I see people talk a lot about water quality here but I'm curious what water quality do you have on your loop and how long it has been running, what maintenance you do, which brand of heat pump, etc... I guess specifically the main numbers to look at with regards to water quality are hardness, ph and iron? Am I missing any? Thanks to everyone in advance.
Our City has one of those "come see our wonderful water treatment facility" so we're good. And I have a 200 gallon carboy I fill up with City water for those suspect sites.
In an open loop (I assume that is what you are asking about) I have 20 grains of hardness, 7.5 PH and 2.77 PPM iron. The well also has iron bacteria that I try shock chlorinate every year or so. I have been trying a stainless steel rod wrapped in copper this year submerged in the well. The buildup on the inside of the pipes seems minimul now. I circulated some rust/lime remover from a big box store that was just off the shelf before winter last year. This past winter was my 2nd winter in the house and the unit was manufactured in 2004 so guessing 9 years old now. From the looks of things I doubt there was much done maintence wise before. I switched the water valve last year to be on the output of the heat exchanger as the exchanger was never under pressure for all those years when the unit was off.
