Why Herkimer Homeowners Choose Culligan For Well Water Treatment
Our systems are second to none. The real advantage is that we make treating well water simple.
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We Treat Your Water, Not A Category
Roughly half of Herkimer County isn’t on a public water system, which is one of the highest shares anywhere in New York. It is also a county where the water changes fast: Herkimer sits on thick glacial valley fill over Ordovician rock, the Adirondack foothills to the north give up soft water, and the uplands to the south give up the hardest water in the region. We start with a test and build the treatment around your actual numbers, which is why we won’t quote a system over the phone.
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The Company That Drilled It Can Treat It
Most homeowners end up with a driller, a plumber, and a separate water treatment company, and when something goes wrong each one points at the others. We drill, pump, test, and treat. One number, one company, one answer.
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Expert Installation, And We Maintain It
Culligan has been in water treatment for more than 85 years and it’s all we do. Your local Culligan delivers, installs, and maintains the system for you, so there’s no shipping damage, no unboxing, no guessing about install location, and no third-party service line when it needs attention. Schedule an appointment, then enjoy the water.
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Make Your Water Work For You
On the fence about whether you need treatment? These are the returns that pay a system off over time.
- 24% in energy savings by using softened cool water to wash clothes
- 30% more life out of water-using appliances when contaminants are filtered out
- 50% reduction in detergent costs for laundry, hair, and body in soft water
- No more replacing fixtures and appliances that iron ruined early
Local Resources
Herkimer Well Water
Why Does My Well Water Stain
Everything Orange?
That’s iron, and it is very common here. USGS sampling in the Mohawk basin found iron above the staining standard in half the wells tested, with one sample running twenty-seven times the limit. Iron dissolves invisibly in groundwater and oxidizes the moment it meets air, which is why the stain appears in your fixtures and laundry rather than in the glass. A softener alone won’t handle meaningful iron. An iron filter will.
Why Does My Hot Water Smell
Like Rotten Eggs?
Hydrogen sulfide gas, and around Herkimer it is largely a drilled-well problem. USGS found the odor in seven of the fourteen bedrock wells it sampled across the Mohawk basin, and in only one of eight shallow sand-and-gravel wells. If you have a drilled well into shale or dolostone here, it is close to a coin flip. Heat drives the gas out of solution, which is why you notice it most in the shower. Sulfur filtration removes it.
How Hard Is Well Water Around Herkimer?
Hard to very hard, and the village report won’t give you your number. Herkimer’s public supply is a blend: surface water from the Gravesville Reservoir plus two municipal wells on Marginal Road, all treated before it reaches a tap. Your well is untreated and draws from a different place. USGS describes groundwater across this basin as “generally hard to very hard, especially in the Mohawk Valley and areas underlain by carbonate bedrock,” with a median around 230 mg/L as calcium carbonate, roughly 13 grains per gallon, and individual wells running as high as 510 mg/L. The dolostone here is magnesium-rich, so it contributes both calcium and magnesium to your hardness. The only way to know your own figure is to test for it.
TREATMENT OPTIONS
Three Problems, Three Fixes For Your
Herkimer Well
Iron & Sulfur Filtration
Water Softening
Drinking Water Systems
The Proof
Why Do Herkimer Homeowners TRUST Our
Well Water Treatment Systems?
My hair has never been softer, and I've noticed my skin is healthier. Thank you Culligan!
Working with Culligan has been nothing short of excellent. Very trusted, reliable, and they know what they are talking about when it comes to water treatment.
Our tap water has never tasted better. We feel better about drinking directly from the tap thanks to our under-sink reverse osmosis system!
Rust Stains? Rotten Egg Smell?
Find Out What's Really
In Herkimer Well Water!
• Fast on-site results, no mailing
• We test iron, manganese, sulfur, hardness, and pH
• Flexible sample pickup options
Frequently Asked Well Water Treatment Questions
We Have Answers
Will a water softener remove the iron from my well water?
A softener removes hardness and will carry a limited amount of iron and manganese with it. If iron is your main problem, and in Herkimer County it frequently is, you want a dedicated iron filter sized to your numbers. A test tells us which situation you're in.
Do I need a softener, a filter, or both?
Most well homes around Herkimer end up with both, because hardness and iron are separate problems with separate solutions. Whole home filtration paired with softening is the complete answer for a typical well here.
Will my water taste salty?
No. A properly functioning water softener will never make your water taste salty. The small amount of sodium added is far too little to create a salty taste.
How does a water softener work?
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.
Will a softener reverse damage already done to my appliances?
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.
Are chemicals added to my water to soften it?
Other than salt or potassium chloride, no. A softener actually reduces the cleaning supplies and detergents going down your drain, which makes it a net positive environmentally.
How often do I need to add salt?
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.
Does the Herkimer diamond rock have anything to do with my water?
More than you'd think. Herkimer diamonds grow in cavities inside the Little Falls Dolostone, and that same rock is what a lot of local wells draw from. It is vuggy, so water moves through it readily; it is highly magnesian, which is why hardness here comes with a lot of magnesium and not just calcium; and it carries pyrite, marcasite, and solid hydrocarbon alongside the quartz. Those sulfide minerals are the raw material for the iron and sulfur smell people call us about.
Is my well water safe to drink without treatment?
Iron, manganese, sulfur, and hardness are mostly aesthetic and nuisance problems at the levels we usually find. Bacteria, nitrate, arsenic, and radon in water are separate tests, and the valley-fill aquifer under this part of the county is shallow and permeable enough that USGS calls it highly susceptible to surface contamination. Start with a water test and we'll tell you honestly which category your results fall into.
How long does installation take?
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.
We're building a house. When should treatment be designed in?
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.
Where should I get started?
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.
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