Match the filter to the lab sheet

If you are on a private well and the sinks keep turning orange, or the bathroom smells like rotten eggs, you are probably about to buy one piece of equipment and live with it for years. This site is a map for that purchase. It is not a store, and it is not a lab.

Who it is for

You own the well, or you are the person who has to deal with it. The water stains fixtures, laundry, or both. Or it smells like sulfur at the tap. You can send a sample to a certified lab, or you already have a report and you are not sure which lines matter.

It is not a guide to city water, chlorine taste, or under-sink pitchers. Those are different problems. A whole-house iron filter is also the wrong tool if the lab report shows bacteria or another health contaminant. The warning at the top of this page is the rule, not a footnote.

What we did not do

We have not tested these products. We have not installed a row of tanks and scored them. We do not publish removal percentages from our own bench. Recommendations on this site, such as they are, mean this: read the manufacturer's published limits, and set them next to your lab sheet. If a page ever sounds like we ran the test, that page is wrong.

Orange or brown staining is often iron. Black staining can be manganese. A rotten-egg smell is often hydrogen sulfide. A water softener is a poor iron filter. Those are patterns, not a reading of your well. The lab report is the document you can buy against.

Start with a guide

• How to read a well-water lab report

  Which lines are about stains and smell, which lines are health warnings, and which official numbers are safe to quote.

• How to choose an iron and sulfur filter

  Sort the job before you sort the brands. Match published limits to the report instead of trusting a ranked list.

• Air injection, peroxide, or a softener

  What oxidation actually does, why a chemical feed exists, and why a softener used alone fouls when iron is high.

• SpringWell vs US Water Systems vs SoftPro

  The three names people compare, turned into questions for each spec sheet. No score from a test we did not run.

• Rotten-egg smell: filter, disinfect, or both

  Hydrogen sulfide, iron bacteria, and a water-heater anode. No bleach recipe, on purpose.

• Cost and tank size

  What changes the quote, and how peak flow and published service flow beat a bathroom count.

The three names you will keep seeing

People shopping this category often end up on SpringWell, US Water Systems, and SoftPro. Naming them is not a ranking. Each company publishes its own limits for iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide, pH, and flow. Those pages change. Use them as spec sheets.

Check the current price on the manufacturer site when you are ready. This site does not reprint prices, because a number copied once and left up for a year is a good way to mislead someone.

A sane order

1. Test the water at a state-certified lab. CDC's well-testing guidance is the place to start, and your health department can point you to a lab.
2. If the report flags coliform bacteria, E. coli, nitrate, arsenic, lead, or anything else your health department treats as a health risk, stop. A stain filter is not the next step.
3. If the problem is iron, manganese, or hydrogen sulfide, read how the three treatment approaches differ.
4. Take the lab numbers to each manufacturer's current sheet. The comparison questions are a checklist for that call or that product page.
5. Size the tank from peak flow and the published service flow, not from a guess about how many bathrooms you have. The cost and tank size guide covers that.