SST-60 Resin, Reducing salt, removing manganese and iron

[cgarai]

Hi,

SST-60 is touted as reducing salt usage by 40% and the ability to remove manganese. Is the 40% reduced salt usage still apply at low salt dosages (e.g. 6#/cuft)?

My water recently tested as follows:

Water Analyisis:

Alkalinity 189 mg/L
pH 8 mg/L
Hardness 12 Gr/gal (205.2 mg/L)
Iron 0 mg/L
TDS 300 mg/L
Manganese 0.53 mg/L

This analysis is taken after the storage tank. This tank is fed by a well which drops the water in from the top to aerate the water in the tank. Prior to doing this the water had a slightly metalic taste, but after "aging" in the tank that taste is gone or is not noticeable to me. This is somewhat confirmed by the fact that the water straight from the well originally had a small (.5mg/l) amount of iron in it, but the more recent analysis shows 0 mg/l. Purolite is quite firm in not letting air come in contact with the water prior to running it through a cation softener, as they state here:
(http://www.purolite.com/Customized/CustomizedControls/Products/Resources/rid_70.pdf).

My well/tank arrangement is already installed and is not going to change, so if I have iron issues that appear despite not showing up in the analysis, then I will have to deal with it. My main concern is whether or not SST-60 will use less salt. I'm not to concerned about the financials, more concerned about dumping salt on my property.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[ditttohead]

https://terrylove.com/forums/showth...0sxt-48-000-gr-softener-w-1-5-cu-SST-60-resin

This is a good thread on the topic, and the attached chart shows the salt savings will be minimal at best, probably not worth the additional cost. Do you have a link that shows the "40%" salt savings? That is a claim I have never heard but I would like to see the math on it. To minimize salt usage, install a system that will regenerate every 14+ days with a 4 pound per cubic foot salt setting would be the best solution for you. Do you have an estimate of daily water usage?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I have never heard of 40% savings either.

 

[ditttohead]

Thats why I want to see the claim, they are probably using some obscure fuzzy math equation to come up with a 40% savings. Kind of like car A gets 35 miles per gallon, car B gets 36, and ours gets 37, so we have a 100% better efficiency. Neat math! Too much of this garbage math is used in this industry for marketing purposes. The charts say it all, no more than a possible 10% efficiency gain and I would haveto see the actual data to determine of those numbers are accurate. And... considering the reserves, buffers, etc. that are usually designed into a softener, the actual salt savings will be significantly less than what is going to be expected.

 

[cgarai]

Sorry, that claim was from one of the online vendors for softening systems. I have since realized that they probably don't have a clue as they told me that only 15#/cuft is used for regeneration. Looking at the Purolite data sheet (http://www.purolite.com/Customized/CustomizedControls/Products/Resources/rid_398.pdf) for SST-60 I see a claimed salt reduction of about 9-10% reduction.

Getting it all the information straight in this business is about as convoluted as I've ever seen.

 

[ditttohead]

Tha 9-10% claim is reasonable, but you are unlikely to ever see that high of an efficiency gain. You would gain the most efficiency by making sure your softener does not regeneratemore than every 6 or more days, and to use a lower salt setting. Also, by not relying on a softener for iron or manganses removal is another great way to gain considerable efficiency.

 

[cgarai]

... Also, by not relying on a softener for iron or manganses removal is another great way to gain considerable efficiency.

What do you mean by that? I thought iron would be removed if it is there, up to a certain point. I don't understand manganese removal at all. The SST-60 literature implies that it will remove manganese.

 

[F6Hawk]

It takes more salt to remove iron, manganese, and calcium than just calcium alone. So if you use an alternate manganese or iron removal method ahead of the softener, then the softener has only to exchange sodium for calcium and soften the water using less salt.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It does and it also requires maintenance of the resin bed by using Iron out or similar products on a fairly regular basis to remove the residual iron and manganese that the salt brine does not. Failure to keep up with it can eventually clog up the resin bed and cause you to have to re-bed. I will not rely on a softener to remove iron and will not warranty equipment either.

 

[Gary Slusser]

A softener removes calcium AND magnesium or you wouldn't get all the hardness out of the water.

They also remove iron and manganese, and there is no better resin to do that than SST-60 but, the OP has no iron and very little manganese.

SST-60 will not deliver enough salt efficiency, and nowhere close to 40%!!, to justify it's much higher price over regular mesh resin. So I say save your money and buy regular resin.

I have used SST-60 on up to 13 ppm of iron a number of times and as long as you use some Iron Out or Super Iron Out once in awhile, it works very well.

And because you compensate for the amount of iron and manganese in the raw water, you don't use more salt as is being incorrectly claimed. You compensate by adding 4 gpg per ppm of iron and 2 gpg per ppm of manganese and add those figures to your gpg of hardness. So in essence it is as if you have harder water than you actually do. The other choice it to buy an iron filter using a mineral that will remove manganese too. You can buy a lot of salt and IO with the money the filter will cost you, and you don't have enough manganese to justify a separate filter.

There is no one that warranties water quality from a softener. None of the component parts of a softener have that kind of warranty coverage. IOWs, no warrantied component part is warranted due to rust build up in or on them.

 

[cgarai]

Got it. I knew that capacity is compensated for iron, so I was afraid that DH meant another filter, as pointed out by F6Hawk. The next question was to be the cost trade-off of more salt and IO vs another filter upstream. Sounds like SST-60 is best for water with higher levels of iron or manganese. Any rules of thumb on the ppm of Fe or Mn that would indicate the use of SST-60?

 

[Gary Slusser]

I suggested it for over 5 ppm of iron and usually it's hard to find more than a ppm of manganese so regular resin for manganese.

Yes DH suggested a separate iron filter, I don't.

 

[RSole]

I'm about to order a softener with Purolite SST-60 resin in an upflow with turbulator and Fleck 5800SXT. As for salt saving, Pentair claims that upflow uses less salt and Purolite says their SST-60 uses less salt, but both don't say by how much. I can't see any negatives except possibly higher initial price. It's also claimed that Purolite SST-60 can allow a 1.0 cu ft resin tank to perform as well as a 1.5 cu ft.

But as poster cgarai wrote : "Getting (it) all the information straight in this business is about as convoluted as I've ever seen."