I recently moved into a house that has well water, with a Whole House RO system. It basically consists of the Pump > Water Softner > RO System > Holding Tank > Carbon Filter > Pump to house.
There is a small tank (about 10 Gallons) that is suppose to contain a chlorine mix that gets injected into the large (4' wide x 6' height) holding tank via a pink Unidose pump every time the system goes on.
So far I've been filing that Chlorine tank with water and 2oz. of household chlorine bleach based on what a neighbor told me. I do this about once a week or so. How can I be sure i'm adding the correct amount of bleach? Should it be using up about 10 Gallons of this mix per week?
Hope someone can help. This seems like the most knowledgeable site about this stuff on the internet.
When we set up a chlorinator (and we do use Unidose Feed Pumps) we generally use either a 15 or 30 gallon solution tank with about 3 parts water and 1 part bleach. I only buy and sell the 30 gallon per day feed pumps (yours may be different) and set them at around 50% to start out. You can buy an inexpensive pool test kit that tests PH and chlorine. Grocery stores here in Florida have pool sections (if you live in Vermont, they might not) where you can pick them up. Test the water coming out of a faucet in the house. You want the chlorine to just barely show up. If it's too strong, turn the pump down, if it's nonexistent, turn the pump up. That's the only way to get it right.
I personally don't like chlorine and if you don't need it for some reason, turn the damned thing off. All it's doing is slowly destroying everything it comes in contact with. It would be my opinion that with the amount of water usage you have, unless you have a bacteria problem I don't know about, you shouldn't need chlorine.
I just looked this morning and the Chlorine tank is 15 gallon and holding tank is 500 gallon. The Unidose pump has a dial and it's set to 20 (low)
I will test the PH and chlorine this weekend with the pool kit and see how it looks. But with a 3:1 ratio you mentioned, I would be purchasing 5 Chlorox Bleach bottles per week. Seems like way too much. I just don't want all of us to end up with blond hair!
Doesn't the holding tank need chlorine or something in it to prevent algae growth or bacteria from forming?
Here's a picture of the Chlorine tank and Holding Tank. The hose from the injection pump goes up into the holding tank:
What you have is a pretty standard setup. However the chlorine shouldn't be used up that quickly. Maybe they have it set for the pump to run all the time. Who knows. It's only supposed to run when the pump runs or it could be on a flow switch. But your using way too much liquid.
I would just add a few cap fulls about once a month. That should take care of any algae or bacteria.
Chlorine Injection to Holding Tank for WHR
Posted - Jul 26 2010 : 5:07:46 PM
