I posted once about our iron well water.  Basically, without a good filtering system, our water would be an orangish brown color.  Lots of Iron, everyone around here has it.

To get rid of the iron, most people use a Culligan water softener.  I don’t like “soft” water, it tastes salty to me.  I also don’t like the way if feels in the shower, like you can’t rinse it off.  It sort of feels like a coating of slime or mud.  Ick.  In addition to that, it seems relatively expensive to pay for the Culligan Man to come out and load all that salt into the water filter every three months.

Since I am not most people, I looked into other ways to get rid of the iron in our water.  I decided on a combination sand/green sand filter.  The sand filter is just that, a sand bed that traps the larger particles and holds them until the sand be gets backwashed.  The green sand filter uses Ion Exchange, in other words, it oxidizes the iron into larger iron oxide molecules, then runs it through a sand bed that traps the particles until backwashed.  I have both filters set to backwash once a week on different days.   It works amazingly well.

So well in fact that we forgot it was there.  Until recently that is, when the water began taking on a rotten egg odor again.  Mostly the hot water in the shower.  Nothing like getting up in the morning to be greeted by a steamy rotten egg smelling bathroom.

potasium permanganate bottle for Kenmore green sand filter

I quickly determined that the Potasium Permanganate (KMnO₄) bottle (small plastic bottle next to unit) on the green sand filter had run out.  It is really easy to replace, simply remove the old one and replace with the new bottle.  It is recommended that you wear gloves and a face mask when replacing.  The I bought an entire replacement bottle from Sears (part #3441799).   I also could have bought 6 pounds of Potasium Permanganate crystals and reused the old bottle.  The only issue now is what to do with the spent bottle, which still has Potasium Permanganate residue in it.  It is considered a powerful oxidizer and is dangerous to aquadic life so it cannot simply be dumped down the drain.  I will contact the county transfer station and find out the proper disposal method.

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