Neutralizing Rainwater with a Calcite Blend Neutralizer

While most of the letters we receive come from well and city water users, we occasionally get letters from people who use rainwater as a primary water source at home.

If you are one of our rainwater-harvesting customers, you may have noticed that rainwater tends to have a low pH when first collected.  Often, this causes cistern users to report copper leaching due to the acidity of the water.  One customer recently wrote to us with just such a problem, and we wanted to share our answer with you readers that may also be harvesting rainwater at home.

If you are experiencing acidic rainwater – or worse, copper leaching due to acidic rainwater – consider installing a calcite blend neutralizer. We have helped many customers on rainwater with the same problem, and this always fixes it.

For users in remote areas, we recommend a manual backwash calcite blend neutralizer, which will allow you to avoid running unnecessary backwash cycles and save energy, water, and money.

Our neutralizer 2510 system with calcite blend media is very well suited to treating acidic rainwater.  This system uses an Enpress tank with Vortech distributor which allows it to backwash using about 30% less water than other backwashing neutralizers, and when used for neutralizing rainwater this system should only require backwashing about once or twice a month.

For water whose pH is lower than 6.0, we recommend a blend of 90% calcite (calcium) and 10% Corosex (magnesium). The neutralizer filter comes with everything you need, including the calcite and Corosex media and simple instructions, and can be installed easily by any plumber or person familiar with plumbing.

You might also consider installing a UV sterilizer to treat your rainwater. UV sterilizers are very popular treatment systems for rainwater users on cisterns, as they will kill any bacteria that might come from your catchment device (presumably your roof).  Our Wonderlight sterilizers are great for users in remote areas, too, as they come with an external power supply and lamps rated for 9000 hours of life.

If you decide to use a UV sterilizer system, it should be installed before the neutralizer to prevent calcium minerals from the neutralizer collecting on the UV quartz sleeve. We also recommend installing a 1 micron ceramic filter before the UV sterilizer to remove parasites and other contaminants prior to sterilization.

Our recommended ceramic filter would be a Doulton Rio 2000. Every Doulton and British Berkefeld ceramic filter uses a Sterasyl silver-impregnated ceramic microfilter, which inhibits the growth of bacteria, gives the ceramics self-sterilizing properties, and removes the need for boiling of the filter to remove or kill the impurities within the ceramic pores.

Doulton ceramics do not remove the beneficial minerals from water so you can be sure your water is not only safe from harmful impurities but healthy and enjoyable to drink as well.

If you’re experiencing acidic rainwater and copper leaching we’re sure these systems will solve your problem.  For any further questions or comments about rain or well water treatment methods, e-mail us at [email protected], use our online contact form, or drop us a line on Facebook.  Thanks for reading!