Rust/Sand in well water-- PLEASE HELP!!!

[Bushwacker]

We live accross the road from a lake and our neighborhood has very high levels of iron according to our Culligan guy. In the past week our water softener has stopped working and there is sand/rust in our water. I have called a couple places and one is saying a new well($5500) and another is saying I need to have my well developed($550). Does this sound right, or will repairing my water softener take care off the problem? I had my softener repaired about 2 months ago for a couple $100's so I don't want to keep doing that if there is a bigger problem with the well that will keep ruining the softener. Anybody have any experience with this? This is my first house and my first time off of city water so this is all new to me. Thanks for any help.

[MILLER TIME]

I'm also in the same boat. Very rusty water and occasionally sandy (dirty). I was told depending on what kind of well it probably has a crack in the shaft, you can check that by using a mirror and reflecting light down the shaft or the pump is to low or the screen on the bottom of the pump is bad. Dont know for sure but i would like to know as well.

[backlash 1]

Not knowing the specs of the water, its hard to say. But for sure i'd say you should try a whole house sediment filter right after your presure tank, but before the softner. You're going to have to change the filter regularly.

If house water pressure has decreased, check the screen on the inlet side of the softner also.

[Borch]

Try installing a inline filter prior to your water softerner. It'll remove all the sand and the larger iron particles. I have lots of iron here in my water as well. I'm still on my first water softener which is old but still working. It does get plugged at times and I run Iron Out through the system and that generally does the job.

Good Luck with yours.

[sparcebag]

How deep is your well? How far down is your pump? If ya can pull the pump check the screen,maybe 2nd screen drop pump back down 10 ft.shallower than it is.may work if your pump is close to bottom it could be suckin sand.

[Borch]

Quote:

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How deep is your well? How far down is your pump? If ya can pull the pump check the screen,maybe 2nd screen drop pump back down 10 ft.shallower than it is.may work if your pump is close to bottom it could be suckin sand.

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Sometimes just a few inches makes a major difference. With mine 6" higher and a lot less of the iron sediment and sand. I went from needing to change my inline filter every two weeks to every 2 months. Who'd of thought 6" would make that kind of difference.

[B@ssmaster]

My father had similar symptoms this spring, occasionally getting sand in the water. He has an 80 something foot deep well, pump is suspended some distance down. Turns out that the bladder in the presure tank leaked and goofed up the pressure levels in the tank created by the running pump. This created a situation where the pump was cycling much more often than desired. This extra cycling caused added turbulance in the water column and was stirring up the sediment in the well shaft. This allowed the pump to suck in the sand, etc. A new tank (for around $100 I think) solved the problem. You might check into that in your case, just to be safe. And I agree with the other posts about adding a sediment filter, I was having softener clogging problems and the filter took care of the issues......

B@ssmaster

[Bushwacker]

I put in a whole house sediment fixture and had my water softener serviced and cleaned out. It seems to have solved the problem for now. There has been absolutely no sediment since, so I am crossing my fingers that this will do the trick, instead of a $7500 well! Thanks for all of your help!