Categories: Installing Water Treatment SystemsWater SoftenerWell Water Treatment

Removing Hardness from Well Water

Water hardness is the measurement of dissolved calcium and magnesium present in a water source. It is measured in grains per gallon, parts per million, or milligrams per liter.

Excessively hard water is often the cause of scale formation in pipes and heaters, and of insoluble “curd” buildups, resulting from the interaction of hard water and soaps. We generally recommend using a water softener for water exceeding a hardness of 10 grains per gallon; a good quality softener with a 60 mesh pre-filter filter strainer ought to do the trick.

One customer recently wrote to us regarding his private well, which was tested and found to have a hardness of 20 grains per gallon. For water with 20 grains per gallon, a CWS Plus Series water softener would work very well. Here is some more info on that system:

Softener 5900-BT Series The CWS 59000-BT softener uses advanced control valves with a high-quality piston, seal, and spacer design, plus a rugged brine tank built to last for many years. Control and monitor your water softener from your smartphone with the softeners blue tooth feature!

Fully adjustable cycle times, along with the ability to keep the correct time for up to 48 hours in the event of a power failure, offer maximum flexibility and efficiency.

Setup and maintenance are easy thanks to time-saving quick connections, and the user-friendly LCD display, which keeps track of your softener's regeneration cycle and gallons remaining.

Besides the softener, we also recommend adding a Big Blue filter to your water filtration system:

Big Blue Dual Grade Filter with 25/1 Micron Cartridge

Big Blue 1 Micron 10 10 GPM 1 NPT

This Dual-Grade 5/1 micron cartridge will filter superfine particles of sizes 1 micron and up and is often used as a final stage after pre-filtration or as a post filter to an automatic backwashing filter system.

The filter housing is made from NSF-listed pure polypropylene and will hold one high-flow 4.5 x 20-inch filter cartridge. This system comes complete with a wall mounting bracket kit, filter wrench, and one Dual Grade 25/1micron DGD-2501, 4.5″ x 20″ filter cartridge. This is optional:

Here is a diagram of a typical water softener and Big Blue filter installation:

Gerry Bulfin

Gerry Bulfin is a licensed water treatment contractor and consultant based in Santa Cruz California and founder and owner of Clean Water Systems and Stores Inc. Gerry is a long time member of the National Ground Water Association, the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and the Water Quality Association (WQA).