Why Los Angeles 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
There is no standard well water in Los Angeles County. A well in the Antelope Valley draws from desert basin fill that carries arsenic, fluoride and boron. A well in the Santa Clarita Valley taps the Saugus and Alluvial aquifers, where perchlorate and solvents from the old Whittaker-Bermite site have been tracked since 1997. A well in the Santa Monica Mountains pulls fracture water out of marine sedimentary rock. Three geologies, three sets of problems, and two homes thirty miles apart can need nothing alike. We start with a test and build the treatment around your numbers, which is why we won’t quote a system over the phone.
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Nobody Else Is Checking Your Well
The State Water Resources Control Board says it plainly: the State of California does not regulate water quality in most private domestic wells. Los Angeles County requires testing when a well is first drilled or reconstructed, and after that the schedule is yours. No annual report arrives in the mail. No utility posts your numbers. The County recommends testing on a regular basis for nitrate, coliform bacteria and primary inorganic chemicals, but recommending is as far as it goes. If your well has changed since it was drilled, testing is how you find out.
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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.
- Over $437 a year saved on soaps, shampoos and detergents in soft water
- Over $115 a year in gas water heater energy savings
- Up to 50% more life out of dishwashers and washing machines
- No more replacing fixtures and appliances that iron ruined early
Local Resources
Los Angeles Well Water
Why Does My Well Water Stain
Everything Orange?
That’s iron, and often manganese alongside it. Both dissolve invisibly in groundwater and then oxidize the moment they hit air, which is why the stain shows up in your tub, toilet bowl, sink and laundry rather than in the glass. USGS sampling of the Coastal Los Angeles Basin found iron or manganese above the drinking water benchmark in about 19% of the primary aquifer system, roughly one well in five. A softener alone won’t handle meaningful iron. An iron filter will.
Should I Be Testing My Well
For Arsenic?
Yes, and in the Antelope Valley it’s the first thing we look at. Arsenic occurs naturally in the basin, and when USGS assessed the aquifer system that supplies the valley it found arsenic above the drinking water benchmark in 28% of the primary aquifers. Los Angeles County Waterworks has reported arsenic as high as 11 ppb in its Lancaster-area supply, against a limit of 10 ppb. Those are public supply figures rather than private well figures, and USGS is still working up its first domestic well survey of the valley, sampled in late 2024. For a well owner the takeaway is short: no published number describes your well, so test it. Arsenic is removable, and arsenic filtration is a solved problem once you know your level.
How Hard Is Well Water Around Los Angeles?
Harder than the city water, and the city’s numbers won’t help you work out how hard. LADWP averages around 112 ppm as calcium carbonate, about 6.5 grains per gallon, because most of what it delivers is imported aqueduct water. Local groundwater is a different animal. In the Antelope Valley communities of Pearblossom, Littlerock and Sun Village, where the supply comes from wells, Los Angeles County Waterworks reports total hardness from 140 to 249 ppm, averaging 195 ppm. That’s 8 to 15 grains per gallon, well inside the very hard range. Hardness is what leaves the white crust on your fixtures and the scale inside your water heater, and the only way to know your own number is to test for it.
TREATMENT OPTIONS
Three Problems, Three Fixes For Your
Los Angeles Well
Iron, Sulfur & Arsenic Filtration
Water Softening
Drinking Water Systems
The Proof
Why Do Los Angeles Homeowners TRUST Our
Well Water Treatment Systems?
Culligan always sends information regarding my account, delivery schedule changes if any and has professional courteous drivers that are in and out in no time to change out my filters.
I have been a Culligan customer for over 30 years and have always been pleased with their service. I would certainly recommend them to anyone needing water service.
The technician was awesome and solved our issue quickly and perfectly. He told us exactly what we need to do moving forward so as to get plenty of filtered drinking water all the time.
Rust Stains? Arsenic? Scale?
Find Out What’s Really
In Your Los Angeles Well Water!
• Fast on-site results, no mailing
• We test iron, manganese, arsenic, nitrate, 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, which is calcium and magnesium, and it can handle a limited amount of iron and manganese along the way. If iron is your main problem, you want a dedicated iron filter. A test tells us which situation you’re in.
Do I need a softener, a filter, or both?
Most well homes in Los Angeles County end up with both, because hardness and everything else 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 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.
What about arsenic? I keep hearing about it in the Antelope Valley.
It’s a fair thing to hear about. Arsenic is naturally present in Antelope Valley groundwater, and Los Angeles County Public Works notes that research by the County and USGS has found the problem sitting mainly in the deeper aquifer. That matters, because domestic wells are usually shallower than municipal production wells, so a public supply figure is not a prediction about your well. It’s a reason to test. Arsenic has no taste, color or smell, so a lab result is the only way to see it, and arsenic filtration handles it once we know the number.
What about nitrate?
Worth testing, and more so if you’re near agriculture or on an older septic system. Los Angeles County Public Works has documented two nitrate plumes in the southern Antelope Valley, each covering five to six square miles, one near Littlerock, with concentrations periodically exceeding the 10 mg/L limit. Nitrate is one of the three things the State Water Board recommends every private well owner test for annually, alongside coliform bacteria and electrical conductivity.
Is my well water safe to drink without treatment?
Iron, manganese, sulfur and hardness are aesthetic and nuisance problems at the levels we usually find. Safety questions like bacteria, nitrate and arsenic are a separate test and worth doing on any private well in Los Angeles County. Start with a water test and we’ll tell you honestly which category your results fall into.
My property was in the Palisades or Eaton fire footprint. Should I be worried about my well?
Have it tested before you go back to using it. Neither Los Angeles County Public Health nor the State Water Board set up a private well monitoring program after the January 2025 fires, and the boil-water and do-not-drink notices that went out covered public water systems, not wells. That leaves well owners without an official answer. What we know from studies of other fires is that surface debris around a wellhead is the likelier route in than the aquifer itself, and that the CDC advises well owners in burn areas to have their water evaluated rather than assume it’s fine. Note that Los Angeles County requires water quality testing on any well reconstructed after a fire or natural disaster.
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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