Culligan Water System

[StevieC]

For anyone that is interested... Here is what our Water filtration/softening unit looks like for our well water. It's a bit of a mess because of the previous owners setup and then our modifications afterwards but you get the picture.

The Reverse Osmosis unit we have isn't shown here as it is in another room and hard to get a picture of.

 

[simple_gifts]

I'm so thankful for city water....

 

[StevieC]

It's simplier than it looks... The only maintenance we have to do on it is the following:

- Change the blue "Carbon Filter" once a year - $20
- Change the UV Light once a year - $100 (Can be run longer, but for safety)
- Fill Salt Bucket every month - $20 (we use lots of salt)
- Clean Salt Bucket once a year - Pretty much free
- Change R.O. Filters in R.O. unit - $100 / YR
- Shock the well with Chlorine every month - $2

Total cost per year: $484 / yr for the cleanest purest water you can get. Free of heavy metals, bacteria and nasty other stuff found in city water including Chlorine!

Plus the money we save on soap/shampoo in the shower and the on Dish detergent, Laundry detergent and fabric softener it cuts that bill by a quarter and leaves us with a bill of $363

Once you have this water you won't want to go back to city water.

In the 3 years we have owned the system, nothing has broken down and the well pump is just over 10 years old with a 15 year warranty so I'm pretty sure it's cheap.

Now with City water you could add just the Blue carbon filter and the R.O. unit and possibly a softener and have my quality of water.

 

[tom slick]

you must have some less than quality water to begin with.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: tom slick
you must have some less than quality water to begin with.
We have very high levels of Iron in the water. So hard that if we took out the Iron cleaner for a day it would leave stains on the sinks/toilets.

Plus we have bacteria in the well which is treatable with some Chlorine and a UV light because of the beef-cows that they raise behind us.

It's not the greatest water, but this system certainly does a perfect job of making it Great water according to the labs we have had done.

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

Now with City water you could add just the Blue carbon filter and the R.O. unit and possibly a softener and have my quality of water


I have a 5 or 10 micron particulate filter on the feed (water mains are cast iron) and use a carbon filter for all drinkable water. I pay about $40/quarter for water and $70/year insurance to cover from the street to my basement.

But, you are right, nothing beats a great glass o' H20.

 

[tom slick]

If you've got livestock polluting your water then you should also be treating for nitrates although your RO might be dropping them to below MCL (or whatever Ca uses) limits.

do you test your water?

 

[StevieC]

Tom as I said above we have sent our water to a lab that not only checks for bacteria but other stuff that can cause problems with your health like heavy metals nitrates etc. All is good!

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Quote:

Now with City water you could add just the Blue carbon filter and the R.O. unit and possibly a softener and have my quality of water


I have a 5 or 10 micron particulate filter on the feed (water mains are cast iron) and use a carbon filter for all drinkable water. I pay about $40/quarter for water and $70/year insurance to cover from the street to my basement.

But, you are right, nothing beats a great glass o' H20.


In the begining I thought the water had a weird taste as I was conditioned to city water since I was born. Now when I visit the city and have some tap water I think it's gross.

 

[harley145000]

thank god i have city water

 

[simple_gifts]

I believe a person named R. Goldberg lived here previous to StevieC.

 

[tom slick]

It's a modern art masterpiece. The downside of PEX is it doesn't make straight lines. The plumber sure did like using a lot of fittings and not much pipe.

 

[Mr Nice]

How much is the entire Culligan Water System ?

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
How much is the entire Culligan Water System ?
$8K and is warrantied for 10 years.

We pay monthly at 0% interest. They also come out once a year for no charge and check the system and make adjustments based on water readings they do on-site with testers / chemical test-strips to make sure it's running properly.

 

[crinkles]

do you live in the country stevie? we have really soft water here which means no scale in kettle, ever, don't need dishwasher rinse aid, etc etc.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: crinkles
do you live in the country stevie? we have really soft water here which means no scale in kettle, ever, don't need dishwasher rinse aid, etc etc.
I live in a rural area (Binbrook) of a big city (Hamilton), which is outside 60KM radial from Toronto.

We have a "Deep Well" located 95ft down in the ground in front of the house and use a jet-pump to pull the water up. Once it goes (15 years old) my dad is going to have the system converted to a Submersible pump which actually goes down in the well and pushes the water up. You have much better pressure that way and don't need a pressure bladder (blue/brown tanks in photo's above) or a booster pump to pressurize the house to city like levels.

 

[crinkles]

Originally Posted By: StevieC
Originally Posted By: crinkles
do you live in the country stevie? we have really soft water here which means no scale in kettle, ever, don't need dishwasher rinse aid, etc etc.
I live in a rural area (Binbrook) of a big city (Hamilton), which is outside 60KM radial from Toronto.

We have a "Deep Well" located 95ft down in the ground in front of the house and use a jet-pump to pull the water up. Once it goes (15 years old) my dad is going to have the system converted to a Submersible pump which actually goes down in the well and pushes the water up. You have much better pressure that way and don't need a pressure bladder (blue/brown tanks in photo's above) or a booster pump to pressurize the house to city like levels.



+1 pumps will always work better pushing than sucking. would love to see some geo logs when they put it in... if they even did that.

 

[IndyIan]

Yikes! That is a bit of kit. Having good water is nice though.
Our well is 130' with a submersible pump and we have a culligan softener that we paid way to much for... Its been working well for 4 years now but when it goes we'll just get one from the local plumbing shop. The culligan sales guy tried to scare us into your system but unfortunately he was a good salesman and realized the best he was going to do was the softener, if he had been a jerk we probably wouldn't have bought that even and saved some money.
For drinking water we run the cold taps to the kitchen sink and bathroom sink that is unsoftened and unfiltered, just straight from the ground. Tastes good and we get some minerals from it.
I'm glad I don't have to pay city services bills...

 

[StevieC]

If we had reasonably soft water that just needed minor softening out of the well we wouldn't have gotten this crazy setup but our water is extremely hard and full of iron and has bacteria as well. So unfortunately this setup is required...

The Culligan system although a bit expensive does a fabulous job!

 

[IndyIan]

Yep, a system like yours is a bit beyond the DIYer and worth paying for their knowledge.
What's your soil like at your place? We have a couple types of glacial till clay down to 100' and then bedrock which is where our water comes in. So I really have no idea where the infiltration zone would be for our water, could be far away or at the other end of our property where there is some gravel but I have no idea if that goes down to bedrock. Water moves very slowly through clay so it could be decades for water from our lawn to get down to the bedrock and into our well.
We have neighbors in their 80's with a 12' dug well in their cattle pasture and its never run dry since '48 when it was put in... They run a softener but thats it, I guess sometimes people get lucky!

 

[StevieC]

I don't know what is further down because we have only lived here 3 years, but I know from digging holes for trees, the flag pole, birdhouse etc. we have a good clay layer just below the lawn and it's brutal trying to dig in it.

As for the well, the well we are using now was drilled back in 72 because the one that was drilled when the house was built (50's) dried up. They drilled right beside it but went further down and found water at the 95' level whereas they had water at around the 60's or so. Anyways... It's still going and we never have a problem getting water.

Now for your neighbours that have a well in the cattle pasture I would have a UV light on that water line in case E-coli or Coliform (sp?) end up in the water they won't get sick from it. We have a cattle pasture behind us and it was suggested by Culligan and on the internet from the research we did. Also shocking the well with a bit of Chlorine, via the fresh-air tube, every once and a while is a good idea too!