Water Issues

Our new house has a well.  The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) also provides water to our area.  Do we use the well or get city water?  As someone that hates subscription services, I'd rather use the well.  So first step bring out some water folks and see what needs to be done.  We have an old Kinetico water softener from 1986 and an old filter.  The water softener folks tell us our water is super hard and off the charts full of particulates.

LCRA wants 10k just to hook up water service at the curb and then we still have to dig a trench and bring it to the house.

While we are in the middle of deciding what to do, the well pump died.  So we replaced that with a new Gould 1.5hp pump.   I had some great pics of Glass Well Service pulling the pump but somehow lost them.  Instead here's the seemingly innocuous well: 

Turns out we have a 6" well with casing all the way down.  The water level is at 450' and the pump is at 485'.  Not a lot of water.  So now I'm thinking I will put in a single tank water softener, a large 30 micron filter, a UV filter for bacteria, and hook up an external above ground 2500 gallon tank to let the particles settle out and provide some back up in case of drought.  Hmmm.