carbon bed
clogged up with iron bacteria growth. The company that installed it
came back and added a small tank for peroxide and the backflush from
then on would sip some of the peroxide and kill bacteria while it
flushed the sediment from the filter. It required that we purchase
about 8 gallons of 7% peroxide every 6 months or so, but it was worth
it to avoid the rust stains and aweful smell of the water.

Do you have a sump pump? If so, you could easily discharge the
backflush water into the sump rather than the septic system to avoid
problems with chlorine or peroxide in the septic tank (also it's
probably not good to dump large amounts of fresh water into the septic
tank either).



No sump pump unfortunately. I am looking at running the washer's drain out
to a grey water system and I could tie the backflush water into that.
Thanks for the help!
cc



Not to mention that the 5600 wastewater has a good load of salt in it,
2-3 pounds is not uncommon for the amount of salt dissolved in a
backflush operation.

Water softeners and RO water purifier both produce somewhat concentrated
brine. So much so that many communities that rely on septic tanks have
BANNED water softener AND RO waste water from being connected to septic
tanks!!!!


A water softener with a peroxide/chloring flush is likely the only
meaningful solution. RO is a downstream polisher of the water softener
output, at least in the units sold for residential use.