Water softener recommendation/sizing

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Oscar85

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Hello
I am new to this forum and I am looking for a recommendation. I am in the market for a Water softener.
1- I have 15 Water hardness - City Water.
2- 5 Bathrooms about 3600 Sqf, Home
3- 3 people living
4- 1.25" Water main pipe (Pre Plumbed House for Water Softener)

Thanks for all the help

Oscar
 

Oscar85

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Thanks Reach4 and Tom for your responses.
I have read the measurement link you have sent and what is service flow rate (SFR) and measured the GPM in my tube and I got about 10 gpm. Since the tube is rarely used, I think this will be the max amount of water usage since we use the Shower most of the time and that has a shower head with 2.5 gallons per minute.
So which one I really need ? 64000 or a 4800? and I want to add a house Carbon filter since recently the city notified us that the water might have a smell to it starting next month.

Thanks for your insights.

Oscar
 

Reach4

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I was influenced by the 5 bathrooms and 3600 sqft.

With your chlorinated water, you will be able to go longer between regenerations than if you were dealing with iron. So the 2 cuft capacity will not go to waste. Yet the 1.5 cuft unit would do nicely too for your regular use. I think the 2 cubic ft unit will be a little more efficient. Bring in the event where you are using the 5 bathrooms, and that extra SFR could be useful too.

Note that you might be able to use even less than 6 pounds of salt per cubic ft. If you are from one of the places that is short of water, Ditttohead may have some tips on optimizing for your conditions. Note that a "48000" unit should not be used to provide 48000 grains of softening. Think of that as a nominal number that really means 1.5 cubic ft, and that "64000" means 2 cubic ft of resin which should provide 30400 at 4 pounds of salt per cubic ft (8 pounds each regen).

If you want to use a cartridge type filter, I like the Pentek Big Blue 20 x 4.5 housings rather than smaller housings. There are a lot of different cartridges available. The Pentek GAC20-BB is a granulated charcoal filter element for that housing that is rated at about 15 GPM. http://www.discountfilterstore.com/...ivated-carbon/size-advertised/20-x-4-1-2.html is one source. A backwashing carbon filter is more expensive, but if you are also trying to remove chlorine or other chemicals, it might be called for. It would look like a second water softener and cost almost as much. The media in that would last about 3 years or so. Softener resin is good for maybe 10 years, although some get significantly longer life.
 

ditttohead

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Avoid using cartridge filters for chlorine reduction. Backwashing systems should be used for POE applications. The reduction, life expectancy, flow rate, etc are all less then ideal for cartridge based systems.

I would highly recommend no less than a 2 CF system based on your house size. Should you have any future occupancy changes, a larger system will be more likely to accommodate that. A matching GAC backwashing system would be the best solution.
 

Oscar85

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Thanks Reach4 and Ditttohead for your quick response.
OK great now I am looking at Fleck 7000SXT 1-1/4 - 64000 softener. I am looking at some vendors online they claim buying SST60 Resin can reduce you Operating cost. Would it add any value to my situation? It can boil down to how am I configuring/setting the Softener, wouldn't that be ?
As for the House Filter, it seems that the GAC backwashing can be expensive. I will wait until I see how bad is the taste of the water before I invest more money on that.

Thanks
Oscar
 
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