Whole house water filters- recommendations requested.

We have a well and there is a BUNCH of orange organic iron in our water.We've been using canister filters and they do a fairly good job of removing the big stuff, but the problem is that we've got super fine particulate in our water. The 5 micron water filters last a few months. We tried using smaller charcoal 1 micron filters, and the water was great when we used those, but they clog in about a week. Without them, the water has a tinge to it. There is no taste, but white T-Shirts turn orange fairly quickly and if you pour a glass of water, a bit of sediment will settle out eventually. Like I said, it is super-fine, though. If I let it dry out, it feels almost like talc.

I've got to get some sort of large capacity system in the house that will take care of this, but I'm kind of in the dark on where to start. Prices are all over the map, and I'm sure efficacy is, too. There are plenty of reviews online, but lots of them feel like paid-for shilling.

Help.

We have a whole house system, part filter, part water softener. Depending what is in your water the system equipment/cost will vary. We have manganese (or something) that eats the copper from the inside out so the initial cost of the system seemed cheap compared to having the plumbing start leaking all over the place. We also needed the water softened. We add salt to a tank monthly for the softener and have a media filter tank that gets new media added about every 18 months for whatever eats the pipes. Fairly easy to deal with and reasonably dependable. In the 16 years we have lived here have only had to replace a couple of small parts. Around here (New England) I had a Culligan dealer (I believe they are a national brand) come and quote a system and also got some local Mom & Pop outfit prices. If you have a well supply business nearby they should be able to point you to someone reliable. The first thing they should do is to test for what you have in the water and then they can recommend a system that will take care of the issue. When we first lived here the inside of our dishwasher would turn brown in about two weeks, someone told us to run it empty with Tang drink mix instead of the soap and it would clean the plastic back to the white. Don't know what is in Tang but it works great for cleaning, I don't drink it anymore though.... Good luck shopping for a good installer.

Also curious. We want an RO system for the kitchen but after some investigation it seems like they actually filter too much necessary minerals.

Call some local places. They will generally come out and test your water, then recommend a system based on that. That's what we did a couple of years ago.

we bought a house with a water softener system, which we found out after the fact was completely broken/non functional. we were getting stains on our laundry. iron related.

got a quote for a new rain soft system....$$$$$$$.

we found another local company to install a puronics water softener system for us for about half the price for the same setup. We let them come out about every other year for a check up on the system but we have had it for 5 years, no issues, no stained laundry, water tastes good, always tests fine when they check up on us. All I have to do is top off the brine tank with salt every couple months and check the timers on the tanks (it does some sort of self purge/flush in the middle of the night)

The system itself was around $3k all in.

I was on a well and had the orange water that smelled like sulfur. I ran two filters, one particulate and one charcoal. They would each last about a week.

I called this guy from an Ebay ad: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Iron-Buster-1-cu-ft-birm-system-Fleck-2510SXT-Iron-Manganese-Water-Filter-/390034195326?hash=item5acfd9837e:m:mj3BHbM9WTQOZSVMVtQO5IQ

I had it in for 8 years without a single issue and zero upkeep when we moved. I installed it myself. Clear water with zero smell. There is a phone number at the bottom of the Ebay ad, call it and he will answer all of your questions. If he does not answer he will call you back. I had a question on a Saturday when I was going to install it and he answered right away. Pretty cool guy.