I have lived in many places in mainland China, and I have yet to find a place (except Hong Kong) that has good quality water flowing from the taps. This is what I have come to expect:

-leaves iron stains on my laundry, and makes it hard and dingy
-leaves spots on my dishes
-stains the toilet, bath tub and washroom tiles (effectively ruining them)

-gums up the washing machine, water heater and shower head
-irritates the hell out of my skin (chronic skin condition:eczema)

At my current place in Dali, our community is apparently on a private well water system. As far as I can tell it's untreated. I tried doing the simple chlorine and water hardness tests and both came up negative. I tried carbon filter and water softners (both were fouled). Preferably it would be best to have the water tested by a professional to tell me exactly what's in it, but I had no luck finding such a person. Even if I could get some test results, are there any places in yunnan that sell well water treatment systems?

I am used to living in modern cities with good quality soft water, and I am really not well prepared to deal with this problem.

How can a water hardness test "come up negative"? All water has a hardness value. PH is also very important to know.

I installed a whole house water filtration system in my house. I can drink water from any tap. Essentially the system must uses a water softener canister with bromide injector, then it must pass through a resin column canister which will remove particulates and chemicals. The system must be sized to meet your output requirements, whatever they are.

Order on the net (USA) a water quality test kit, cost about $40 for 2 tests. Do not trust any local water test! Test the water BEFORE treatment, and then AFTER you install your system. Wait a week after your system is running before you test it.

My house is 180 sq meter, 2 ppl, and I estimate we use 200 liters a day. I paid about 20,000 for our system. Our water is great, laundry perfect (clothes soft), skin and hair now "normal".

You guys are lucky - we live in an old KM neighborhood where they frequently muck around with the old piping. Our water is occasionally full of rust -ie the water is brown - which means we have to run it for 5-15 minutes for the water to change color back to somewhat clear (but who knows what chemicals are lurking inside).

We visited some friends WAY up in the mountains - above the clouds (obviously farmers). Their water comes straight from the tap - crystal clear - almost like distilled. Only problem is they're really poor and have no hot water, unless they boil it.

Clear water doesn't mean clean laotou. I still wouldn't drink it without boiling it first.

They only drink boiled water, baijiu and beer...but yeah...good point.

The water hardness test showed that the water wasn't hard. If I remember correctly (don't have exact number of grains per L at the moment) it was slightly soft. I think PH was about 7.5 (normal). The test kit that I used was something I bought at Lowes in the US. There are thousands of things that could be wrong with the water, but if I could at least remove all the iron that would really make a difference.

My understanding is that to deal with iron one needs chlorine injection followed by a retention tank, followed by a large backwashing carbon filter.

Bucko, would you care to share some of the details about your system? Did you import it from the USA, and did you install it yourself? When you say "20,000", do you mean dollars or RMB?

I bought my system in Kunming (20,000 RMB). It consists of 3 components as I explained in my previous post. I assume your water test kit was for drinking water and NOT a pool/spa test kit. They are different.
For your example here is my before and after results of my system.
Before After
Nitrates = safe safe
Nitrites - safe safe
Alkalinity - 240 ppm 120 ppm
ph - 8 7

hardness - 250 ppm 50 ppm (low due to softner)
Iron - 0 ppm 1 ppm
Copper - 0 ppm 1.3 ppm
Chlorine - 0 5 ppm
Bacteria - positive negative
pesticide - positive positive
Lead - positive negative

I would not do anything that adds chlorine to your water. BAD health decision there. The system I use takes the street water and softens it while removing all particulates. It also uses resin beads to activate the water before it moves into the other resin column. This second column can now process the water and absorb the metals and kill the bacteria. Ideal hardness should be about 125ppm, however I set mine lower so the resin column is much more effective treating the water.
The whole system has a controller you program that flushes and cleans the resin columns. Plus I also manually flush the 2nd column myself every 3 days. This system will go for 5 years before the resin beads need replacing.
End result is my water is crystal clear and tastes great. My refer makes perfect clear ice and coffee is very good. Washing and watering plants also great. I still get pesticides of whatever level, but that is unavoidable unless you want to put in very expensive and large equipment. You can get a table top system that you can use for drinking water that will take out the pesticides completly. A small unit runs about $2000. I may get one in the future. I have been using my system for 2.5 years now, and no problems. Be aware that you need adequate line pressure (50 psi min) for this to work correctly. I had to add a pressure booster pump to achieve this. BE VERY CAREFUL WHO YOU DEAL WITH IF YOU GET A SYSTEM! Most companies are terrible and only are resellers, they know nothing of what they are selling. Deal only with the manufactor directly.
Hope this helps.

I dug up my test results. I don't know how accurate they are. It was a drinking water test from "Ecopure/Whirlpool".

Total Dissolved Solids 120ppm
0PPPM Residual Chlorine
80mg/L Alkalinity
PH 7.5
50mg/L Hardness (3 grains) SOFT
0PPM Nitrate
0PPM Nitrite
1PPM IRON + Iron Bacteria
0.7PPM COPPER

From what I gather from the test results my water is not being treated with chlorine. I think in your situation you were right not to do chlorine injection as your city water already has it. However, my understanding is that because I have iron bacteria I have to use some kind of chemical injection, or else the expensive resin beads will be damaged. You said that your system uses bromide injection, which I find odd, as that is usually used in swimming pools rather than drinking water.

In any case, I am very curious about your system. Could you refer me to the manufacturer so that I can get some product details?

I use salt in the bromide injector, it's just called bromide injector. The resin beads should be suitable to kill all bacteria. That is it's function. I would check your info again on this.

I am not in town so I cannot give you info about my equipment. I don't remember. But you can find several companies on the net and contact them about their products. I wouldn't use any local company, go directly to the manufacturer.

All water softeners that I am familiar with require a chemical for regeneration, usually salt or potassium. I would guess that the salt on your system is actually being used to regenerate the resin beads in the water softener. I honestly haven't a clue what the "bromide injector" is. I did an English google search and came up with nothing. Should I be searching in Chinese language using Baidu to look for manufacturers in Kunming? Anyway, one day when you're back at home and refilling the salt tank on your system, perhaps if happen to glance a manufacturer logo on the tank you could give AC a shout. Thanks.