Why Most Iron Filters Don't Work... And Never Will

Why do so many rural homeowners have problems with iron?  Iron is very common, especially in this part of Alberta.  Iron causes staining at as little as 0.3 parts per million (ppm) concentration.  That's like taking the total population of the provinces of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, lumping them together, and choosing 3 people to represent "iron" - that is 0.3 people per million -> It doesn't take a lot!

Common complaints vary.  It's typical to hear people talk about staining of appliances, especially where water lands or collects.  Toilet bowls, sinks, bathtubs, and showers are common areas where iron staining can be found.  If you look in the back of a toilet, under the cover where the water comes in from the house, that area can collect iron staining, rust and sediment on the bottom, as well as showing algae and bacterial growth if either are present in the water.  Another area of complaint is odour - very similar to having sulphur in water, iron can cause a "rotten egg" odour.  Laundry problems are also commonly reported.  Whites turn pink or sometimes get reddish/rust-coloured streaks on them.

All these symptoms are common from iron contamination.  There are multiple ways iron can be treated and if you listen to the radio, you'll hear different companies bragging about having their own "patented solutions" for it.  One local company even goes so far as to say their's is the only solution designed for iron; that they can remove up to 25 parts per million of iron and that anyone that decides on a different method of treatment is basically foolish...  I wish we had their marketing dollars (maybe if we charged what they do for their systems, we could compete with their media coverage.)

Unfortunately, what these "patented" systems and most other solutions don't tell you is that they can only remove up to about 80% of iron in the water.  It's true their system can remove a LOT of iron, but it never removes all of it.  As a homeowner, this is where the BIG DISCONNECT happens.  These systems are usually purchased to get rid of the PROBLEMS iron causes.  These problems, as I have stated, start at as little as 0.3 ppm iron in the house.  I have seen many many many installations of this patented system and we constantly get called out to troubleshoot why the homeowner still has staining.

If you've ever heard the phrase, "if your only tool is a hammer, everyone looks like a nail," you can understand why the problems occur.  Most iron filters, "uniquely patented" or otherwise, really only can remove about 80% of iron.  So if the customer has (almost unheard of) iron levels of 20 parts per million, these systems will remove 80% of that, taking the level down to 4 parts per million - WELL above the levels that staining happens.  I have seen customers with iron levels of 1.6 ppm with these systems.  Take 80% away and you STILL have higher than 0.3 ppm iron levels in the home.  These people STILL have iron staining.  Calling their installers for support only leads to hearing that their levels are "so high" that "some staining is normal" and just part of rural living.  (ie. sorry, we're keeping your money and you still need to scrub out the stains.)

At best, these types of iron filters should be used as PRE filters for other systems.  One thing that you, as a homeowner should specifically ask, is, "Can you guarantee me NO MORE IRON STAINING?"  If they say no, or won't put it in writing, RUN AWAY.

When treating iron, the systems we like to use are warrantied for 25 years, including the iron removal media.  We can guarantee you that, for the life of the system, you'll not only have NO iron staining, but also no hardness (which, in this area, is dissolved limestone rock) that causes other problems with laundry, cleaning and damages appliances.

Living on well water doesn't have to be difficult, it doesn't have to mean cleaning up calcium and iron stains, and it doesn't require some hyped-up marketing for some patented system.  What it means is getting a proper water analysis done, determining a solution appropriate for your water's chemistry and installing something that you can trust and don't need to think about as a homeowner.

There is a TON of information available, as a home owner, do your due diligence, ask good questions and when you get answers, GET THEM IN WRITING!  Make sure you and the installer of your equipment are both on the same page.  Removing 80% of iron is not going to get you the results you were looking for when you contacted your water treatment professional.  Make sure you are brutally clear - tell the company you are working with what problems you want solved and make sure the solution meets your needs!

Is there Lead in my Water???

Many people have heard about lead being in their water - especially those drinking tap water.  I'm often asked if it's there - unfortunately, the answer is YES.  Health Canada sets guidelines for contaminants and they determine the levels which their experts feel these contaminants will pose a risk to the health of Canadians.  Lead is one of the contaminants tested and while lead has been constantly found in the water, it is monitored so that it is delivered at what is thought to be a 'safe' limit.

The limits for contaminants like lead are reviewed, usually every year, and can be revised as necessary.  Usually, the limits of what is considered to be "safe" are raised from time to time.  I'm not entirely sure why that is, other than by calling higher limits "safe" they are less expensive to maintain...  One thing that has recently increased the levels of lead in drinking water is the switch from chlorine to "chloramine" as the disinfecting agent for municipal or "city" water.

Edmonton, among many other municipalities, switched to chloramine a few years ago.  It has longer "staying power" in the water, so although it is not as strong a disinfectant as chlorine, less is required to ensure delivery to the people receiving water at the "end of the line," ie. the people furthest away from the treatment facility.  Chloramine is toxic to fish - just ask anyone that sells aquariums.  Although it kills fish, this mixture of chlorine and ammonia we call chloramine is considered safe for human consumption.

Before this switch, if you wanted to remove the taste of chlorine from the water, you could simply pour tap water into a jug and let it sit overnight.  The chlorine would evaporate and you'd be left with better-tasting water.  As a kid, I used to do this all the time.  (I guess even at the age of 10 I had concerns about water quality!  -I used to call it "mountain water" because it tasted similar to the water we used to stop for on trips to Banff...)  Leaving the water to sit works with chlorine because chlorine is technically a gas trapped in the water.  Leaving it out allows it to dissipate and leave the water (into the air in your home, but that's a topic for another discussion...)  Now that chloramine is being used, leaving tap water out no longer removes it.  If you have fish, you MUST purchase a filtration system or use special tablets which consume and react with the chloramine.

The main drawback of chloramine, and the reason for this blog post, is that it causes water to become "aggressive" - meaning it can leach toxins from the plumbing system.  If it comes into contact with lead-containing pipes anywhere along the upwards of 20 miles of pipe between the treatment plant and your home, it will pull lead out of the plumbing.  If you have any galvanized pipe in your home, that is also lead-containing so you will be increasing lead levels in your water there as well.

If you are concerned about lead, DO NOT boil the water.  This will NOT remove the lead, it will actually just reduce the volume of water in the pot and actually INCREASE the lead levels - actually making it worse for you.  If you want to remove lead, you need to either distill the water or use a reverse osmosis system.  Because of environmental impacts, my preference is clearly reverse osmosis.  They are about 10x more efficient than distillers when it comes to the amount of water used compared to water produced.  Distillers also have a boiler unit which use at least 800 Watts of power (usually 1200 to 1600 or more!) to produce the steam which purifies the water.  RO just makes more sense - they are less expensive systems and a LOT easier and less expensive to operate and maintain.

Even though the water meets Health Canada guidelines when it leaves the treatment plants, I always use a reverse osmosis system to remove the chemicals and toxins in it.  For my family, the closer to ZERO contaminants in the water, the better.  I also don't know what has been in contact with the water AFTER it left the treatment plant.  Better safe than sorry, so reverse osmosis water is all we use for drinking and cooking.

Reverse Osmosis Gallons Per Day (GPD) Ratings

One item that is grossly misunderstood by people considering reverse osmosis systems is the "gallons per day" (or GPD) rating for their system.  Reverse osmosis systems are, as far as I can tell, unique as appliances in the fact that the harder and more they work, they better they work and longer they last - I can't think of another appliance that works along those guidelines.  One thing that all reverse osmosis systems have in common is they have a membrane of some sort. 

Some systems use the older cellulose triacetate (CTA) membranes and most new systems use what's called a "thin film composite" (TFC) membrane.  These membranes, regardless of construction will have a rating for daily water production; that is how much treated water they can produce over a 24 hour period.  These ratings are done at laboratories under ideal conditions (these are RARELY, if ever, realistic conditions for a residential home, but they are used as a guideline.)  Typical membranes are rated at 12, 24, 36 and 50 gallons per day production and it is getting more and more common to see manufacturers installing 50 gallon per day membranes in their systems.

Sounds good right?  More production is better, isn't it?  The best answer to that is MAYBE.  It all depends upon your needs.  The higher the GPD rating on a membrane, the larger the molecules that are allowed to slip through the system are, therefore increasing flow rate and production.  Under ideal conditions, a 24 gallon per day rated system will produce superior water to a 50 GPD system.  If you are treating city water that is presumed to be microbiologically safe and simply improving the taste, "safety" may not be a big issue.

That being said, under ideal conditions, a 50GPD system will make about 2 gallons per hour (50 Gallons Per Day divided by 24 hours in the day,) whereas a 24 gallon per day system will yield about 1 gallon per hour.  What does this mean to you?  Well, depending upon the size of the storage tank you have, this will tell you how long your system will require to refill the tank if you should empty it.  Most systems ship with a 3 gallon tank, storing about 11 Litres of water.  If you're making a pot of coffee or tea, this is much more than is required for most residential use.  

I like to see our clients using their RO water for everything that touches their food and drink - water to cook rice, boil/steam vegetables and making pasta, for example.  To make enough pasta for a family of 4 for dinner, usually 1-2 gallons of water is needed.  If you're steaming veggies and pouring 4 glasses of water to drink with the meal, we're now getting closer to the 3 gallon capacity of the tank - if all this water was drawn out simultaneously.  As long as the tank holds enough water to meet your immediate demands, everything works as planned, you get the water you need and as soon as you stop pouring water, production begins and the tank starts refilling.

Here again we need to look at the amount of time that is required to re-fill that tank.  A 24 GPD system will need 2-3 hours to refill that tank completely, where a 50 GPD system will take just a little over an hour.  This is usually not a problem as it is relatively rare that a household will need that much water, that quickly, and keep in mind water will be available during the production time, its not a case of having to "wait" for the tank to refill before you can draw any more water from the system.  (To put it in perspective, needing that much water would be roughly equivalent to draining a "big blue" 5 gallon water jug of bottled water.  If one of those wouldn't last you more than an hour or so, you may need to consider a faster-producing system, or a larger storage tank.)

Where the smaller, lower-capacity systems really shine is in the maintenance.  Because people rarely completely drain a tank, consideration needs to be given for how long the RO system will run to refill the tank.  If you only pour off a glass of water at a time, perhaps 16 ounces of water, then the 50 GPD system will barely run at all to refill the tank before it stops production.  The 24 GPD system will run twice as long.  Why is this a good thing?  The life of the membrane is directly related to how clean it is kept.  The only time and the only way a membrane is cleaned is when it is producing water.

One problem oversized systems face is early membrane failure due to the fact the system never seems to run long enough to get a good, thorough cleaning.  Although any membrane from 12 GPD all the way to 300 GPD can be installed in our reverse osmosis systems, for residential use we normally supply a 24 GPD rated membrane.  For residential purposes, this rating typically yields the best balance of production capacity when you factor in maintenance and cleaning of the membrane.  When combined with a good whole-home water conditioning system like the Hague WaterMax, you can expect 5 to 7 years from your membrane, assuming it is properly sized for your home.  Since membranes are the most-expensive part of your reverse osmosis system, it makes sense to choose the most-appropriate membrane for your family.  Bigger isn't always better!  (My apologies to Tim the Tool Man Taylor; you'll need to stifle your infamous "MORE POWER" mantra when it comes to drinking water systems!)