Softener, 5 quotes and tons of research and more confused

[Google-fu]

The builders of my townhouse installed a water softener back in 1984. Recently the salt container over flowed with water causing us to call a plumber.

We used this plumber before but this time he said he would give a sample of water to his water softener supplier and in 2-3 weeks he would give us a quote warning us that it would be 3-3.5k to replace our softener.

Did a little research including here and decided I need a Clack or Fleck digital metered head... Clack was slightly prefered to Fleck.

Called another plumber and he immediately sent me a quote without comming out or testing the water.

That didn't seem right so I did more research. This time I looked on Angie's list and called water quality experts with high ratings.

I am testing from 0 to 6 grams hardness with "fairly high" chlorine. I am on city water. The city site says water ranges from 6 grams to 14 grams hardness.

Before my son did not like tap water and we used a Brita my daughter thought it was fine. We had no other complaints. Given I did not even know about resin needing replaced the softener may not have even been working correctly.

Out orginal unit is a 24k unit with a autotrol timed head.

So after researching a ton...

I am confused:

1) Most agree that up flow brining is more effiecent but what this means real world is vague. the 69% less salt quote seems to be against timed units which a metered unit claims is 40% less salt...so in reality up vs down is only 29% so I am not sure how many bags that is?

Before I using 4 bags a month...so that was a ton.

2) I always read before trust the installer more than the product. The person I liked best to install something is Ecowater guy... It is proprietary ... But the other quotes for a Clack or Fleck head are all down flow brining... so less effiecent.

The warranty is crappy unless i buy the top of the line model which is 2400 plus tax.

3) Some recommend a seperate carbon tank some say they just put the carbon on top of the resin.

At 0 to 6 grams hardness I am not sure I even need a water softener but even the company that rated my water at zero still came back and quoted me one instead of just a carbon tank with control valve.

The two plumbers I called seem to be willing to do the job but they dont really know much about water softeners...

I have been looking at just buying a unit online, either (Fleck) or a unit called Gensis softeners.

Maybe a good RO is better? Maybe just a Carbon tank....

A few tried to sell me pressure water softeners and salt less water conditioners...both seem BAD from the research I did.

If I just bought the Flex unit online it would cost me 600 dollars delivered and about 400 bucks for install. A the other quotes were 1700 to 2400 ...

I do think I need chlorine removal but with the hardness I am not sure about the rest. Advice is much appreciated.

 

[intel2020]

Sure others will chime in. I went with a Fleck 5810 valve based softener and carbon tank in front of the softener. I sized mine for 4 people, 3 full baths -- so a bit larger (2 cu ft3 0r 64K). My water hardness is 21 gpG, really hard. Our city water has chlorine and I wanted to remove that, hence the carbon tank. I put a separate RO unit under the kitchen sink, for a separate water outlet and it feeds my ice-maker. People on the board will most likely discourage multi media. My unit is down flowing -- my understanding that there are as many pros/cons with up/down flow -- so, not really any upside to up-flow. No one will say anything bad about Clack. I chose to go Fleck as I have used them before and they have done very well. the 58xx series is a newer technology and comes highly recommended by a few "in the know" folks here. You cannot buy a Fleck 58xx series valve system on the Internet (due to Fleck dealer/distribution policies). The other Flecks you see are older models. I definitely came to the conclusion early that ecowater, Kinetico, big box brands, saltless, or Chinese stuff, etc. were not worth the $$. It was going to be Fleck or Clack. Check out my other posts if you want to see my system I just installed in the past few weeks after much research.

 

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[Reach4]

At 0 to 6 grams hardness I am not sure I even need a water softener

Hardness is expressed in "grains" (grains per gallon) or in milligrams per liter, which is pretty much the same as ppm.

You probably want to get a Hach 5-B hardness measuring kit. You will want that for planning, and you will still want it if you get a softener.

If you want to remove chlorine, you will want to find if they use chlorine or chloramine.

 

[Google-fu]

Hardness is expressed in "grains" (grains per gallon) or in milligrams per liter, which is pretty much the same as ppm.

You probably want to get a Hach 5-B hardness measuring kit. You will want that for planning, and you will still want it if you get a softener.

If you want to remove chlorine, you will want to find if they use chlorine or chloramine.

I did this research and our town uses chlorine not chloramine.

 

[Google-fu]

Sure others will chime in. I went with a Fleck 5810 valve based softener and carbon tank in front of the softener. I sized mine for 4 people, 3 full baths -- so a bit larger (2 cu ft3 0r 64K). My water hardness is 21 gpG, really hard. Our city water has chlorine and I wanted to remove that, hence the carbon tank. I put a separate RO unit under the kitchen sink, for a separate water outlet and it feeds my ice-maker. People on the board will most likely discourage multi media. My unit is down flowing -- my understanding that there are as many pros/cons with up/down flow -- so, not really any upside to up-flow. No one will say anything bad about Clack. I chose to go Fleck as I have used them before and they have done very well. the 58xx series is a newer technology and comes highly recommended by a few "in the know" folks here. You cannot buy a Fleck 58xx series valve system on the Internet (due to Fleck dealer/distribution policies). The other Flecks you see are older models. I definitely came to the conclusion early that ecowater, Kinetico, big box brands, saltless, or Chinese stuff, etc. were not worth the $$. It was going to be Fleck or Clack. Check out my other posts if you want to see my system I just installed in the past few weeks after much research.

Thanks for the reply. In order to go with the Fleck 5800 series vs the 5600 SXT I would have to have a local resource buy the head. The cost for the would be more than double. I did read multiple times that the 5800 series is better but I dont think double?

I have read (in this forum) that upflow is better on paper but not so much in real life applications... I have read problems but no one has gone into any details.

When you say discourage multi-media do you mean no carbon tank or carbon on top of the resin?

 

[intel2020]

I will let others comment on 5600 vs. 58xx -- I know that 5600 is an older technology, perhaps good, I just wanted the latest design. I was able to get the solution at a comparable price, perhaps a few hundred more. If you looked at my other posts and the link to a file, I opted for a 5810XTR2 and a 5810STX. I wanted the XTR2 for more diagnostic information and ability to get that info into a PC. Most people may care less about that, but I have a connected/automated home and wanted that -- and it looks cool to me. The STX head is for the carbon tank. Probably just fine for most people, easy to program. The STX is just a pretty "dumb" configured device as it only is backflushing the carbon tank once a week (as compared to all of the cycles a softener goes through beside rinsing to recharge the resin).

The advice I received (most on this forum) was that multiple media in a tank is not optimal; doable yes, but not recommended. Others may chime in on this as well. As such, I opted to get a second tank with carbon in front of my softener.

As for getting the 58xx series, you have other options based on all my research and situation in my market (Las Vegas/Henderson). If you are interested to explore other options, are a DIYer and/or have plumbing resources, I am sure others on this forum will chime in soon.

 

[ditttohead]

1) Most agree that up flow brining is more effiecent but what this means real world is vague. the 69% less salt quote seems to be against timed units which a metered unit claims is 40% less salt...so in reality up vs down is only 29% so I am not sure how many bags that is? It is not anywhere near that high. In the real world it is closer to 2-3%. Ignore whatever marketing garbage literature you read online. If it were really that much more efficient them every commercial system would use it, as it stands almost no commercial units use upflow regen. I could do an hour long class on how much better upflow is, or I can do the same class on how big of a waste and a problem it is. Just stick with downflow. I use upflow on only a few highly specialized designs... to go into detail again on this site... I don't have the time nor the desire, I will simply say stick with downflow and stop reading "Fake news" online about water treatment.

Before I using 4 bags a month...so that was a ton.

2) I always read before trust the installer more than the product. The person I liked best to install something is Ecowater guy... It is proprietary ... But the other quotes for a Clack or Fleck head are all down flow brining... so less effiecent. I would avoid a highly proprietary system, this potentially lead to higher maintenance costs since you will likely only have a single company to maintain the system. RE: efficiency, their is no magic bullet to efficiency. The math works out the same unless you get into specialized designs, too many to mention. Simply put, a modern traditional design softener will be almost identical to the efficiency of the most "advanced" designs from the companies who tout massive efficiency increases. Marketing a modern design that is set to ultra low salt settings, then comparing it to a time-clock system set to use the highest salt setting... it makes as much sense as comparing two nearly identical trucks but driving one uphill vs downhill to compare the gas mileage.

The warranty is crappy unless i buy the top of the line model which is 2400 plus tax.

3) Some recommend a seperate carbon tank some say they just put the carbon on top of the resin. Putting the carbon on top of the resin does not work... unless they use a specialized carbon which performs very poorly compared to the more modern carbons. Do not mix them, separate tanks if you want it to work. Some companies use internal plate dividers, this is acceptable but servicing this style of tank is more difficult and costly compared to simply separating the medias. you will also greatly reduce the amount of media you can fit. Sharing a tank... not enough room and the resin/carbon turn into an amalgam, this reduces the carbons ability to work do to poor contact.

At 0 to 6 grams hardness I am not sure I even need a water softener but even the company that rated my water at zero still came back and quoted me one instead of just a carbon tank with control valve.

The two plumbers I called seem to be willing to do the job but they dont really know much about water softeners...

I have been looking at just buying a unit online, either (Fleck) or a unit called Gensis softeners. Please do not buy highly specialzed water treatment equipment from Ama.. and I highly recommend staying away from the Gene... unit, it is a Chinese knockoff of the Fleck valve. There are plenty of companies that specialize in selling high quality units at reasonable prices. Many of the online sellers are only interested in being the lowest price... imagine if you could buy a Toyota body, then assemble the car yourself with the cheapest junk you could source, Toytota would not be to thrilled. This is essentially what happens with water softeners. The cheapest resin, Chinese tanks, junk risers etc. all in an effort to sell a "Fleck" or Clack system. This is one of the reasons these companies are pulling away from the online market, too many companies selling incredibly poor equipment. As you have seen with your old unit, it lasted 30+ years. A properly designed and assembled unit can still do that... the cheapest pieces of junk... not likely.

Maybe a good RO is better? Maybe just a Carbon tank.... Whole house RO??? Please don't go there. Too much typing and I have already pulled a 16 hour day. Just a carbon tank, absolutely fine, I consider a softener in your application a luxury item that is very nice to have, the carbon tank and the reduction of chlorine in the showers, etc is very nice, but... ignore the online garbage about how backwash valves waste water, or upflow is better etc... It is all entertaining but again, too much typing.

A few tried to sell me pressure water softeners and salt less water conditioners...both seem BAD from the research I did. Pressure water softeners? unknown. Salt free is not "bad", it is typically overhyped and oversold. I doubt anybody on this site who works in the water quality improvement field would actually put one in their own home but most will sell them if the customer absolutely does not want a softener or if softeners are not allowed and they want to try to reduce the effects of hard water. I manufacture over a dozen different designs, some show a little promise but the actual results have been very hit/miss. My real problem is that in almost every water quality improvement design there is a test method to determine the effectiveness. Hardness.. hach 5b, Carbon, chlorine test, chloramine, free/total chlorine and even ammonia tests, pH meters, tds testers etc. but for anti scale systems... nothing. Most anti scale systems have a carbon bed installed ahead of them, this will affect the water dramatically in many ways and any changes in the water chemistry will be noticed by the homeowner, it is one of the reasons that anti-scale is almost always sold with a carbon unit. I would personally recommend a traditional salt softener over the anti-scale units

If I just bought the Flex unit online it would cost me 600 dollars delivered and about 400 bucks for install. A the other quotes were 1700 to 2400 A real quality unit built with all the best components will typically add a couple hundred bucks. Definitely worth it, especially after a year when the riser tube snaps and you fill the house with resin... LOL.

 

[Google-fu]

If I get a softner and a carbon tank do I need control heads on both? I seen some units that have a connector but one control head.

 

[Reach4]

If I get a softner and a carbon tank do I need control heads on both?

Yes. The backwash needs for the softener and GAC are different. The GAC would usually use a timed controller with no meter.

 

[ditttohead]

Many companies promote carbon systems with just an in and out head. This is a little cheaper but creates some unique problems. Unless your budget mandates this minor cost savings I don't recommend even looking into it.

 

[Rmk9785e]

Thank you for sharing your expertise. False marketing claims create confusion in the minds of average consumers like myself. I am so thankful for the knowledge disseminated through these forum discussions. A lot of time commitment and patience goes into educating us all.
Came across an interesting article about softener efficiency which also raised awareness about the impact of TDS on municipalities' need to resell/discharge their waste water. Something new to learn every day.

 

[ditttohead]

Chubb is considered one of the smartest guys in our industry and my many years of working with him I have to agree. He makes my knowledge seem paltry at times.

Working with steam boilers, cooling towers etc... there is a lot more going on than most people understand when it comes to waste water regulations. A few years ago I proposed that we cut our waste water on a series of large cooling towers with an estimated savings of well over a million gallons of water a day. The exact same amount of tds would go down the drain but it would obviously be more concentrated. We were denied even though we were in a drought, the municipality wanted our low tds water and lots of it. A traditional cooling tower will run at about 6-30 cycles depending on incoming water quality and chemical treatment. We were only allowed to run a 2-3 cycles. The cities solution to pollution was our dilution... not their dilution.