Help with Purchasing a Softener

[thevictors51]

Hi,

My current water softener has gave up the ghost so some information;

My house has 7 grains per gallon with an Iron hardness of 3 ppm on a well system. I do have a whole house filter before my softener.

I have two full baths with plans to add a 3rd. We currently have two adults and one child with plans on having one more child. So worst case we would have 4 adults living at our house in a given time. Pipe ID in our house is 3/4"

I know on average a person uses 70-80 gallons of water per day. So is I size a softener I get 75 * 4 = 300 gallons a day. 300 gpd * 7 grains per gallon = 2100 grains per day. So in my reading it looks like I need 1 ft^3 of resin material.

I also have been looking at different valves, I have narrowed it down to Fleck and Clack. However, I do not know which one I should go with. I am a DIY person so I think Fleck would be good due to there being parts available online (I have both Clack and Fleck dealers near me).

Like most I am try to get a good price on a softener but I have read a lot of thing being cautious about buying softeners online because you might get a good valve but everything else is cheap, or you will get a knock off fleck valve.

My local dealers quoted me $1750 and $1600 for a clack WS1 and $1250 for fleck 2510, that price includes install. However, when I am seeing fleck 5600SXTs online for $600-750 it makes me want to go with the online due to price.

So with that, I have a few questions I would like some help with;

1) Is 1ft^3 of resin appropriate for my application?
2) What type of resin should I get? 8% or 10% cross-linked?
3) Does anyone know of a good place online to get a good quality softener?
4) Any opinions on Fleck 5600SXT vs Clack WS1? Any other valve recommendations?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Bannerman]

You mention a whole house filter but you didn't indicate the purpose, type and size of that filter. Anticipating it is to remove iron, how effective is it? (Is there iron remaining that the softener is then dealing with?) 3 ppm iron is considerable so if the softener is forced to deal with iron, that will add to the load on the softener. Each 1ppm iron the softener is exposed to, is equivalent to 5 gpg hardness.

Suggest also posting your most recent lab report as all water conditions often need to be considered together to determine the most appropriate treatment.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[thevictors51]

Thanks for the reply,

The filter that is pre softener I believe is for Iron. I forgot to change the filter and when I went change it, it was black then turned orange.

I had the water tested post softener for iron and it didn't even change the color of the water during the test so I would assume the filter is doing a good job or the softener is helping out as well.

Attached are images of filter I was referencing. One picture is of the filter inline and the other picture is of the old filter mentioned above

As for the water test, below is the information I have

Flow: 10+ GPM from well
Clororform: Absent
Nitrates: Less than 0.1 mg/L
Arsenic: Less than 0.001 mg/L
Hardness: 6-7 grains
Iron: 3ppm

Is there any more information needed?

 

[Bannerman]

That filter appears to be a simple string wound 2.5" X 10"sediment filter that would do nothing to reduce ferrous (clear water) iron.

With your current softener xposed to 3 ppm iron, unless a manual cleaning routine was regularly performed, I anticipate the resin will be heavily iron fouled which maybe the reason you are now looking to replace the softener. Removing that much iron with a softener is not an efficient method as 1 ppm iron is equivalent to 85 ppm (5 gpg) hardness. There are numerous, more efficient methods to deal with iron but most require water pH of 7 or higher.

Your lab results provided did not specify pH or manganese which would also add to the softening load. Post all lab results and indicate when the test was performed.

 

[thevictors51]

Thanks for the reply.

I haven't had my water tested to that depth, the number I posted were the bare minimum requirement for when a house is being sold with a well.

I will get the water tested and post back when I get the results. Thank you again for your help.

 

[ditttohead]

Check this out for a good water test.

http://watercheck.myshopify.com?aff=5

NTL is one of the better test labs.