Filling system...

[kuribo]

I'm wondering what you guys are doing when you fill systems that take 1000+ gallons....All I have available is well water which is high in hardness. I don't think it would be good to fill my system with...I do have a softener, but I think I would have trouble getting 1300 gallons through it in one sitting.....Opinions?

 

[maple1]

It might not be a good thing to admit, and it likely won't help you in your situation - but when I filled mine in the early fall of the year, I got the ph right in our backyard above ground pool and filtered it really clean, then ran a hose from that to my system. Was very convenient. No after affects either, that I know of - system looks good inside, the little bits I've had open since.

I have a well too, a shallow dug well. I don't think my shallow well pump would have survived pumping all that water at once. The pool water originally came from a brook a few months before that.

 

[Buzz Saw]

Anyone in the area truck potable water for cisterns? In my area I can get 1000 gallon delivered for $45

 

[kuribo]

Around here it would probably come from a municipal well, which has the same water I have....I don't think the small municipalities around here soften their water but it is something I could look into....Thanks!

 

[Kristen]

water which is high in hardness

I'm no expert, but does harness matter? In a closed system the water won't evaporate, leaving behind the salts, so they won't increase (like they do in a hot water tank which is continuously replaced with fresh, hard, water)

 

[wolfe64]

It might not be a good thing to admit, and it likely won't help you in your situation - but when I filled mine in the early fall of the year, I got the ph right in our backyard above ground pool and filtered it really clean, then ran a hose from that to my system. Was very convenient. No after affects either, that I know of - system looks good inside, the little bits I've had open since.

I have a well too, a shallow dug well. I don't think my shallow well pump would have survived pumping all that water at once. The pool water originally came from a brook a few months before that.

I will be installing 300 g. of pressurized storage this spring. Our well is 420' with a 2-3 g/min. flow. I am worried about depleting the well if I fill the tank all at once. Is it ok to fill in small batches over a few days?

 

[huffdawg]

I will be installing 300 g. of pressurized storage this spring. Our well is 420' with a 2-3 g/min. flow. I am worried about depleting the well if I fill the tank all at once. Is it ok to fill in small batches over a few days?

I dont think that would be a problem at all. I filled mine a bunch of times rinsing it out and also a couple times checking for leaks over the course of a week

 

[airlina]

I will be installing 300 g. of pressurized storage this spring. Our well is 420' with a 2-3 g/min. flow. I am worried about depleting the well if I fill the tank all at once. Is it ok to fill in small batches over a few days?

Thats exactly how I filled my 500 gal. tank this summer- spent about 3 days filling it from my well, no problem

 

[Bob Rohr]

DI or DM water is by far the best fill water. Wait a month or so and Caleffi will have some DI filtration carts available and also an Idronics issue with water quality info.

The minerals in the fill water will coat out on all the HX surfaces and cut down on efficiencies. How much depends on how hard or bad the water is. The hot surfaces attract the minerals just as an element in a HW tank.

Culligan and some other water companies rent or lease DI tanks, if it is a single fill job. Connect it to your fill water with a garden hose and fill the system. DI tanks are similar to water softness but do not use sodium for backwashing. Once the media fills it gets replaced in DI tanks and recycled.

 

[BoiledOver]

Another consideration during a total fill is fill speed. When running through a softener, you will want to give the resins a little help in grabbing the minerals out of the water by slowing the flow rate.

 

[kuribo]

Thanks for the tip on the DI cart. I will call around to see what I can find. Our well water here is hard, very hard. I need to find an alternative to buying 1300 1 gallon bottles of distilled water....I won't need to do this for 6 month or so, so I have time to find an alternative...

 

[Bob Rohr]

That would be a lot of water to haul. In my area several water conditioning companies sell DI water, just show up with your containers. I use to take a few 55 gallon plastic barrels to them when filling a new radiant system on a home with bad water. It's been 8 years ago, but I paid 10 cents per gallon. Brand new wells tend to have high turbidity, bad for hydronics also.

The water you see on the grocery store shelves that indicates "distilled" is often just DI or RO water. It is very slow and expensive to distill water in large quantities.

While not ideal, sometimes softened water is better than extremely hard, maybe above 15 grains, site water. The lesser of two evils.

Make sure the system is 100% leak free before you start pumping in filtered water

 

[Karl_northwind]

Thanks for the tip on the DI cart. I will call around to see what I can find. Our well water here is hard, very hard. I need to find an alternative to buying 1300 1 gallon bottles of distilled water....I won't need to do this for 6 month or so, so I have time to find an alternative...

you're in Wisconsin, Call the local Cheese Plant, and see if they can send you a truck of water. They'll know their exact water characteristics (they have to log it and a lot of other things every day)

If they don't run their own trucks, they can give you the number of one of their contractors, and you can have them bring you a load of water before their run for the day. Just be ready to unload it in a hurry so you don't keep them waiting. 50 gallons a minute thru a 2" hose would be good, then keep a 55 gallon drum handy to put some more in to do your purging etc.

karl

 

[kuribo]

Thanks for the ideas! Cheese plants we have!

 

[dogwood]

Chris, I had the same well water problem, extra hard and not enough of it. And I ended up filling my new thousand gallon plus system three times in order to clean and treat the water. To not deplete the well, I would fill the storage tank and pipes for a half hour, and then give the well about an equal amount of time, or more, to replenish. I used a loud wind up timer I found in the kitchen to keep me on track. I repeated this process until the system was full. It took two plus days for each refill. I ran the water softener each night to have a full load of softened water available each morning for the filling that day.

I first filled and flushed my system with hard water to flush out crap. I next filled it again with softened water, plus wood boiler cleaning chemicals from Precision Chemical. This fill was heated with the boiler, circulated for four hours, and then flushed in it's entirety, After cleaning a wye and two other traps, I filled the system a third time with softened water and Precision Chemical boiler water chemicals to treat the water that would remain in the system.

A lot of brown water was flushed out of the system at first (I'm guessing from rust and excess Rectorseal #5 pipe dope (I have mostly black iron piping) and I cleaned some debris from the traps. But now the systems water is crystal clear and hopefully with the correct pH, hardness and chemicals in it to help the boiler last many years.

You need to have patience.. It took about a week for the whole process. I thought about having water delivered but couldn't figure out how they'd get it into the 1000 gallon (propane-type) tank in a timely manner. And I didn't want to pay for the three thousand gallons of water needed in total for all three fills. However I'm glad that job is over and wouldn't like to repeat it. Let us know what you end up doing.

Mike

 

[kuribo]

Thanks Mike for sharing your experience...As for the softener, how many gallons does your treat? I always imagined that the water had to sit in the softener system for a bit to be fully treated and worried that when running 1300 gallons through it, the water wouldn't be properly treated, and/or I would have to replace/refresh the media at some point...Thanks again...

 

[dogwood]

Chris, my water softener is good for softening about 800 gallons once it runs a regeneration cycle. If you subtract out normal daily water use, that leaves roughly 500 to 600 gallons with which to fill the boiler system after each cycle.

It took all day to get that many gallons into the system. At the end of the day I ran another regeneration cycle on the softener. It was then good for softening another 800 gallons the following morning. Your control panel on your softener will let you run a cycle whenever you need. My old Sears water softener had a "cycle tonight" button on it. My newer Fleck water softener involves only a tiny bit more effort to punch in the same command. The Fleck controller also shows exactly how many gallons you have remaining before the next cycle will need to be run.

I think the way a typical softener works when it regenerates is by running salty water through the resin container, flushing the resin clean of the hard water constituents it has picked up during the week. Then it's again ready to soften water as you use the water. In my case after a regeneration cycle it has the capacity to turn another 800 gallons of hard water into soft water. Then you have to cycle the softener to cleanse the resin again.

The softener is normally set up to automatically run its regeneration cycles in the middle of the night. You refill the salt pellets as needed after this occurs a time or so. You can "Google" how a water softener works to get a more accurate explanation.

Mike.

 

[kuribo]

Thanks very much for the info. Perhaps then I can just fill from my WS and not have to truck in 1300 gallons of water!

 

[Bob Rohr]

Thanks very much for the info. Perhaps then I can just fill from my WS and not have to truck in 1300 gallons of water!

What size softener do you have? Water softeners are rated in capacity such as a 24, 32, 48,000. So a 24,000 unit would soften, or remove 24,000 grains of hardness. Or 1000 gallons of water that is 24 grains hard, in an ideal condition.

Grab a softness test kit to see what the incoming water is, and determine what you softener can handle. You could also test the hardness several times as you are filling to assure you are keeping up with the fill.

There are differences between softener and their meters. Better brands have multiple cycles to backwash and several rinse cycles, so little if any sodium (salt taste) is left in the softened water.

There is also an orfice in the brine line that should be sized for your application, or you may be using a lot more salt than needed. There are a lot of "snake oil" softener sales folks out there. Find someone that knows your equipment and can assure it is working and able to do the job.

 

[kuribo]

Great info! I had the well water tested but only recall it was very hard, I think right around 22-24 grains...

Also bought the softener a year or two ago and don't recall the size. Will have to look into it...

Thanks again, much appreciated.