I've had some minor issues passing them in the past. Because of my current catheter/bladder issues, the doctor will go snag them manually. I doubt they'll be large enough for me to have to schedule surgery to be put under. And I've seen the results of lithotripsy. I worked with a guy whose back was all bruised from it.
The electric distiller I got on amazon years ago is what we use for coffee to keep the coffee maker from liming up. It takes out all minerals and makes the coffee makers last many years more than normal.
So educate me on those. I'd like to distill the softener salt out of both my drinking water and my coffee water. Where do the minerals collect? I gotta assume that the thing is designed so that the heating elements don't get gunked up. Then I'd need to figure out if the cost to run the thing is less than the cost of buying water.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=water+di...ter+distillers,aps,1775&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p _1_16 I have used this type for years. The minerals stay in the resevoir. It needs to be rinsed after every use and cleaned with an acid periodically. Get one that is stainless steel and has a glass caraffe. Unfortunately, I am not sure the cheaper ones don't have plastic or some other tubing for cooling the steam.
Thanks. Do you mess with the charcoal paks? I have a charcoal whole house filter, so am thinking of not bothering with them..
I think there is one in it to start with. They send a couple more. I don't use them because the taste of the water is acceptable.
I've been using reverse osmosis (RO) water for decades, since it first became available. My system reduces the 550+ total dissolved solids (TDS) in the city water to less than 10 TDS. Brita and other similar simple water filters do not reduce the TDS and thus do not do much to purify the water. There's a 1 micron sediment pre filter in front of the house that lasts for quite a long time. Then additional 1 micron sediment and carbon block filters prior to the reverse osmosis membrane. A good RO system provides nearly the water quality of distilled, with much less trouble and without the high cost.
It's been a while since I've looked at RO, so the technology may have changed...but doesn't it take something like 10 gallons of water to make 1 gallon treated? In other words, for every gallon of treated water you get, you've lost 9 gallons to the process.
The reject water should be in a 3 to 1 ratio, and can be used for other purposes. A permeate pump should be used when using an under the sink storage tank, otherwise the reject water can be 30x as much, due to the increasing pressure in the tank. I used to use one with a tank, but now fill containers directly from the spigot and don't use the tank anymore. Also if the well water is excessively high in sediment, then start with a 5 to 50 micron sediment pre filter.
My well has been cutting on and back off a lot more lately; so I got busy looking everywhere to find a leak. So far haven't found one, I pulled it up online, and it said to check the air pressure in the tank. Must be 38 lbs for it cutting on at 40 lbs and off at 60 lbs. Checked it and it was at 0. Got the compressor out and with the tank all the way drained, put 38 lbs in it. Took a while to get it there. Then I noticed the points were worn out, so I changed them out too. It now kicks on at 40 lbs, after adjusting them, and off at 60 lbs. It's not kicking on and off like it was; will see how it does over a little time. Draining it several times made iron come out faucets but cleared, rather quickly after running it a little.
Yeh, I better check the pressure in mine. I upgraded from a small tank to a 20 gallon tank. My crawlspace limits my options. And I'm sure that stuff settles in the tank. I've not seen a setup with the filter upstream of the pressure tank. Do you treat for your iron problem? I think that it takes a lot more salt to get rid of iron than it does to get rid of other minerals. I would think that much salt would make the water undrinkable.
Mine's 119 gallons, and so far I only use a whole house filter and Brita filter, seems to have worked for the last 26 years. When we put the well in, 1998, and I saw iron; I started to go with the salt filtration system, but it got better with just the two filters, so we didn't ever do it. It does seem to build up in pipes over time, and I just run a little bleach through when I change the whole house filter seems to work. Understand your limited space, with having to put it in the crawlspace. You may want to check the pressure, it sure was making mine run continuously. Also back in 1998 when I saw the iron, we had one of the saltwater filtration companies come out, and test the water, and to see how much it would be. They didn't find anything alarming about the test, and since the whole house one cleared it up, pretty nicely, I figured we didn't need it.
A while back I saw an ad for a water softener that used, basically, vitamin C instead of salt. Haven't seen ads for it lately.
I have never heard of it...but Amazon sells them. LINK They are meant to use on your shower head, not as a whole house solution. At least, these are. There are some that prevent the minerals from sticking to the inside of your pipes...the stuff flows right through. But since the minerals contribute to my kidney stones, and I wanted to drink the well water and not rely on bottled, I went with the salt-based solution.
Still not right yet. For some reason, it's draining back and emptying the well tank. Not sure why yet, since there's a pressure release shutoff valve, between the tank and the submersible pump. I can hear a suction at the pipe, going down to the pump. Strange how it drains the tank with that valve, which is not supposed to let the water go, but one way. I just shut it off for now; since it's been running so much, or until I can get the guy who put it in, back out.