Cleaning iron from Water Softner - health risk?
Hello, I am concerned about the quality of water after cleaning iron from a water softener using sodium dithionite (ex.iron out). I am on a well and water tested out with .6ppm of iron. The softener that was recommended was a 3/4inch meter on Demand 48000 grain capacity. I realize that after the cleaner used to remove the iron should be rinsed away during the backwash cycle. My question is how well does that backwash work in removing any harmful chemicals and should I be concerned? Would an RO system remove these chemicals if they did enter the water supply? Thank you! Do you have harmful chemicals in your water? What chemicals do you need to remove from your water? You only mentioned removing iron from your water which is not regarded as hazardous. It's annoying but not hazardous. Keep in mind that a water softener is just that, a water softener. It is not purifier and it is not designed to remove many chemicals or biologicals. If I add an iron remover to clean the softener I will introduce a chemical to the water supply. This is the chemical I am referring to. Then you will need to flush the water system, the softener will NOT remove the iron out. You can use iron out in with the salt and while in the cleaning or regen the softener will flush both the iron out and salt through the softener so that when the system is done there will be be no iron out left in the water. So your saying that when I flush the system it will remove ALL of the iron out chemical sodium dithionite. If by chance it does not, would an RO remove sodium dithionite? So you would like to shorten the life of the RO system? I am trying to under stand why one would put iron out into the full water system at the start. At a little more than a half part per million iron in your water, a 48,000 grain softener should take care of that WITHOUT iron out or even an iron reducing salt. You didn't mention how hard your water is. ??? Does your water taste salty after it regenerates? If your softener is working properly, it should wash out the iron out that has been placed in your salt tank. My thoughts on why you are asking this might be that you accidentally dump way too much iron out in the salt tank and it has raised fears that you may be ingesting it. Even if that is so, the softener should remove it. And, yes, an RO would be an additional assurance of much cleaner water and I recommend this regardless of any iron out fears. Andy Christensen I currently do not have a softener just shopping around and researching my options before I buy. My water hardness is 16 and the ph is 7.5, TDS is 287. I had heard that you have to clean your softener every now if there is iron present, but maybe not in my case. I don't have alot of iron... just enough to stain the sinks, toilets etc. Although the RO takes healthy minerals I think it is still a good option as you mentioned. Thanks for all your help! What do you mean by healthy minerals? How about calcium and magnesium to name a few. So-called healthful minerals come as a nutrient found in food not as a dissolved rock. One should never depend on the absolute infinitesimal amounts of calcium found in water as healthful minerals to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, I have never found any nutritionist admit that the calcium from the gravel on your driveway when consumed in any form will benefit you like that from which comes from milk, cheese, yoghurt, etc., all which easily metabolizes with the cells of the body and reacts in a positive way toward good health rather than the inert, dead mineral (dissolved rock) tending more to create and adhere to kidney stones because it lends itself more toward accumulation than metabolism. I know you value what ROs can do so I am not attacking you,personally. But, I have never understood the logic, physiology and/or pseudo-science of those who scorn ROs as a means of destroying the body but striping it of all its minerals and creating an acid-based life form. (Exaggeration mine). These philosophies and marketing dogma most often come from those selling alternative drinking water systems like those that 'create' hexogonal oxygen molecules, etc. Even if it were demonstrated that you could reap but miniscule benefits from consuming dissolved rock, knowing that an RO membrane can easily remove a plethora of very unhealthful minerals, salts, chemicals, I would still rather wipe my slate clean and select a healthful diet to provide organic nutrients that the body can utilize and therefor truly gain benefits. This thread has kind of gone sideways. I'll try to fill in some blanks as I have asked tons of questions and received answers which cover most of this thread. I have a Kinetico 60 water softener from the late 1980's (as per the date written on it in marker). It was not working 100% and would let iron through on occation, even after being manually regren to death. It was suggested to try a product called Iron Out to clean out some of the junk in my softener. The glass on the top of the head had obvious signs of iron deposit and settlement in it. The recommendations here on the forum and on the product bottle was to add a water/Iron Out mix to the brisket (correct term?) with a little salt in the hopper. Manually regren and after that is completed, run the nearest tap until the smell of the iron out was gone. I followed these instructions and everything worked as described and my softener showed improvement. The only thing is, my hopper stinks of Iron Out. The water had no noticeable smell, but the salt hopper stunk. A few days later (when I had time again to play with this), I emptied out the hopper, and rinsed it out. Now, back to the OP. I had asked prior to using the Iron Out product, if it was safe for consumption, and didn't get a answer. The product has not warning labels and the company that makes it doesn't appear to have and MDS sheet for it. As mentioned previous in this post, it was suggested by another person on here and also suggested (with instructions) on the product packaging. This stuff has a strong smell that probably would give you a headake if you where in a small space working with it. This Iron Out product works great for cleaning iron deposits, but I would be concerned using it directly in my hopper again. I had given my unit a bit more attention a week or so ago and cleaned the glass and gears in the head of my softener with it. I also ran a regen with some iron out solution in a seporate bucket instead of straight in the hopper. This worked great, and has produced a clean, softened water from at least one of my tanks (have a two tank softener). I am going to try this again, and hopefully catch the other tank (might do two regren sessions back to back). So... after all that typing, to the OP, rinse out your hopper if you have already followed the instructions on the Iron Out bottle. Using a bucket of water, add some softening salt and the iron out solution and run a manual regren. Once completed, set everything back as normal and run the nearest tap until there is no iron out smell in the water. This should work and take care of the concern of chemicals in your water. Hey Folks, What do you mean by Iron out?? is there any concern with it Water filter system.....
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