That's not good Ed, our kids use a lot of bottled water, and so does one of my brothers, that I know of. My father always loved his well water and would drink tons of it. He used to say to me; that after drinking it down, there is nothing better than cool clear well water. I have to agree with him about that. Maybe you will get a chance to get another well, one day soon.
I have a water softener for the water used for washing and such, but most of our drinking water comes straight from the pressure tank. We have a Brita on hand to use after earthquakes, which stir up the well and make the water cloudy.
There's really nothing to filter out in my water, except I have some mica that gets in the faucets and toilet supply. That's when I first put in a whole house filter. The softener is merely to remediate hardness...I got no iron or any other issue (even my fluoride is low.) I've had 2 professional lab analyses since I moved in. That's when I quantified the hardness (I am one of the very few in this region with hard water. but iron issues are not uncommon.) That's the thing about filters. You first need to know what you're trying to get rid of before you choose a filter, if you even need to filter in the first place. Solids are easy enough to catch with just about anything. The chemicals, minerals, off-taste & other elements (if any) need to be specifically targeted.
You are right about testing to see what needs to be gotten rid of. Ours is clear and had it tested years ago, probably wouldn't hurt to have checked again. No iron here so far that whole house filter doesn't catch, and it tastes great. I think filtering it twice helps too.
We have little quakes all the time that don't do a lot. The moderate one in 2018 did tremendous damage for its size as it was quite shallow. A few weeks prior to that, we had a 7.6 offshore that was deep and did almost no damage at all. The little shakers do often stir up the well, however, and it sometimes takes a week or so for the water table to settle down.
I just needed to fix the hardness and keep the mica out. The only reason I have 2 filters is because I did the work myself, and figured "Why not?" The setup looks a little complex because I can bypass the filters and still have running water when I'm changing the cartridges and want to wash out the housings. It also lets me bypass the filters in case something bad happens when I'm changing the filters (like I crack a housing, or I cross-thread it into the base)...I'll still have water in the house. The top upstream filter housing is clear. When I change the filters and turn the water on, you can see the flecks of mica immediately start to swirl. The charcoal filter is interesting because if it truly filters out <1 micron, it would catch cryptosporidio...and I figured that charcoal is always a benefit. But believe it or not, the standard for measuring the size of particulate they filter is "flexible." One would think that "micron" is a discrete measurement. (Everybody lies.) Regarding the softener...I bought it at Lowes and it's been a real nice unit. The softener remediates 275mg hardness/liter (13 grains) and only adds 70mg sodium/liter to the output. That's under 300mg sodium per gallon. I use way less than a bag of salt a year. I posted that pic on a plumber's forum when I was asking an unrelated question, and one of the guys said that he's installed a number of those and he really likes them. A secondary reason for the double-filtration is I want particulate-free water going into it. I run a cleaner through it every 4 months (and change the 6 month filters at the same time.)
Nice, it's sort of your design, huh? Nothing wrong with that. Smart to the way you set it up to bypass filters when changing the cartridges. Mine is set so it only shuts off when I change them. I do use 6-month filters and change them every 3 to 4 months, just to make sure they don't get too dirty.
Good that you know to not use water for a week or so, and that there not so bad to be life threatening also. We as you know deal with hurricanes sometimes and they are a nuisance too. Always something no matter where you at.
The only issue with my setup is those inline shutoff valves. The main one does not shut off all the way. I suspect it has flecks of mica in it. When I change filters, I have to leave a faucet turned on so the water has a place to go; otherwise, I have to put a bucket under the filter while the housing is removed. The only way to fix it is to cut the valve out of the system to clean (or replace) it, remove the PEX crimps on the other connectors, then reinstall it with fresh PEX crimps. It wouldn't be that big of a deal. If I decide to go to the trouble of fixing it, I might replace it with a standard shutoff like an outside hose faucet. Those can be taken apart and cleaned (with new washers and seats and packing) while remaining installed. I installed a toggle switch (a 220v double pole light switch) in the crawlspace by the holding tank so I could work on things down there without having to go back & forth to the breaker panel (not to mention the wear on the breakers), so I could go under the crawlspace (or throw the breakers) and kill the power to the pump when I change the filters...but I'm not gonna do that. The first shutoff valve is always gonna be unfiltered. That can be a problem when you have a volume of particulates.
Ball valves as a shutoff or gate valves? Ball valves may clean themselves if you work them back and forth before you shut them off.
It's a ball valve. I'll try to move it back & forth and open up some spigots to get a good flow through it. But it's been this way for a few years. It would really be no big deal to change the thing out (since it's PEX), but I'm better on Build than I am on R&M.
Tough for doing things under a crawl space, that alone is hard for anyone. On the shutoff valve, these are what I used, and have never had any problems or had to clean them either in 25 years, with this well system. May not have the particles you're talking about.
That's interesting. I did not think of looking at other types of shutoffs besides the old-school ones. I'll have to research what can be used with PEX...I don't have space for adapters. This is what's installed: It's disappointing to have this issue, because these are almost industrial. And I only cycle it 3x per year. I can see it getting something hung up in it during one cycle, but once the incomplete shutoff started it's been that way ever since. So whatever is in there is stuck pretty good. Maybe I need to stop by a plumbing supply house and get their advice.