New 9100sxt 48k softener my settings

[My city water]

Just moved to a new house a few months ago and the old softener was useless. I have 16 total grains of hardness, 8 for the water (prior water test and hatch kit) I also have 2 ppm iron, .02 of manganese.

I purchased a 9100sxt twin tank softer. Each tank has 1.5 cruft of SST-60 resin. 48k total capacity per tank. I then added a resup auto feeder to the brine tank. Prior to the softener I added a 20" big blue 1" diameter filter to get rid of sediment (50 micron washable filter).

Everything seems to be working well and I've just started to monitor usage. I want to make sure I have my calculations and settings right. We have 3 full baths, regular tubs and 2 young kids so I went with 60 gpp. To convert iron to hardness I used 4. When searching the internet I saw numbers from 2-5 being used.

Hardness + (iron x 4) ) = 8 + (2 x 4) = 16 hardness

4 people x 60 = 240
240 x 7 = 1680 gal/week
1680 x 16 = 26880 rounded up to 27k

6lbs of salt per 1 cuft of resin and my flow rate is .5 gpm

So for 9 lbs I need 6 min brine fill to get 3 gal of water

So my current settings are

C=27
H=16
BF=6 min
DO = 7 days
SF = 0 (Dual tank so no safety factor
All the rest are default

According to the controller with the above settings I have 1687 gal of water before the tanks switch or 7 days.

I've been reading with iron above 2 ppm you should regenerate more often. Should I make any changes? I finally have time to monitor our usage and I don't know how often we regenerate.

Is there anything else I should consider?

Thanks

Erik

 

[ditttohead]

I will look at your numbers in detail tomorrow, but so far looks like you have it. An iron removal system would be a great idea. It would cut your salt usage in half. Iron removal by softening is highly inefficient and is one of many reasons softeners get banned from municipalities. The excessive salt usage and salt load on the aquifers or waterways is not needed with a proper iron reduction system ahead of the softener.

Your math shows 1 ppm iron = 1 GPG hardness, another way to look at this calculation is 1 ppm iron = 68.4 ppm hardness, though many companies calculate it closer to 5 GPG or 85.5 ppm : 1, as you can see this is not an efficient way of removing iron.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[My city water]

Thank you for looking. We are on a septic system so it doesn't hit the town.

However if I can reduce then iron prior that would be good. What type of iron removal system to you recommend?

 

[Reach4]

Do you have a sulfur smell to deal with while you are at it?

 

[Mikey]

Hard to beat a chlorinator + carbon filter for treatment of small amounts of iron. Also gives my wife peace of mind when she sees the horses peeing in the nearby field. Chlorine "kills" a wide variety of contaminants, and is cheap and easy to maintain.