Turbidity in well water?

[bgaidan]

Can we just see pictures of the samples? I've never seen this done before, I would like to know if the water has a noticeably different.

These are the calibration standards. From left to right they are 800, 100, 20 and .2 NTU.

800 is clearly "cloudy" and 100 is less obvious, but still definitely there. I can't tell the difference between 20 and .2...they both look perfectly clear to me.

 

[Pukemaggots]

I wanna know how a turbot got in your well

 

[sdmuleman]

How recently was the spigot used? That sound to me like it was a rarely used spigot and they didn't run it long enough to get clean water, so what you tested is the junk that's accumulated in a dead end leg.

 

[bgaidan]

How recently was the spigot used? That sound to me like it was a rarely used spigot and they didn't run it long enough to get clean water, so what you tested is the junk that's accumulated in a dead end leg.

I'm not putting anything past them. If they had half a clue on what they were doing they should have run the water for several minutes before sampling. I also don't know which of the two bibs they tested. One they noted on the inspection the the hose was stuck to it, so if they used that one they sampled through 50' of non-potable garden hose. Either one of the bibs would have somewhere between 15-20' of dead end in it that should have been flushed out.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

If you're on city water and wanted to test the quality of the water coming in to your house would you test it at the tap or would you drive out to the reservoir and sample it there?

Honestly how is this a valid comparison? Keep in mind that I'm dumb, I don't disagree with you there.

If there's a lead pipe on my street poisoning my house's water, then it's the towns responsibility to rectify the problem and the cost would be shared by everyone paying taxes to the town, so it's a small cost to me just like how insurance works.

If the water from the well of the house I'm interested in is bad and requires big $$$ to buy and maintain some monster treatment equipment I damn well want to know about it before putting in my offer because it's going to be a big damn cost to me over the whole time I'd own the property.

Sure you can take radioactive heavy metal piss water and turn it into perfect drinking water, but you're going to be paying to do it for as long as you own the house, and it'll make selling the house more difficult in the future.


Knowing the house has some great treatment equipment isn't as important as knowing it's got good water in the well.

 

[montrose818]

My parents house original well that I grew up on looked like 2% milk.

YOU look like 2% milk.

 

[bgaidan]

Honestly how is this a valid comparison? Keep in mind that I'm dumb, I don't disagree with you there.

If there's a lead pipe on my street poisoning my house's water, then it's the towns responsibility to rectify the problem and the cost would be shared by everyone paying taxes to the town, so it's a small cost to me just like how insurance works.

If the water from the well of the house I'm interested in is bad and requires big $$$ to buy and maintain some monster treatment equipment I damn well want to know about it before putting in my offer because it's going to be a big damn cost to me over the whole time I'd own the property.

Sure you can take radioactive heavy metal piss water and turn it into perfect drinking water, but you're going to be paying to do it for as long as you own the house, and it'll make selling the house more difficult in the future.


Knowing the house has some great treatment equipment isn't as important as knowing it's got good water in the well.

OK, does the city test their water for potability after the treatment plant or in the reservoir?





My well has moderate levels of iron and turbidity. How would you fix it?

 

[M92PV4U]

Had to look it up.
""Turbidity is the measure of relative clarity of a liquid. It is an optical characteristic of water and is a measurement of the amount of light that is scattered by material in the water when a light is shined through the water sample. The higher the intensity of scattered light, the higher the turbidity."

You wouldn't likely find a well in NM that would pass any type of clarification test.

My parents house original well that I grew up on looked like 2% milk.

WGAF, I know.

 

[C4Cory]

Here’s a thought, if they don’t like it tell them to move on.

 

[sdmuleman]

I'm not putting anything past them. If they had half a clue on what they were doing they should have run the water for several minutes before sampling. I also don't know which of the two bibs they tested. One they noted on the inspection the the hose was stuck to it, so if they used that one they sampled through 50' of non-potable garden hose. Either one of the bibs would have somewhere between 15-20' of dead end in it that should have been flushed out.

Even if they did run for a few mins there's still a decent chance there was still junk in the water. My general feeling with real estate related testing stuff is they generally put the least amount of thought and effort possible into doing it.

My bet is if you run your own sample off the kitchen sink it'll probably come back just fine. Turbidity really isn't a critical measurement, so while I don't really know where the standard is, I'd expect that if you're that high above the standard you'd be seeing silt build up, junk in tap water, etc - basically it would be obvious the water isn't clear.

Also can make an argument to the seller that they accept as is - it's not a health or real drinking water quality issue - inorganic silt in the water really doesn't hurt anything, just makes the water look grotty. The standard seem to exist more because turbidity is an indication of filtration problems when using surface water, which in turn means other actually harmful stuff like bacteria also gets through. In the case of well water, this really isn't relevant though, since the water is clean regardless of turbidity and you're already doing testing for harmful contaminates. Now, convincing the average idiot to understand that may be tough, but it's certainly an option.

 

[billdacat]

You know about the "free water test" at all the the big box stores. Fun to grab a couple and fill with distilled water or piss. YMMV

 

[Sceep]

YOU look like 2% milk.

I'm trying to be less white damnit! It's difficult for a ginger.

 

[montrose818]

I'm trying to be less white damnit! It's difficult for a ginger.

drink more coke

 

[junkytj]

As you have figured out, the legitimate test is inside the house. It's doubtful they realized the bibs weren't treated when they sampled and highly unlikely they cleared the line. You would like to know what the water coming out of the well looks like and a condition assessment of the treatment equipment is reasonable.

I would question turbidity issues from well water in my area, not familiar with any other areas. I run a 5 micron carbon filter and a 1 micron sediment filter on mine a 2" x 20" lasts 4 months for us. At that point, we are out of carbon and we have terrible sulfur that breaks through. We treat the sulfur with ozone, so occasionally our water looks milky out of the tap until it sets for a minute and the residual oxygen is released.