I'm just going to ask the question and let the chips fall where they may: is it necessary for proper softener operation to install the by-pass valve included with my Fleck 7000?
Here's the story: I ordered a Fleck 7000. We were moving into a home that didn't previously have a water softener and so I needed to have the plumbing in the house configured to allow hard water in a few locations but generally have soft water at both cold and hot tap locations. The plumbers came out and reconfigured the water as I wanted. They also said they would install water softener. The water softener arrived by courier the day the plumbers were out and since we were in the process of moving I had to leave the house. The softener got installed, but the plumbers gave me some reason as to why they didn't install the bypass valve. They installed three ball-valves to manually bypass the softener, so I thought I was all good to go.
I got involved in other things but my better half had been noticing that there was a noticeable lack of suds in our water, so I went back and tested this last week and we're getting 18gpg hardness from the city supply and ~14gpg through the softened taps on cold. I'm trying to troubleshoot and wondering if the lack of soft water could be related to the fact that the plumbers did not install the provided by-pass valve.
I cleaned out the injector screen and injector today and ran regen. Still have hard water. I did clean about a 1/8-inch by 1/8-inch small dollop of pipe dope off of the injector screen but I couldn't see that causing major headaches.
I bought the softener online because I thought I could get a better deal than if I'd gone through one of the big two names (Cull... and Kine...). Feel free to call me any names you wish, as long as provide me with some helpful tips.
Additional information: The discharge tube was 5/8 ID vinyl tubing that had a few kinks. Water came out just fine, but just in case I replaced the tubing today with braided vinyl so there aren't any more kinks. I'm drawing brine and filling brine just fine even before replacing the discharge tubing. I'm going through salt. The settings on the softener are as follows:
DF: Gal
VT: St2b
CT: Fd
C: 36,000 (1.5 cu. ft. or 48k grain system)
H: 22
RS: SF
SF: 10
DO: 8
RT: 2:00
B1: 10
BD: 60
B2: 5
RR: 10
BF: 30
FM: t1.2
Thank you all for the help!
Here's the story: I ordered a Fleck 7000. We were moving into a home that didn't previously have a water softener and so I needed to have the plumbing in the house configured to allow hard water in a few locations but generally have soft water at both cold and hot tap locations. The plumbers came out and reconfigured the water as I wanted. They also said they would install water softener. The water softener arrived by courier the day the plumbers were out and since we were in the process of moving I had to leave the house. The softener got installed, but the plumbers gave me some reason as to why they didn't install the bypass valve. They installed three ball-valves to manually bypass the softener, so I thought I was all good to go.
I got involved in other things but my better half had been noticing that there was a noticeable lack of suds in our water, so I went back and tested this last week and we're getting 18gpg hardness from the city supply and ~14gpg through the softened taps on cold. I'm trying to troubleshoot and wondering if the lack of soft water could be related to the fact that the plumbers did not install the provided by-pass valve.
I cleaned out the injector screen and injector today and ran regen. Still have hard water. I did clean about a 1/8-inch by 1/8-inch small dollop of pipe dope off of the injector screen but I couldn't see that causing major headaches.
I bought the softener online because I thought I could get a better deal than if I'd gone through one of the big two names (Cull... and Kine...). Feel free to call me any names you wish, as long as provide me with some helpful tips.
Additional information: The discharge tube was 5/8 ID vinyl tubing that had a few kinks. Water came out just fine, but just in case I replaced the tubing today with braided vinyl so there aren't any more kinks. I'm drawing brine and filling brine just fine even before replacing the discharge tubing. I'm going through salt. The settings on the softener are as follows:
DF: Gal
VT: St2b
CT: Fd
C: 36,000 (1.5 cu. ft. or 48k grain system)
H: 22
RS: SF
SF: 10
DO: 8
RT: 2:00
B1: 10
BD: 60
B2: 5
RR: 10
BF: 30
FM: t1.2
Thank you all for the help!