Kinetico 2060S Salt and Meter Disc Settings Needed

[Charlie Bosco]

I am finally dialing in my water service and now I have reason to believe I am overdosing my Softener.

I have a Kinetico 2060S and the Brine Tank was set at J which is 4.4lbs of Salt from what I can gather from the manual. Then there was a #4 Disc in it which according to the 2060 documentation that covers me for up to 38 grains. My setting at 4.4lbs should give me about 17,600 grains? So if I was using 38 grains I would need to backwash each time I used about 463 gallons? Am I in the ballpark?


A recent water test showed 305 mg/l on my hardness which is 17.8 grains. Wow that's less than half of the existing setting. To make matters more confusing, the Health Metric hardness test strips I got are barely registering 3 grains from untreated water. They only confirm 0 gpg with the softener water. if that is true then I am way over on the salt and disc setting. Also you cannot back up to a lesser setting on the brine tank so there is that.

I just ordered a Hach 5-B Hardness test kit to get a much more accurate reading as suggested here. Assuming I do need to back down how do I deal with the J setting in the brine tank? Do I just leave that and simply lower the Meter disc closer match my actual grains? And benefit from more gallons before I need a BW?

I really want to dial this thing in because at the current rate I am going through 240lbs of salt every 2 months!
For the record, a lot of that was because I stupidly had my Katalox and Carbon tank backwashing with softened water. I have since changed their positions.

 

[Charlie Bosco]

I am finally dialing in my water service and now I have reason to believe I am overdosing my Softener.

I have a Kinetico 2060S and the Brine Tank was set at J which is 4.4lbs of Salt from what I can gather from the manual. Then there was a #4 Disc in it which according to the 2060 documentation that covers me for up to 38 grains. My setting at 4.4lbs should give me about 17,600 grains? So if I was using 38 grains I would need to backwash each time I used about 463 gallons? Am I in the ballpark?


A recent water test showed 305 mg/l on my hardness which is 17.8 grains. Wow that's less than half of the existing setting. To make matters more confusing, the Health Metric hardness test strips I got are barely registering 3 grains from untreated water. They only confirm 0 gpg with the softener water. if that is true then I am way over on the salt and disc setting. Also you cannot back up to a lesser setting on the brine tank so there is that.

I just ordered a Hach 5-B Hardness test kit to get a much more accurate reading as suggested here. Assuming I do need to back down how do I deal with the J setting in the brine tank? Do I just leave that and simply lower the Meter disc closer match my actual grains? And benefit from more gallons before I need a BW?

I really want to dial this thing in because at the current rate I am going through 240lbs of salt every 2 months!
For the record, a lot of that was because I stupidly had my Katalox and Carbon tank backwashing with softened water. I have since changed their positions.

Got my Hach 5B kit today. Here are the results.

Water from my water softener turned immediately blue. I did not even have to add one drop of reagent. Is that okay?

Water from well. It turned blue when the drops hit 16. But did not stay blue. Went to purple and faded back to pink. I kept adding drops and waiting till it stabilized at 20 drops.
So. Is my hardness 16 or 20?

edit. Just got all my answers off the hach site. Very good faq!
My water is perfectly soft if it turns blue immediately and my hardness is 20 since they say to keep adding till it stays blue.

that being said I need to lower my meter disc. Based on my salt setting of 4.4 lbs. I should optimistically get 880 gallons from that. I am backwashing at like 250 gallons now!

 

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[Charlie Bosco]

Got my Hach 5B kit today. Here are the results.

Water from my water softener turned immediately blue. I did not even have to add one drop of reagent. Is that okay?

Water from well. It turned blue when the drops hit 16. But did not stay blue. Went to purple and faded back to pink. I kept adding drops and waiting till it stabilized at 20 drops.
So. Is my hardness 16 or 20?

edit. Just got all my answers off the hach site. Very good faq!
My water is perfectly soft if it turns blue immediately and my hardness is 20 since they say to keep adding till it stays blue.

that being said I need to lower my meter disc. Based on my salt setting of 4.4 lbs. I should optimistically get 880 gallons from that. I am backwashing at like 250 gallons now!

Hoping to revive this thread.. Still trying to dial in Salt efficiency. Attached is a chart to show the water usage per backwash for each Meter Disc. As I mentioned earlier the Brine well tabs were cut to use 4.4lbs salt. According to the chart I have 16,630 grains to work with. My Hach b5 says my hardness is 20. That tells me I would use up all my softening when I reached 831.5 Gallons.

Sooo, Am I correct in interpreting the results that I need to lower my Meter Disc from a number 4 to a number 2? This should give me 627 Gallons between backwash with enough buffer to stay at Zero Hardness between BW's

 

[Water Guy]

might have a hard time getting help. very few people that know anything about those systems. very proprietary and kept close to the chest, so to speak.

 

[Kevin Trinh]

Got my Hach 5B kit today. Here are the results.

Water from my water softener turned immediately blue. I did not even have to add one drop of reagent. Is that okay?

Water from well. It turned blue when the drops hit 16. But did not stay blue. Went to purple and faded back to pink. I kept adding drops and waiting till it stabilized at 20 drops.
So. Is my hardness 16 or 20?

edit. Just got all my answers off the hach site. Very good faq!
My water is perfectly soft if it turns blue immediately and my hardness is 20 since they say to keep adding till it stays blue.

that being said I need to lower my meter disc. Based on my salt setting of 4.4 lbs. I should optimistically get 880 gallons from that. I am backwashing at like 250 gallons now!

Please help on how to figure out backwashing. How do you know that your system backwash at 250 gallons? My system might backwashing more often then it should be cause I am going thru about 100lb of salt per month. I am on disc #2. Thanks.

 

[Charlie Bosco]

Please help on how to figure out backwashing. How do you know that your system backwash at 250 gallons? My system might backwashing more often then it should be cause I am going thru about 100lb of salt per month. I am on disc #2. Thanks.

Each Model Kinetico has a different value of gallons per Meter Disc number. A Number 2 disc in my model (2060S) would backwash every 627 gallons. Dont know what the value for your unit would be.

My current setting is a 4 disc that backwashes every 313 gallons. I still think its too much. Based on the chart my settings of 4.4lbs should give me 16,630grains. At 20 grains per gallon I should be able to get 831 gallons in a perfect world. My guess is a Number 2 would give me 627 gallons and plenty to spare so I don't have varying hardness between backwashes.. If I dont get any confirmation on this I may just order the #2 disc and try it.

 

[Kevin Trinh]

Each Model Kinetico has a different value of gallons per Meter Disc number. A Number 2 disc in my model (2060S) would backwash every 627 gallons. Dont know what the value for your unit would be.

My current setting is a 4 disc that backwashes every 313 gallons. I still think its too much. Based on the chart my settings of 4.4lbs should give me 16,630grains. At 20 grains per gallon I should be able to get 831 gallons in a perfect world. My guess is a Number 2 would give me 627 gallons and plenty to spare so I don't have varying hardness between backwashes.. If I dont get any confirmation on this I may just order the #2 disc and try it.

So you based number on the table. I am trying to find if there anyway to do actual measure. Thank you.