Soft city water, hard mountain wells
Water Softener Installation in Wilkes-Barre
Wilkes-Barre’s municipal water comes from mountain reservoirs through Pennsylvania American Water and tests officially soft — whatever the neighborhood lore says. So we do not sell softeners to Heights or Parsons row homes without a reading. Drive up to Mountain Top or across the river into the Back Mountain and the wells there run hard, often 7 grains per gallon and up, with iron and sulfur along for the ride. Same company, very different recommendation, decided by a free test.
The softener calls we get from Wilkes-Barre split cleanly. City homes describe chlorine taste and brown water after main work — carbon and sediment, not salt. Well homes in Mountain Top, Dallas, Shavertown, and Bear Creek describe crusted showerheads, orange rings, and a rotten-egg smell — that is the softener-plus-iron-filter conversation. We do not know which you are until we read the tap, and we will not quote until we do.
What the utility’s own report says about hardness
Pennsylvania American Water publishes annual water quality reports for the Wilkes-Barre system, and hardness lands in the soft range. That is why a softener quoted from a Wilkes-Barre zip code is a red flag. Real city-water problems here are taste and odor from chlorine, sediment stirred loose from coal-era mains, and the lead question in pre-1986 housing. None of those is fixed by a resin tank, and we say so before you spend anything.
Mountain Top and the Back Mountain: the actual softener market
Off the municipal system, private wells across Mountain Top, Rice Township, Dallas, and Lehman Township commonly test hard, and many add dissolved iron and hydrogen sulfide. A softener sized to the measured grains per gallon ends the scale; iron above what resin can handle gets its own filter; sulfur gets oxidation or carbon depending on the level. The free test separates those three so you buy the right stages in the right order.
Sound familiar?
Problems this system solves
Mountain Top well scale
Hardness of 7 grains per gallon and up is common off the city system.
Orange rings and rotten-egg smell
Iron and sulfur on Back Mountain wells — filter stages, not just a softener.
Chlorine taste downtown
A carbon job. Softeners do nothing for chlorine.
Pre-1986 plumbing
Most of the city predates the lead-solder ban. One kitchen-tap test settles it.
The payoff
Why NEPA homeowners choose this system
Straight answer on city water
Soft reading, no softener — we put it in writing.
Sized to the well, not the town
Grains per gallon and household use decide capacity.
Iron, sulfur, and pH in one visit
So each problem gets its own correctly ordered stage.
Valley and mountain, one crew
Wilkes-Barre, Kingston, Mountain Top, Dallas — same technicians.
Good to know