I'm experiencing recurrent problems with my hot water being rusty. The cold water is fine. We have a well which gives us water with low pH (5.5) and lots of iron (9.17 mg/l) and manganese (6.5 mg/l). So for treatment we have a greensand filter with the pH being raised using a soda ash solution. We also have a 5 micron sediment filter after the greensand filter. The well itself is quite full of bacteria (iron/manganese), though there is no evidence that the bacteria is a problem in the house (i.e. no slime buildup in the toilet tank). The well is just over 6 yrs old.
I am new to having to deal with well water, we've just moved into this house 6 months ago. The previous owners did not leave behind any information regarding the water treatment system (there are no manuals).
All I know about how to maintain this is from asking questions of the people who installed the treatment equipment. However, getting detailed information from them is difficult. And most of our learning experience has been from screwing up and then having them come fix the problem.
With regards to the rusty hot water, whenever it started to happen I was usually able to fix the problem by replacing the sediment filter which seems to be clogged with iron after about 2-4 weeks. However, I have just changed the filter and the water is still just as bad.
I don't know if the problem may be because we had a well driller come look at our well, last week (before I changed the filter). They put a camera down the well which is how we know the well is full of bacteria. Running the camera down the well looks like it would have disturbed the existing bacteria. Could this cause problems like we now see?
The post treatment pH of the water does seem to be in the range of
7-7.5. I don't have any numbers on how well the treatment system is reducing the iron and managanese. Any thoughts, suggestions would be greatly appreciatedThanks, Mike