Need new water softener recommendation

[John15]

Hello. I'm new here and have been reading and trying to sort things out. Unfortunately, I'm not really clear on which water softener I need to replace the old Kenmore. I did have our water tested by Kar Labs. According to the results we have really hard water.

The basics (let me know what other info is needed):
We are a family of 6-7 (one son is in college so is only home Summer months; 2 other sons will probably be
leaving home soon, as they are adults)
We have livestock and use about 100 gallons a day for them (we would like to bypass the softener for them)
Test results:
Hardness 260 mg/L (as CaCO3)
Hardness (gpg) 15.2
Iron <0.01 mg/L
Manganese 0.016 mg/L

There is a bunch of other test results, but I think those are the pertinent ones? We have a front load washer to save water and we take short showers. So, I would guess we use around 60 gallons per person, per day. We had a Kenmore softener that was given to us brand new. It did okay for 12 years, although it was cycling every 3-4 days. Last month it wasn't softening and random water would taste terrible, like a metallic salt. So we disconnected the softener. We have great tasting well water that is spring fed but it is so hard I feel like my skin is being rubbed off in the shower. Our dishes are now all cloudy and we're worried about the appliances, pipes, etc. I doubt we can live without a softener for long.

Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks,
John

 

[Reach4]

http://www.qualitywaterassociates.com/sizing.php suggests a 3 cuft softener. That could be a 14 x 65 inch tank. The softener you want would be advertised as a 96000 grain softener.

The Fleck 5600SXT controller is still available and has not been end-of-lifed, and it has plenty of throughput as a softener. The 7000 is higher capacity but will be end of lifed in September, after which parts will be available for at least 5 years. 5600SXT That would be sufficient for 5 to 7 gallons per minute of use.

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[John15]

Thank you so much for your information, Reach4. I am looking into all of it now. It sure is a lot more complicated than I thought. I never imagined we'd need such a large unit. It's good to have clear information, though.

Thanks again,
John15

 

[Reach4]

The water is only moderately hard from my view, since there are those with much harder water. Others would indeed consider your water very hard. You go through a lot of water in a week. If you bought a smaller unit, you would have to regenerate more frequently. Since you regenerate only at night, the softener has to regenerate each night if there is not a full day of capacity remaining. If you had a 1.5 cubic ft system, it might regenerated every 3 days (with half as much salt) instead of 7 days, so monthly salt use would be somewhat higher with the smaller softener. Depending where you are at, good salt pellets might be under $5 for a 40 pound bag. At 8 pounds per cubic ft of resin, you would take 24 pounds of salt to regenerate 3 cubic ft of resin. At 6 pounds per cuft, you would take correspondingly less. So if you considered the big family presence temporary, you could opt for a smaller softener. a 1.5 cubic ft softener is still bigger than your Kenmore was. A 2-tank system can regenerate any time, so it could actually use less resin total. However it has a more complex controller and would take more floor space. It is salt-efficient.

With your unchlorinated well water, you would not be considering the premium 10% crosslinked resin.