In 2014, we moved into our house. We knew there was a small water filtration system on the kitchen sink so that our drinking water was cleaner, but we did not think too much of it until we started living there.
The house water that comes from our shared 200+ foot well contains chloroform and has a sulfur smell. Before we bought the house, the previous owner shocked the well twice to lower the level of chloroform. This was a requirement before the house could be sold. When that didn’t work, a UV light and yarn filter were installed. The UV light kills the chloroform, and the yarn filter picks up sediment. Nothing was installed to eliminate the sulfur smell. The water wasn’t particularly harmful to drink, but chloroform at certain levels isn’t good, and sulfur odor/taste just plain stinks. We began to leave pitchers of clean drinking water on the counters in the bathrooms for ourselves and for guests to drink from. After a shower, the bathroom would smell like sulfur.
Shortly after we moved in, water pressure was seriously reduced, and we discovered that we didn’t have a maintenance plan for the well house, the UV light and yarn filter that was clogged up. The well is shared by three houses and produces a lot of water that passes by the UV light and yarn filter. The yarn filter was removed entirely to help with pressure which just left the UV light to kill the chloroform (when changed out regularly). One issue is that with so much sediment passing by the UV light, it becomes ineffective.
We impatiently dealt with it for about a year and then finally installed a whole house filtration system. This required us to locate the main water line entering the house. The previous owner of 8 years never knew where it was, so there was no way to even shut the water off to the house. After digging up the front yard in multiple locations, we found it. We completely rebuilt the water line system to separate house water from farm/outdoor water. We installed several valves, backflow preventers and even installed a front-yard sprinkler system while we were at it. We rerouted the main house line to the hangar where we had room to install it. The system includes a yarn filter for sediment, a carbon filter tank for the sulfur smell, and a UV light for the chloroform. After installing this system, it changed our lives for the better!
Now, everybody can take showers without the smell, drink water from any location, our clothes smell better, and our toilets aren’t stained brown all of the time. Looking back, we wish we would have done it sooner. As for the other two homes on the well, they have been dealing with an inadequately maintained light-weight filtration system for the past 5 years and non-treated water for 40 years before that. We were unwilling to live like this shortly after buying the house, so how other people can just put up with it rather than coming up with a solution is shocking. Like other issues on the farm and in life, we had a problem and solved it. Life is good!
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