How to size a softener and what equipment

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Dom08

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Hello All,
I am looking for some information on how to size a softener for our cottage

We are pulling water from the lake with a 15gpm franklin electric submersible pump. Going into a pressure tank, 2 big blue canister filters for sediment, 1 big blue canister filter with a carbon block, going to a UV light and feeding our cottage. We got a water sample done and I will post the results below. We shut the system down during the week as we are only there on weekends and we find when we turn the system back on that the water smells really bad until we run quite a bit of it. Also if we fill a bath tub up the water is yellowish brown. I have been told to get a softener but everyone seems to size it differently and some have said a tannin filter. What are your suggestions?
 

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Asker123

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You have 35 grain per gallon hardness. That is good enough hardness to get a softener but I am not sure your other problems like smelly water or yellowish water issues will be resolved by a softener.
I am new to this and learning from this site but there are some very experienced members here so hopefully someone will respond.
Smell might be due to sulfur. Softener does not remove sulfur. If your sediment Big Blue Filter is not getting rid of yellowish water then I dont know what is source of that. I also have 2 Big Blue sediment filters one is 10 micron and another is 5 micron before the softener. I opted out of Carbon filter because I learnt that Carob block filter is a very restrictive filter and I did not want any flow restrictive filter before the softener. Also water is supposed to stay in contact with the carbon for a long time in order to get the proper filteration result. In a whole house main flow , the carbon filter might not be a suitable candidate

You can learn about softener sizing from here.

 

Reach4

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A softener with a 54x10 tank containing 1.5 cuft of resin should be OK for almost 2 people who are there on a regular basis, calculating for 60 US gallons used per person per day. I compute that you would regenerate every 6 to 7 days typically with 2 people.
A 52x12 inch tank containing 2 cuft of resin would handle a bit more.
 

Dom08

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That's for the softner for the 1.5-2cu ft?

Would larger be better? Or should I not go past 2 cu ft?
 

Reach4

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There are tanks that are 65 inches tall. A 14 x 65 tank can have 3.5 cuft of resin. That would be good, but it might be harder to ship. Plus you might want to stand on a stool for easy programming.
 

Asker123

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Hardness
in mg/l or ppm
Hardness
in Grains per gallon
PeopleGallons
/day/person
Gallons/
day
Daily softening Req. Grains/DayRegen Frequency in daysCapacity RequirementSizing in Cubic Feet @6lb Salt/cubic feet
6003546024084007588003 ( 63000 grains)

I would say go for 2.5 cubic feet if 240 Gallons is not what you will use per day. I have 2.5 cubic feet but 2 adults and one kid. My hardness is crazy 58 grains per gallons though. It regenerates every 10 days currently
 

Dom08

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Thank you for the Information guys,

Can it pose a problem if the softner is over sized? If I need a 2.5 cu ft but put in a 4 cu ft for example??
Also when I leave the cottage I shut down the whole water system. I can turn off the softner also?
 

Reach4

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I would say go for 2.5 cubic feet if 240 Gallons is not what you will use per day. I have 2.5 cubic feet but 2 adults and one kid. My hardness is crazy 58 grains per gallons though. It regenerates every 10 days currently
Do you take into account "high hardness compensation" in your calculations?
Do you check your residual hardness as you approach time to regen?
 

Asker123

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Hi Reach4,
yes I had created a thread and you had advised to include high hardness compensation so in the programming I have put approx 75 as H. I have 7.5 lb/ cubic feet setting still it takes 10 days to Regen. last two times, it is giving 700 gallon and we finish these many gallons in apprix 10 days( and yes we take showers every day lol)

I check the residual hardness using pentair kit. its one drop of solution 7 ( to change the color pink to blue) is considered 3 grains per gallons n. in my case it is coming as one drop or 3 grains per gallon as residual hardness.
perhaos Hack 5 B is better test kit whose one drop equals 1 grains per galln.

Is 3 grains per galln residual hardness good enough? I am getting this much hardness when i test the water after few hours of Regen or on the 9 th day.
 

Reach4

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With 3 grains of hardness, it could be acceptable to many. Heck, many have 7 and 8 grains of hardness, and feel no need for a softener.

1 drop for 3 grains is really granular. If it were 1 drop for 10 grains, you might think you have 10 grains of hardness all of the time.

I would make sure that my bypass valves was not partially open. I would try testing distilled water. With distilled, I would expect blue with zero drops. With my softened water, I sometimes get blue with zero drops with the Hach 5-B test.
 

Zenon2cubed

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I bought the water treatment guide from cleanwaterstore.com, here is what they say (paraphrasing):
Normally lake water is stained with tannin, they say that tannin filters can be combined in one tank with a water softener if hardness is below 10 GPG. If separate, they say to place the tannin filter after the softener.
They say each cubic foot of tannin resin can treat 2,000 PPM*gallon, so 2 PPM tannin is 1,000 gallons treated for 1 cu-ft of resin.

The other thing to keep in mind is that your tannins are probably blocking the UV light penetration rendering your UV sterilizer compromised.

Given your property is a weekend vacation home being supplied with very biologically active water, I would personally take things in a completely different direction. I would size the system for 3 days regeneration with a full cabin of guests and schedule it to regenerate Friday afternoon. Having lake water sit in the softener all week will get nappy just like you described, the regeneration will flush the filter out just before you arrive.

Contact impact water products, they do all kinds of custom layered tank filter systems, if they feel you can soften and treat tannins in one tank with a 3 day regeneration do that. If not, you'll need two filters.

At my cabin we've gone with no water treatment and just live with the stained water, our water is never nappy, but the aerators do clog with silt. In the spring I'm installing a Rusco Spindown filter to capture silt.

Please report back to the board if you go with the tannin filter, maybe I'll get one too.
 

Acurax04

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Hardness
in mg/l or ppm
Hardness
in Grains per gallon
PeopleGallons
/day/person
Gallons/
day
Daily softening Req. Grains/DayRegen Frequency in daysCapacity RequirementSizing in Cubic Feet @6lb Salt/cubic feet
6003546024084007588003 ( 63000 grains)

I would say go for 2.5 cubic feet if 240 Gallons is not what you will use per day. I have 2.5 cubic feet but 2 adults and one kid. My hardness is crazy 58 grains per gallons though. It regenerates every 10 days currently
Can I get a copy of this spreadsheet you are using?
 

Asker123

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Can I get a copy of this spreadsheet you are using?
Hey Acurax04, I am not sure how can I send a file on this forum but it is not very complex
Grains per Gallon is mg/L( or ppm) divided by 17.1 rounded to zero
People is variable - you need to enter
Gallons per day per person - I assumed 60 , some sites mention to assume 75
Regen frequency - again I assumed 7 days
Rest all columns till Capacity Requirement is simple multiplications
When you get the total capacity that you need for each regeneration then for last column, you refer to a chart ( link below) to arrive at Cubic feet need for best efficiency 6 lb/cubic feet

Let me know how to send file then I can send you no problem. I am new to all this myself but happy to help
 

Zenon2cubed

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See attached, you can get 31.5k grains from a 1.5 cu-ft softener regenerating at 6 lb/cu-ft.

I've liked working with these guys in Canada.
 

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