Well Water Treatment in
Dallas, TX and Surrounding Areas
From Culligan of Dallas

A softener removes hardness, which is calcium and magnesium, and it can handle a limited amount of iron and manganese along the way. If iron is your main problem, and on a Trinity outcrop well it often is, you want a dedicated iron filter. A test tells us which situation you’re in.

In North Texas that answer depends on where your well is more than on anything else. Outcrop wells west of the metroplex usually need both softening and iron filtration. Downdip wells to the east are often already soft and need reverse osmosis for drinking water instead. We will not guess at it, and you shouldn’t buy equipment from anyone who does.

Not from a softener. A properly functioning water softener will never make your water taste salty, because the amount of sodium it adds is far too little to taste. If your well water already tastes salty before any treatment, that is the aquifer talking, not a softener, and it points to dissolved solids rather than hardness.

Through ion exchange. As it removes the calcium and magnesium that make water hard, it replaces those ions one for one with sodium. The amount added is proportional to how hard your water is, and in most cases it isn’t a significant contributor to the sodium in your diet.

Yes. Once a softener is installed it begins removing the scale that hard water built up. It takes a long time to clear, but it will clear.

Other than salt or potassium chloride, no. A softener reduces the cleaning supplies and detergents going down your drain, which makes it a net positive environmentally.

Modern softeners recharge based on how much water you use and how hard it is. Most of our customers add salt once or twice a year.

Not on its own. Soft and clean are different things. Downdip North Texas groundwater swaps calcium for sodium inside the aquifer, so it arrives soft but carrying sodium, sulfate and chloride. The survey of Trinity and Woodbine wells under the metroplex found more than 70 percent of observations above the secondary standard for total dissolved solids. Soft water with high dissolved solids still tastes flat or briny and still needs treating, just not with a softener.

Worth testing for on a Trinity well. When the Texas Water Development Board surveyed the chemical quality of these aquifers it counted more than 230 analyses in the Twin Mountains formation above what was then the state’s acceptable fluoride level, and the Woodbine has shown a higher share of fluoride exceedances than the Trinity across every decade on record. Fluoride has no taste or smell at these levels, so a lab result is the only way to see it, and reverse osmosis reduces it.

Probably not here, and we would rather tell you that than sell you something. Texas does have aquifers with naturally elevated radium and gross alpha, and statewide the Texas Water Development Board found about 11 percent of sampled wells over the gross alpha limit. But the aquifers that drive that number are the Hickory, Ogallala, Dockum, Gulf Coast and Edwards-Trinity Plateau, none of which is the Trinity or Woodbine under North Texas. If you want certainty for your own well, a radionuclide panel is a separate test worth running once.

Iron, manganese, sulfur and hardness are aesthetic and nuisance problems at the levels we usually find. Safety questions are separate. Of the private wells Texas A&M’s Well Owner Network has screened statewide, 15 to 20 percent tested positive for coliform bacteria, 3 to 5 percent for E. coli, and 5 to 8 percent were above the nitrate standard. Texas A&M also notes E. coli detections climb during drought, when there isn’t enough movement in the aquifer to flush bacteria through. Start with a water test and we’ll tell you honestly which category your results fall into.

Texas A&M recommends testing for bacteria every year, with the rest of the chemistry as needed. Their standard screening panel is coliform bacteria, E. coli, nitrate, salinity and dissolved solids, pH, and arsenic where location warrants it. Nobody will send you a reminder, which is the whole problem.

Most residential systems install in a few hours in a single visit. We deliver the equipment, install it, and set it up, so there’s nothing for you to unbox or assemble.

As soon as the well is drilled and tested. Roughing in space and plumbing for treatment during construction costs far less than retrofitting it into a finished home.

Every recommendation we make starts with knowing what is in your water. The test is free, it happens at your house, and it takes about half an hour. You’ll get your numbers explained in plain language and an honest answer about whether you need treatment at all.