Water treatment in Delaware, Ohio
City of Delaware homes are mostly on municipal water. Step outside the city and you are on a well, which is a different job entirely.
This is well water country
Inside the city of Delaware most homes are on municipal water. Get outside it, into the townships and the county roads, and that changes fast. Delaware County has far more homes on private wells than Franklin County does, and a private well is a completely different job from a city tap.
City water arrives already treated and more or less the same every day. Well water arrives exactly as the ground hands it to you. It is untreated, it is specific to your well, and it can change with the season, with a wet spring, or with work done on a neighboring property.
That is why we will not quote a well water system over the phone. On a well, the test is not a formality. It is the entire basis of the recommendation.
What we usually find in the sample
Rarely just one thing. Usually two or three of these together.
Hardness, and plenty of it
Same limestone as the rest of Central Ohio, but groundwater has been sitting in contact with it rather than passing through a treatment plant. Well hardness readings here are commonly higher than the city numbers.
Iron
The orange stain in the toilet tank, on the tub, down the side of the house where the sprinkler hits. Iron is the single most common well complaint we get out here. See iron staining.
Sulfur odor
The rotten egg smell, usually strongest at the hot tap and worst first thing in the morning. It is not something you can rinse away, and it needs to be dealt with before a softener rather than after.
Sediment and cloudiness
Fine grit in the aerator screens, or water that looks milky after heavy rain. Sediment has to come out first or it shortens the life of everything downstream of it.
Order matters on a well
On city water a softener is often the whole answer. On a Delaware County well it is usually the last stage rather than the only one. Sediment comes out first so it does not foul what follows. Iron and sulfur are addressed next, because a softener alone is not the right tool for either and putting one in front of the problem is how people end up disappointed. Then the softener handles hardness. Then, if you want better drinking water at the kitchen sink, a K5 station goes in last.
Which of those stages you actually need depends entirely on your sample. Some wells out here need all of them. Plenty need two. We would rather install less equipment that is correctly matched than a stack of it that is not, and our specialty treatment page walks through the options.
One more thing worth knowing: well chemistry moves. We recommend a re-test once a year for well customers, and we build that into the service schedule so you are not the one remembering it.
Questions we get from Delaware County wells
Sometimes, and often not. Two wells a quarter mile apart can be drawing from different depths and give very different results. We would rather test yours and find out than copy a system that was designed for someone else's water.
We travel throughout rural Central Ohio for well customers, by appointment. If you are not sure whether your road is in the area, call us at (614) 555-0100 and we will tell you straight away.
Kinetico softeners are non-electric. They are driven by the water moving through them, so the softener itself needs no outlet and keeps working through an outage. Your well pump is a separate matter and still needs power.
Get your well tested before anyone quotes you anything
The in-home test takes about twenty minutes and costs nothing. Call (614) 555-0100 to arrange a visit.