Well Water in Southwest Florida: What Is In It
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- Hardness, Chlorine, Iron, Sulfur
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Nobody tests your well. Not the county, not the state, not anyone.
City customers get a water quality report in the mail every year because the law requires it. Private wells in Sarasota, Charlotte and DeSoto County get nothing. If yours has never been tested, it has never been tested.
That’s the starting point for everything else on this page.
Wells around here rarely bring one problem. Most of what we test comes back with some combination of three things, and the combination is what decides the equipment.
Iron, which comes up dissolved and clear and then stains everything orange once it hits air.
Hydrogen sulfide, which is the rotten egg smell, worst in a hot shower.
Hardness, which does exactly what it does on city water. Scale in the heater, spots on the glassware, soap that won’t lather.
Each one has its own page. What ties them together is that they have to be handled in the right order, and that’s the part most installs get wrong.
No agency tests private wells. If yours has never been tested, it has never been tested.
SW Florida Water
The Three Problems, And Which Page To Read
Orange or brown staining in sinks, tubs and laundry is dissolved iron. Clear water going in, rust colour coming out. There’s a full guide to iron staining, including why bleach makes it worse.
A rotten egg smell, strongest in a hot shower, is hydrogen sulfide. There’s a separate guide to the sulfur smell, including how to tell whether it’s the well or your water heater.
Sand or cloudiness is a third thing again, and on a well it’s usually the well itself rather than the water. That one’s covered in cloudy or sand-filled water.
Hardness is the quiet one. No smell, no colour, and it’s the one wrecking your water heater.
02
Nobody Is Checking
No agency tests private wells. Your test is the only picture you'll get.
Why The Order Matters More Than The Equipment
A well system is staged. Iron and sulfur removal goes at the front, softener behind it, sediment filtration wherever the well needs it.
Run that backwards and iron fouls the softener resin, sometimes inside a year. It’s the single most common reason well installs fail early around here.
It’s also the step a plumber fitting a softener usually skips, because softeners are what they know and staging isn’t.
One limit worth being straight about. We test for iron, sulfur, hardness and sediment. We don’t test for bacteria or coliform, and no treatment system is a substitute for that. If you want bacterial testing, arrange it separately.
- Iron, sulfur and hardness usually turn up together
- Order of treatment decides whether it lasts
- No bacteria testing, arrange that separately
Frequently Asked Questions About Well Water in Southwest Florida: What Is In It
What do the stain colors mean?
The color tells you a lot. Orange or brown is almost always iron. Black usually means manganese. If you're getting a reddish slime instead of a stain, that's iron bacteria, which is a whole different animal. Worth figuring out which one you've got before anybody sells you equipment, because they don't all get treated the same way.
Do I need to test if I just bought the house?
Especially then. Whatever the seller knew about the well left with them, and a disclosure isn't a test. Wells change hands in worse shape than people expect, because nobody has been required to look at it.
Will my stains go away after treatment?
New ones stop. Old ones don't. Once iron has set into a tub or a sink or your laundry, treatment isn't pulling it back out. You'll be scrubbing those separately, and honestly some clothes never fully come back. The longer you wait, the more of your house you're writing off.
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