I’m going to write about a really, really old drill rig — the first one I had any experience with. But first, I want to give readers a bit of family history about how my father and then I got involved in the well drilling and pump industry.

Several months ago, one of my readers sent me an email asking about the details of a pipe-pulling device I used to replace a pump in December 2015.

The subject of using a cartridge filter got my attention due to an infomercial on TV.

Manufacturers tried many ways to change clear-water iron to what, in effect, is rusty water iron. Finally somebody figured out a relatively simple way to aerate the water and oxidize the iron.

The manufacturers in the water conditioning industry had long realized that a successful filter had to get the iron from solution, or invisible, to suspension, or visible, iron. How to do this seemed to baffle everyone for a long time.

In my next to last article, I said I would next discuss regenerating green sand-type iron filters. So, let's get to it.

Recently, I have attended two good meetings, sadly missed an important one and visited some locations that have a serious water quality problem.

Captive air tanks did away with the problem of water logging and also gave the customer far less rusty water than the old-style pressure tanks because the water in the tank and the air were completely separated. This, however, created a whole new situation regarding iron filtration.

In years gone by, my father and I sold a number of cartridge-type filters to customers who had rusty water. After several years, we began to investigate other types of filters that would work on ferric or visible iron.

Looking at a water map of the U.S. recently, I noticed that most of the Great Lakes states — which include Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, plus the non-Great Lakes state of Iowa — all have groundwater that is classified as very hard.