Replacing 25 year old Water Softener

[Reach4]

Do get a cheap pH meter and 6.8 pH buffer packets on order. Your pH readings seem to be highly variable.

One way that can work is that you put a packet of buffer solution into a jar of the amount of distilled water specified (250ml = 8.45351 fluid ounces). Clean and keep your next glass mayonnaise etc jar maybe. Then fill the cap with buffer solution. Adjust the pH meter with the little screwdriver. Then take your reading. Store with the buffer solution in the cap.

Anyway, in answer to your question, if no new info comes up, get a softener with 2 or 2.5 cubic ft of resin. Do some extra stuff to help with the iron in the resin. This can be adding citric acid to the brine tank, using a wick-type acid dispenser into the brine tank, using iron-treating salt (which has citric acid in it) or other stuff.

I presume you don't have a sulfur smell you want to address.

I would also put a big cartridge whole-house filter in front of the softener. If you have a fair amount of sediment, you would probably want to have something in front of that cartridge filter.

I am not a pro.

 

[edvb]

Can you explain the reason for a 2-2.5 cuft tank? I thought a 1.5 cuft would be closer to the correct size?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

Using 8 pounds of salt per cubic foot of resin, you get 24000 grains of softening per cubic ft. 20000 grains if 6 lb of salt per cubic foot.
Compensate for high hardness.
https://terrylove.com/forums/index....0-sxt-programming-settings.60651/#post-450189

Add 5 grains equiv for each ppm (mg/l) of iron.

You would like to regen about every 7 to 8 days.

 

[edvb]

Ok I got it. Hardness 24 grains + iron 1.0 ppm 5 grains= 29 grains
29 x 160=4640 x 8= 37120 + 4640 Reserve=41760

At the 6Lbs setting it would be 40,000 so close to a 8 day regen.

So a 2 cuft tank seem to be just about the right size for my house correct?

 

[Bannerman]

To clarify, the 8 lb/24K and 6 lb/ 20K settings are per cuft of resin, will provide high salt efficiency and good water quality in water not containing iron.

When a softener is also an iron removal device, those settings will often need to be modified to prevent iron fouling. Whether adding citric acid regularly alone will be an effective treatment or if an alternate salt & capacity setting will also be required, may largely depend on whether the iron quantity is actually 0.2 ppm or 1 ppm (or perhaps higher?).

 

[edvb]

I ordered the equipment today.

Clack ws1 Twin EE valve, 10x54 dual tanks, 18 x40 brine tank with 464 Clack Safety Shut-off
I will start with Red Out salt first and see what else need to be done.
With the Iron and hardness I plan to start with 10-15LBS salt setting and work my way from there.

RO I got a Pentair FreshPoint GRO-575B 5-Stage Reverse Osmosis System.

Once I have it installed and tested we will see if it was the right choice.

Thanks everyone for you comments on this install.

Ed

 

[edvb]

Thanks everyone that helped me decide what to get.
I finally finished re-plumbing and sweating most of the copper water piping and installed the following.

Amtrol Well-X-Trol WX-250 44 Gallon pressure tank with raised Copper Tee

Big Blue clear 4.5" x 20" Whole house filter with 25-1 sediment filter

Bypass valves with gauges for whole house filter

Clack WS1 Dual Tank 480000 grain water softener with Bypass valves an a 18" x 40" Clack Brine Tank

Pentair FreshPoint GRO-575M 5-Stage Monitored Reverse
Osmosis System with water pressure gauge on inlet. This feed a faucet on the kitchen sink and Ice maker.

Rheem PROG50-40N RH62 50 gallon water heater with a
ProFlo PFXT5 2 Gallon Thermal Expansion Tank

Valve to supply soft or hard water to the two outside faucets. This way I can wash the car and do a final rinse with soft water when needed.

Everything is installed and working well.

Click on the picture for the video.

VID_20180917_161726821 by evanbelkom

 

[Mikey]

Very nice.

 

[edvb]

Thanks Mikey!

It took longer than I thought but the added details made it worth it