I need a softener help me pick

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ajohansson

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Been in house for a year. Water heater has lots of scale in it and im assuming pipes as well.

On municipal water and here is the water report. On page 4 are the values and im in murrieta.

http://www.wmwd.com/DocumentCenter/Home/View/381

Based on those values what should i get? 4 people in the home with 4 full baths. I use average 7000 gallon on average of water a month based on bills in the winter which has no irrigation use on it.

Any help appreciated.

AJ
 
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Reach4

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A 1.5 cubic ft softener with 10% crosslinked resin. Figuring about 11 grains. That is still a bit less than the max 200 ppm hardness on that datasheet. 10x54 tank. 5600SXT up to about 7 or 8 gallons of flow. For high flows, a different controller would be good.

That water report has much more useful information than the typical city water report.
 

Bannerman

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You will need to test hardness at your location as the municipal water report is only an average of all water sources over a 1 year period. There can be considerable variance throughout the distribution system, especially when there is more than one water source. Also in anticipation of further hardness variance throughout the day/week & season, it is advisable to program the softener for 2 or 3 additional grains over the hardness amount tested at your location.

Using the highest hardness of 200 ppm indicated in the report, 200 / 17.1 = 11.6 grains which should be considered 12 grains hardness per gallon.

7000 gallons/mo divided by 4 people is approx 60 gallons per person/day.

As 60 gallons X 4 ppl X (12 + 2) grains = 3,360 grains/day required X 7 = 23,520 grains capacity/week needed.

Even as a 1.5 cuft softener will satisfy your weekly consumption requirements as it will deliver 30,000 grains when regenerated with 9 lbs salt, you may wish to consider a 2 cuft or larger softener since you specified your home is equipped with 4 full baths. A 1.5 cuft softener will support a flow rate up to 12 gpm whereas 2 cuft will support up to a 13 gpm and 2.5 cuft up to 18 gpm before hardness leak through may occur.

As all 4 bathrooms could be utilized at the same time while meals are also being prepared and possibly the dishwasher or laundry also running, the softener size chosen should support the flow rate needed for your larger home. Although the softener's specified flow maybe exceeded on occasion thereby 'leaking' some hardness through the softener, that situation should not be planned when choosing the softener.

Since your water source is municipal which is without iron, a larger capacity softener is not a problem since the regeneration frequency can be as few as once every 30 days.
 
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ajohansson

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Ok thanks for the intel. Any particular brand that would be better than another? I have easy access straight to the sewer for regen brine water. Sounds like a 2 CUFT unit is what I will go with. How do I specify or look for the 10% crosslinked resin.
 

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Either size would work great.
 
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ditttohead

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Avoid the big box store units and the low end online resellers. There are a few good companies that sell online but most sell junk components with a good fleck valve. I sent you a pm. I can recommend some good ones in the pm.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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ajohansson
Ok thanks for the intel. Any particular brand that would be better than another? I have easy access straight to the sewer for regen brine water. Sounds like a 2 CUFT unit is what I will go with. How do I specify or look for the 10% crosslinked resin.

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The CLACK brand of water softener is about the best on the market.....it has surpassed the Fleck a long
time ago in the midwest and about everyone in this mid west area uses them.......

Its very easy to find the CLACK with a 2 cubic foot mineral bed...

but finding them filled with the #10 resin has been more of a problem for me..

I was told the #10 resin is used mostly for commercial applications.....
I have also been led to believe the #8 is what is commonly used in this area.
If anyone knows of a place which is going with the #10 please let me know who
and how to get hold of them.....
 

ditttohead

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10% crosslink resin is probably 75% of what we sell.

As to commercial/residential % crosslink etc, this is a complex subject but to simplify it...

10% has very few negatives other than additional cost for the majority of applications. It is more resistant to oxidant damage over time due to its higher crosslinking structure.
8% is very common from most dealers as it is fairly durable even in low chlorine applications especially for residential.
Many companies use much lower crosslink since these resins are lower cost and their only push is to be the lowest price... Cheap mineral tanks, junk riser tubes/screens, no gravel, trash resin, bad brine tanks etc.. but it has a Fleck or Clack valve... and people wonder why Fleck and Clack are pulling away from the online market. Imagine if Ford or Toyota sold the body/frame of their cars separately, what would the online guys do? Put the worst seats, interior, engine, transmission, tires, drivetrain all from the lowest bidders in China and India and then try to sell them online as a Toyota or Ford... not real good for a companies reputation.
 

ditttohead

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For larger companies there is a price issue of course. Some of the companies we supply buy hundreds of units per year so the cost issue can be considerable. Fortunately, most of the companies we supply are looking to sell them as their own units so quality is a genuine concern so 10% resin is much more common. We also distribute containers of resin, these get drop shipped and the resin crosslinking is much lower than 8%. This very low quality resin is not even allowed to enter our facility. The capacity of 10% is also very slightly lower on 10% compared to 8% but the difference is considered insignificant and is not even considered in the capacity calculations.
 
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Master Plumber Mark

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Thanks for the information....
In in the Indianapolis area the water company has been using chlormines in the water for part of the year then
switches back to chlorines .... I might be spelling this wrong but basically it is a seasonal thing they do now and its killing off the water softeners at a much faster rate....

I have been getting the run-around from places that claim the 8% is good enough but we are seeing more and more
issues with the distributors breaking down and the resin escaping the mineral tank and wreaking havoc in the plumbing system........
I am told that the 10 % resin lasts perhaps 15 years or more in this nasty water....
I am gonna pm you because I would like to hear what kind of price difference there is
between the 8% and 10 % models in clack..

This unit shown below is the common unit I normally install with the 8% resin bed
48,000 grain unit.... Its like pulling teeth to get someone around here willing to tell
me what kind of resin they are packing in the units.... I would prefer the 10% if it is
economically feasable




.. april 2, 09 004.jpg 1513.jpg

 

ditttohead

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The Clack units are great but unfortunately a lot of companies are all about price. Fortunately a lot of dealers look for quality and are willing to pay slightly more for very high end equipment. Most of the smaller dealers who have left us for the "amazing low price" our competitors offer come back within a year due to a catastrophic failure of some type. I just helped a dealer with a leak that was going to cost them in excess of $100,000 due to a failed $12 Chinese knockoff part that cost $16 from Fleck. Not exactly the best investment... :)

A failed bottom screen is almost always a failure of the screen caused by them being 25 cents from China. They look just like the Fleck part, but the Fleck one cost $3. you can literally crush the Chinese knockoff in your hand with little effort. Maybe I will post a quick video in the near future of the cheap screen being smashed by my 11 year old daughter, and then the Fleck, Clack, or Philips Brothers screen being run over by our huge Shipping Truck and still looking ok :)

The screens fail simply due to their poor quality, bad design, and the fact that they are manufactured for the lowest cost. When the plastic molding company across the street makes one for 1 penny cheaper, all the junk companies immediately switch over to them.

Bad resin will put some extra stress on the screen, but a good screen should not fail. The homeowner should simply get low/no flow to the house as the low grade resin turns to much. I have seen some companies buy what we call "floor sweepings" resin. This is the stuff that did not pass any QC controls and should have simply been discarded... or they can sell it to some company that mass produces ultra low cost softeners for 1/3 the cost of good resin. It will typically last a year or two before it fails.

Gravel underbedding is very important for multitude of reasons. It adds a little cost and shipping weight but the benefits far outweigh the very slight cost savings, unless you are selling for such allow margin that $4 is gonna make or break you... sigh. This is most of the companies that sell online. They are all trying to be the lowest price, common sense tells you that the price is too good to be true, but people still buy from the lowest price companies knowing that there are likely a bunch of junk parts inside...

Last comment re: this fun topic. Many companies claim 8% but how can you verify it? We distribute container loads of resin to many companies. Many of these companies want the lowest price period. They dont care about quality, crosslinking etc. It is only a price game to them. We do not even allow anything less than 8% WQA certified resin to enter our facility. Anything less and it has to be direct shipped by the container. We would not want our customers to ever think we would use anything less.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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I have been giving my salesmen in this area a good education lately about this issue and they dont have a clue about
any of this when I talk to them.... they ALL have to get back to me They dont know squat about the product
My guess is its because the CLACK valve has made things so easy and they rarely have troubles while the units are
still under their warranty period .... so they really dont care ...

I have enough knowledge to be dangerous but I stay in the shallow end of the pool and just play around in
common homes and never get involved in commercial units... where gravel beds are more important



Making a decent tutorial video about the reasons your 10% resin
unit is better than a Whirlpool or GE from home depot would
probably be a good thing to do...

the problem is if you got too technical talking about 8% vs 10% resin
you would probably lose about 80% of the people watching...
(because 80% of the people are helpless)
The second video here shows a pretty simplified look at doing this process
although I would not be attempting to save that old junk myself....



here is a video about how the resin swells up in the cheaper units







 
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ditttohead

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2" to the top of the unit? This is why these tutorial should be left to the pros. LOL. Freeboard is important in a traditional softener design. In all reality it is probably a 30 minute training session as to why the freeboards are important, how to determine them etc.
The second video... considering the cost of a good bottom screen is only a few dollars more... why do so many companies put in the cheap ones. At least they used a "good" cheap one. We see so many failed bottom screens from our competitors that it is never a surprise. The race to the bottom is fun to watch!.
 
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