Hi Everyone,
A few years ago I had my well replaced. The water from the new well, was significantly harder than the old well, so we replaced our softener. (Old well 20-25 GPG, new well 130 GPG).
The Fleck 7000 came pre-programmed and has a 16x65 tank (4cu feet resin).
Our water also had significant Iron, so we had an iron filter system installed.
The initial settings on my Fleck700 were as follows.
B1-10
BD-99
B2-3
RR-10
BF-56
The BLFC does not have a label on it, however based on the 56m setting above, and amount of water in the brine tank, (and salt usage) I am assuming it is 0.25 GPM.
When the system was originally installed, the capacity was set to C=96 (96,000 Grains). With 4cuf of resin, I understand the maximum setting would be 120,000 (with 15lb salt / 30,000).
Originally i had problems with the softener running out of capacity before a regeneration cycle occurring, so I retested the water multiple times and still had 130. So what I did was reduce the C value rather than adjust brine fill / cycle times. I essentially tested the water every 100g until I was not getting soft water, then adjusted the C number to get me that amount of gallons.
Recently, I have noticed salt residue on countertops, and read this could be from over-regeneration, too much salt etc. So last night i tested the water again, and was at 120 GPG.
So last night after testing, i went back to the controller and found that my Capacity setting was at 36 (36,000 Grains). I swear I did not set it to that, but its been a few years so anything is possible I guess.
Regardless of how it got set to 36, I can not imagine using a softener this size and only getting 36,000 out of it.
So with a 56m brine fill time and a BLFC of 0.25, we are getting 14galllons of water in the tank, and using 42 pounds of salt per regeneration, which is 10.5lb per cuf of resin. According to what I found online, I should get 96,000 capacity with a salt usage of 8lb, so the defualt settings were essentially correct with a bit of safety built in (should be able to get 110,000 using 10.5lb)
But then why were we getting hard water prior to the system running out of capacity. (water was professionally tested by installer, and my kit is one with 3 different chemicals where the water goes from purple to blue), so I am fairly confident that the hardness is correct.
Basically what I am trying to figure out is the best setting for my system. We have extremely hard water, so is it better to run the system more often (With less salt), or less often with more salt etc.
I am going to assume the salt residue was from the system running too often, but I am concerned that changing it back all the way to 96C is going to leave me with hard water between cycles. Should the BD/BF etc settings be changed, or do you think they are set fine?
My original though was that perhaps i need to run the BF longer, (with the increased capacity setting), however everything online says that my softener "should" work with the current settings, and 96,000 capacity (and it should not run out of softening capacity unless we go over the safety factor)
A few years ago I had my well replaced. The water from the new well, was significantly harder than the old well, so we replaced our softener. (Old well 20-25 GPG, new well 130 GPG).
The Fleck 7000 came pre-programmed and has a 16x65 tank (4cu feet resin).
Our water also had significant Iron, so we had an iron filter system installed.
The initial settings on my Fleck700 were as follows.
B1-10
BD-99
B2-3
RR-10
BF-56
The BLFC does not have a label on it, however based on the 56m setting above, and amount of water in the brine tank, (and salt usage) I am assuming it is 0.25 GPM.
When the system was originally installed, the capacity was set to C=96 (96,000 Grains). With 4cuf of resin, I understand the maximum setting would be 120,000 (with 15lb salt / 30,000).
Originally i had problems with the softener running out of capacity before a regeneration cycle occurring, so I retested the water multiple times and still had 130. So what I did was reduce the C value rather than adjust brine fill / cycle times. I essentially tested the water every 100g until I was not getting soft water, then adjusted the C number to get me that amount of gallons.
Recently, I have noticed salt residue on countertops, and read this could be from over-regeneration, too much salt etc. So last night i tested the water again, and was at 120 GPG.
So last night after testing, i went back to the controller and found that my Capacity setting was at 36 (36,000 Grains). I swear I did not set it to that, but its been a few years so anything is possible I guess.
Regardless of how it got set to 36, I can not imagine using a softener this size and only getting 36,000 out of it.
So with a 56m brine fill time and a BLFC of 0.25, we are getting 14galllons of water in the tank, and using 42 pounds of salt per regeneration, which is 10.5lb per cuf of resin. According to what I found online, I should get 96,000 capacity with a salt usage of 8lb, so the defualt settings were essentially correct with a bit of safety built in (should be able to get 110,000 using 10.5lb)
But then why were we getting hard water prior to the system running out of capacity. (water was professionally tested by installer, and my kit is one with 3 different chemicals where the water goes from purple to blue), so I am fairly confident that the hardness is correct.
Basically what I am trying to figure out is the best setting for my system. We have extremely hard water, so is it better to run the system more often (With less salt), or less often with more salt etc.
I am going to assume the salt residue was from the system running too often, but I am concerned that changing it back all the way to 96C is going to leave me with hard water between cycles. Should the BD/BF etc settings be changed, or do you think they are set fine?
My original though was that perhaps i need to run the BF longer, (with the increased capacity setting), however everything online says that my softener "should" work with the current settings, and 96,000 capacity (and it should not run out of softening capacity unless we go over the safety factor)