Anyone with a lot of iron in your well water?

[2squared]

If so, how do you handle the water staining your shower/tub? Our shower is stained from years of use, and I'm not sure how to fix it or how to keep it from happening going forward. Dh started to clean the shower with toilet bowl cleaner :001_huh: and it did remove part of the build up. I can't imagine that is the best solution. We haven't lived here very long so I don't know how many years of build up are sitting in the shower right now.

 

Our water looks like urine, and it smells like eggs. It's pretty gross. I buy drinking water, but otherwise we use our well water. We do put iron out pellets in the water softener, and we use iron out in the laundry for some of our white clothes. The rest of our clothes are slowly turning yellow. :glare:

[bbkaren]

My mother swears by an Amway product called "Redu" (I'm not sure it's even available anymore), but I've also heard good things about "CLR" which is a hard water product that's available just about anywhere.

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Calcium-Lime-Rust-Cleaner-Remover/14574716

[nono]

Well, we have a ton of iron sometimes in our city water! IRON OUT is what the water company recommends, and it's also available at Lowe's. It has fixed up our laundry nicely. Whites go back to white!

 

CLR hasn't worked for us for the iron. I just make a cleaning solution with the Iron Out. That hasn't worked for you? That's a bummer.

Edited November 4, 2011 by nono
originally missed "iron out" in post. I need capital letters. Old eyes. :-)

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

We had a filter installed on our well. It was pricey...$800 but worth every penny. We had it cleaned yearly. Never had iron stains again and the water did not smell of egg.

[EKS]

We used something called naval jelly to get the rust stains off.

[sparrow]

 

Bar Keepers Friend!

[OLG]

Another vote for Iron Out. Have found nothing that conquers those nasty iron stains better. Did read about WD-40 as a possibility but have never tried it. Work in a well ventilated area when using Iron Out, though. Or at least I need to!

[SailorMom]

A good friend of mine lives with this - she swears by Barkeepers' Friend. It's a powder, without a harsh smell - she has severe allergies and can't handle the stronger stuff.

I tried it on the metal on my boat that was rusting in the salt air - it was amazing. Best stuff I had ever used.

[black_midori]

Is this a place you own? Rent? Plan to be in for short period? Long?

 

If you own and/or plan to live there very long, I would definitely invest in a full-house water filter. That's what we did, and it has been a SIGNIFICANT increase in happiness! :D

 

We actually had so many problems with our well water (living right next to a pretty but yucky river) that we got multiple different types of filters, including a chlorinator for bacteria. It has definitely helped - our dishwasher was practically new when we moved in and within a year or so was icky, yellow, hardly working, clogged all the time, etc. We did a thorough cleaning after installing the filters and it has stayed nice for the last year or so!

 

We got all our water filter stuff onine at "The Clean Water Store", and I can't express enough how great they were to deal with!! They were prompt, courteous and helpful in all the emails I exchanged (which was LOTS, as we installed the entire complicated system ourselves). Also, when we installed one of the heads we accidentally broke the threads on it (a MAJOR deal - ruined the wall in our well-house, because the water sprayed out so darned hard!) - when I called to cry about it to them and ask how much a replacement would cost, he assured me kindly that it was all under warranty (even though we were the ones who likely broke it!) and they promptly sent me out a new head with a request for me to send in the old when I got a chance.

 

The system cost an arm and a leg, but that was because we got so many components - they sell lots of different ranges/sizes/types.

 

Prior to that, we were shocking our well quite often (which does help, but only for a little while). You might try that as a preliminary measure.

[Margo out of lurking]

We put some type of in-house filter where our water entered our house. We had to change out the orange sandy muck collected by the filter twice a year or so. It was nasty.

 

I did some online searching when we were having trouble with it, and I believe the sulphur smell is unrelated to the iron. We had both sometimes though.

 

I found the whole water issue very frustrating and depressing. It was just one reason I was happy to move back to a public water source (but now it kills me when we pay the bill!).

[awtl]

My sister and I clean houses, and cleaning build up on tubs is annoyinjg because it's so hard to get that junk off. I don't think we've had a problem with iron, but the water is hard and the mineral deposits are terrible. This has been the only thing that works for us. It's natural and it smells really nice: http://www.shaklee.com/products.php?sku=00430

 

I use one of those round little scrub brushes and rub gently and it gets everything really clean without having to scrub. People have asked us, "How do you get that off? I've been trying for years to get that off." We're just good. ;)