Help programming my Clack WS-1 (salt dose?)

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Dorrough

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Hey, thanks to all the help and advice from you guys, the water softener is installed and running! Seems to all be working properly. But we were a bit confused by the regeneration calculations.

It's a Clack WS-1 valve, 2 cu ft resin tank (Thermax Thermion) and big old brine tank. The system was rated at 64,000 grains. Our water is 84 grains per gallon. There are just two of us, one bathroom at present with another coming online next year, washer coming later. We found a Clack manual online, and used to to program the valve but had to guess at some of the settings. One confusing thing is calculating the salt requirement. It seems that yes, 2 cf resin is capable of 64,000 grains but only if you use like ten pounds salt per cubic foot. Hate to use that much salt, we do have a septic system.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a regeneration schedule and salt requirements for this system? I've used a couple of online calculators and come up with everything from 3 to 10 pounds salt per cf. and we have to regenerate every four days. I sure hope that there is a more salt efficient way to do this. If anyone knows of a better online set of instructions for programming the Clack, it would be nice to have that too.

Thanks again to everyone who helped. We managed to get the softener installed AFTER the pressure tank, AFTER the particulate filter, BEFORE the hot water heater, overflow drain into basement drain, regeneration water goes up to the washer drain. Water tasts just nasty, so we will be getting an RO type filter for drinking water. Again, thanks so much. This is the best forum.:D
 

Gary Slusser

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No you can't get 64K out of a 2.0 cuft softener with regular mesh resin. The max is 60K and that requires 30 lbs/regeneration. And that gets you very poor salt efficiency.

Who ever you bought the softener from should have told you how to program it. They should have sized it for you too.

I see you said back in the beginning of Mar that you installed it then. With 84 gpg you should have bought a larger softener.

Who did you buy it from?

How do you have it programmed now?
 

Dorrough

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Thanks, both of you. We just got around to ordering the softener this month and installed it this weekend. Took a while to set up the plumbing to be ready. Programmed it using a Clack manual from Clack's website. He bought the softener from Third Coast Water because they had a good price and included all the things he needed, like the funnel and tubing, float system for extra large brine tank, bypass valve, etc. But their customer service has not been the best. Their website has been down for over a week now (for "maintenance") and no one returned the phone message. The system they sent is supposed to be Clack WS-1 but it's branded Charger ProH2O. Looks like the Clack valve with a different label so Charger must have some kind of OEM deal with Clack.

Lots of different websites and multiple vendors claim that a 2 cf system will do 64,000 grains. The problem we now see is that the 2 cf system can IN THEORY soften that much hardness, but that's with no reserve. So we will wind up regenerating more often than we would like, but I get it now that it takes X amount of salt to regenerate Y amount of hardness and the size of the softener has nothing to do with the amount of salt needed, just with the time between regenerations.

Will keep bugging Third Coast to see if we can get a human...he did get the thing running and programmed the reserve by telling the valve it was a 54,000 gpg system.
 
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TedL

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Can you give us an idea of their price and the closest competitor?

Customer service is an expense....one they seem to have avoided.
 

Gary Slusser

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I have had a number of their customers contact me for help. Other web site customers too; Ohiopurewater, qualitywatertreatment and affordablewater are the most common.

They under cut everyone's prices and short the customer in a number of ways but one is using a 12 x 48" tank for a 2.0 cuft softener. That reduces the freeboard area and that doesn't allow good backwashing.

They do not include a gravel underbed. That increases pressure loss. They don't provide programming information or correct sizing info before the sale.

I'm glad to see they are out of business.

With a Clack WS-1 you don't program a reserve.

With the Charger version you must program the number of minutes each cycle position runs for.

The manuals on Clack's site does not tell you what data to program the control with or how to come up with the data, they just show you how the programming is done. The dealer comes up with the data. To my knowledge, the Charger version manual is not on Clack's web site.

Tell 'him' to call me when he can be at the softener and I'll give him the data and he will enter it with me on the phone. Or you call me, I'm sure you can push buttons better than he can; unless you have long fingernails...
 

Dorrough

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He won't tell me the price, says he deleted the email, other than to say it was cheaper for the whole package. But their service was terrible. They did give us a brine tank that looks to be 48" high but wider than 12", maybe closer to 24". I'm not at the house right now. Are they out of business? That would explain things ...

So if the valve really is a Clack WS-1, we don't need to program a reserve. That's helpful. I hate to make you walk through the programming...is there a way for me to check the model of the valve to be sure which one it is? Since it says Charger, and they don't seem to match 1-1 with Clack's website, now I'm not sure.

I'll bug him again about the price and hopefully others will take a lesson from the wall of Baskin Robbins (and I paraphrase from memory): "There is nothing in this world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey"

Interesting. I just tried Third Coast Water's website again, and it is now forwarded to a water forum site called "waterxing"
 
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