Fleck5800LXT Controller Programmed Incorrectly?

[KS17]

My wife thinks our softener may not have been programmed correctly and she thinks the water is too soft and may be contributing to our kids acne. I went thru the settings on our Fleck 5800LXT controller and I'm seeing 11lbs of salt regeneration with water hardness of 15 and a .75 resin. Our city website is saying that our water hardness is 21 but I set it down to 15 in hopes of lowering the softness of our water a bit. I have no idea if that works or not...

Is there anything regarding these settings that jumps out to anyone as being incorrect?

Also is it better to keep the salt level high (2-3 40-lb bags of salt at a time) or lower (1 40-lb bag of salt in the tank at a time)?

Sorry for the noob questions but I really can't seem to find much online for the Fleck 5800 other than the installation manual which doesn't help with these questions.

Super grateful for anyone who is willing to help!

 

[Reach4]

a .75 resin

Do you mean you have an 8" x 44" resin tank? If not, how big is your resin tank?

I am pretty sure you will want to reduce that salt=11 downward. I don't know if that number is pounds of salt per cubic ft of resin (I would guess that) or if it is pounds of salt. I would go ahead and reduce that number to 6 or 5. I am not sure that is where you want to be, but it should make the water a little less soft and will save salt. Somebody who has experience with that controller will have more info. I was pretty shocked reading the manual how few adjustment numbers there are.

Anywhere from some salt above water to full up is OK.

Putting in more at a time is more convenient.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[ditttohead]

Set the hardness to the correct level.The salt setting can be changed... it is pounds per cubic foot. So a setting of 11 would actually be 8.25 pounds.

Set the salt to 8 pounds, over time this will potentially increase the hardness leakage.

Soft water is unlikely to contribute to acne, actually the opposite. Hard water leaves soap curds on the skin.

 

[KS17]

Thanks for Reach4 & ditttohead for your responses. I checked and the tank is a 8"x44" which I am assuming corresponds to a .75 resin setting on the controller. So it sounds like I should set the salt regeneration to 8 lbs and put the hardness back to 21 and we should see a little less soft water (increased hardness leakage) and use a little less salt. I appreciate your help!

 

[Reach4]

I checked and the tank is a 8"x44" which I am assuming corresponds to a .75 resin setting on the controller.

It does.

That softener is undersized for your family. A bigger tank with 2 to 2.5 cubic ft of resin would have been a better match for 4 people with 21 grains of hardness.

 

[ditttohead]

As to less salt usage... hard to say. The system is very undersized as Reach has mentioned. The built in algorithm can only do so much for efficiency when the system is that small. The system will likely regenerate every 3-4 days.

 

[KS17]

Ha. That sucks. Does that mean that it needs to cycle more often?

 

[ditttohead]

Setting the salt lower may cause it to regenerate more often. In general a softener should be sized to regenerate every 7-30 days. Anything beyond 8-10 days really gains little in efficiency. Below 7 days the salt efficiency goes down considerably.