Should my soft water always feel slippery?

[compddd]

I have a new Fleck 5810 system that came with the H set to 20 and ran it at that setting for two days and the water always felt slippery between my fingers. I bought a Hatch test kit and tested the water before the softener and it took 11 drops to turn it blue so I changed H to 14 and now the water doesn't feel slippery between my fingers anymore. However I did 2 more Hatch tests taken from water after the softener and it only took 1 drop for each test to turn the solution blue.

Should I be ok or should I up the H setting?

 

[Reach4]

If you like it that way, then keep it that way. Keep an eye on things. Bump it up part way if it gets to needing more drops. The H number has to do with how frequently the softener regenerates.

Another option would be to reduce the amount of salt used for each regen.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[compddd]

What setting do I adjust to get the slippery feeling back?

 

[Reach4]

I presume you have a 5810SXT.

What is your BF number? What is your BLFC; is that 0.125?
What size is your tank, such as 10x54 or "48000 grains" or 1.5 cubic ft of resin?

 

[compddd]

BF = 16
BLFC = 0.25
1.5 cubic ft resin
32,000 per cubic foot of resin but it’s set to 24,000 for efficiency

 

[Reach4]

Here are some C and BF alternatives. Right now you are using 8 pounds/cuft, which should be giving you nice water. If you wanted to leave a bit of hardness in the softened water, you might go to 6 lb/cuft.

BLFC = 0.25
cubic ft resin = 1.5
lb/cuft ; C= ; BF= ;
4 ; 22.8 ; 8 ;too lean for many
5 ; 27.3 ; 10 ; lean, saving more salt
6 ; 30.0 ; 12 ;good softening less salt
7 ; 33.1 ; 14 ;between
8 ; 36.0 ; 16 ;softer with moderate salt
9 ; 38.5 ; 18 ; softer still using more salt
10 ; 40.5 ; 20 ;
11 ; 42.0 ; 22 ;
12 ; 43.1 ; 24 ;
13 ; 43.9 ; 26 ;
14 ; 44.6 ; 28 ;
15 ; 45.0 ; 30 ;using lots of salt with great softening

 

[compddd]

Ok thank you. I've only manually regenerated once on the new system, should I do it a couple more times and see if the slippery feeling comes back?

 

[Bannerman]

The salt setting will influence the 'slippery feeling' of the soft water whereas the hardness and capacity settings will affect the number of gallons delivered before regeneration will occur.

As 1 grain per gallon = 17.1 ppm hardness, soft water containing 15 ppm hardness, may not feel as slippery compared to soft water containing 6 ppm hardness, even as each will contain and test less than 1 gpg.

A specific softness level for residential usage is not usually critical as it often will be in a manufacturing or steam boiler feed application. In some home applications, 3 gpg or lower will be acceptable to the occupants, whereas in others, less than 1 gpg is expected.

The following link is to a chart which shows at the bottom, anticipated hardness leakage through a softener for various salt settings. Those leakage amounts will not occur immediately but will after numerous regeneration cycles. Lower leakage (higher water quality), will result in less salt efficiency as a higher amount of salt will be required for each regeneration cycle.
https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?attachments/resin-chart-jpg.53316/

The amount of salt used is calculated by the BF setting (minutes) X BLFC flow rate (0.25 gpm) = amount of water to enter the brine tank. Each 1 gallon will dissolve 3 lbs salt. As Reach4 stated, your current 16 minute BF setting results in 8 lbs per ft3 or 12 lbs total salt for your 1.5 ft3 system. That salt setting is frequently recommended as it will regenerate 36,000 grains usable capacity in a 1.5 ft3 system, and provides a great balance of capacity, salt efficiency and water quality.

In your situation, if you haven't utilized a softener previously, I suspect any calcium and magnesium that has accumulated within the pipes and water heater over the years, is now being dissolved by the soft water, thereby adding a few ppm hardness back into the water which is affecting the 'feel', even as it remains less than 1 gpg. Expect that to continue until all mineral residue has been eliminated which could take a few months depending on how much accumulation there is.

 

[Reach4]

BLFC = 0.25

Check to make sure that is not 0.125. If there is a mylar label, I think think a blue label is used to indicate a 0.25 BLFC installed. If the label is black on white paper, then no color code.

Also, make sure there is always some salt above the waterline.

 

[compddd]

Got it thanks. Also is there an easy way to make sure my brine tank is actually working and water is going into it during regeneration?

 

[Reach4]

Got it thanks. Also is there an easy way to make sure my brine tank is actually working and water is going into it during regeneration?

You can do a cycle and watch the brine tank. Expect the brine level to start slowly dropping when the brine draw starts, and you should be down to about the middle of the air check valve thing on the end after about 15 minutes. If the time is less than 10 minutes, or more than 20, some attention may be warranted. As the brine tank refills, make sure it is not the float valve limiting the fill amount.

You can also use a TDS meter with a high enough range to spot when the brine salt starts making it to the drain. Should be more like 10 minutes after the brine draw starts than 2 minutes. Quantitative tasting will be harder I would think.

 

[compddd]

Out of these regeneration stages, at which one should I pop the lid off the brine tank to see if it fills with water?
B1
BD
B2
RR
BF

 

[Bannerman]

BF =Brine Fill

The other stages:
B1 = 1st Backwash
BD = Brine Draw
B2 = 2nd Backwash
RR= Rapid Rinse

 

[compddd]

What does BD brine draw do? Does that mean there should already be water in the brine tank now?

 

[Reach4]

BD, often 60 minutes, slowly draws the brine in about the first 15 minutes. That brine feeds through the resin replacing hardness ions with sodium ions. When the brine has been sucked down, the air check closes. The rest of BD slowly feeds water through the tank and resin in a non-turbulent way. The salt moves through and the resin is slowly rinsed of salt. That is called the slow rinse.

The reason I suggested timing when the brine had been all drawn, and you switch to slow rinse (while the controller is still in the BD phase), is that you want the brine to pass through slowly enough to efficiently react with the resin, and you want sufficient slow rinse time to get rid of the salt from the resin.

 

[Reach4]

BD empties the brine tank.

BF refills the brine tank for the next regeneration.

 

[compddd]

So if I already did a manual regeneration earlier in the week, there should already be water in the brine tank now? When I open the lid all I see is salt in there.

 

[Bannerman]

Does that mean there should already be water in the brine tank now?

Brine Fill is usually the final process of the regeneration cycle. As such, water will remain within the brine tank between each regeneration cycle. When BF is the final process, the appropriate quantity of water will need to be manually added to the brine tank when the softener is first installed, and whenever the brine tank is freshly cleaned.

Some softeners will be configured so that Brine Fill occurs at the start of the regeneration cycle. This is mainly when using Potassium Chloride instead of Sodium Chloride for regeneration. Water added at the start will then require a delay to allow salt to dissolve before continuing to the remaining regeneration cycle. When water is added at the start, the brine tank will remain empty of water between regeneration cycles.

To see the water level in the Brine Tank, remove the cap from the brine well (2" plastic tube inside the brine tank) so the fluid can be viewed inside the brine well without salt in the way.

 

[Reach4]

So if I already did a manual regeneration earlier in the week, there should already be water in the brine tank now? When I open the lid all I see is salt in there.

There should always be some salt above the water/brine. To see the brine level, lift the cover and look down the tube that houses the safety float. Maybe stick a dipstick, such as a long dowel rod, down there to measure the level, if you like. You are only putting in 4 gallons of water, so it will often be too low to see thru the salt.

If you choose VT=dF2b, the BF happens last. So in that case, there is brine in the tank most of the time -- ready for next time.

 

[compddd]

Just checked and there was water in there woohoo! Thanks for all the help guys.