"The water is too soft" she says...

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Claybe

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My wife says the water is too soft and she can't get the conditioner out of her hair or the soap off her hands. I tried to explain that that means the water is clean and our dishes will be clean etc. But she was having none of that and asked if I could make the water harder?!? Here are my current settings:

DF GAL
VT dF1b
CT Fd
NT 1
C 48
H 30
RS SF
SF 10
DO 7
RT 2:00am
BW 10
BD 60
RR 12
BF 14
FM t0.7
.5 GPM 1.5 LB salt/min.

Hardness is 285.2 mg/L
Iron is 2.308 mg/L

What should I change?!? Thanks.

P.S. I love the water settings like they are and think the softener is doing a great job, but I don't have long hair!
 

ditttohead

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Hard to explain but... Use less soap, and I mean a lot less soap. In the laundry and dishwasher cut it to 1/3 of normal. Shower... 1/4 of the normal amount is often too much.

Chaniging the settings will have some affect over time but it will also be affected by retraining the brain. Just like when you get your braces removed from your teeth, they suddenly feel "slimy", which is actually normal. Hard water has the opposite feel once the brain reworks what is "normal". Hard water will feel "sticky" and the soap doesn't feel like it is working.

That being said, which valve do you have? The Autotrols have a hardness leakage screw available, Fleck makes "blenders" integrated into the valve, though nobody uses them in the US, it is required in many countries, and Clack makes a great external adjustable blender.

Or you could simply tell the wife that you made some adjustments and she should notice a change slowly over the next 1-2 months as the system "recalibrates"... in reality her brain will recalibrate. You also have to train her to use a lot less soap.
 

Cacher_Chick

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I dont know, I like the feeling of hard water, and would not use the softener if it were not for the iron. I still have some galvanized piping that looks like new on the inside and my water heater is 25 years old and has no indication of a problem with calcium. Eventually when the softner fails, I may just replace it with treatment for iron alone.
 

Reach4

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C 48
H 30
RS SF
SF 10
DO 7
RT 2:00am
BW 10
BD 60
RR 12
BF 14
I am guessing you have 1.5 cubic ft of resin in a 10 x 54 tank. If so, I would change to C=30.0 and BF=6. If you have a different size tank, let us know.

BLFC = 0.5
cubic ft resin = 1.5
lb/ft3 ; C= ; BF= ; grains/pound of salt
4 ; 22.8 ; 4 ; 3800
5 ; 27.3 ; 5 ; 3640
6 ; 30.0 ; 6 ; 3334
7 ; 33.1 ; 7 ; 3148
8 ; 36.0 ; 8 ; 3000
9 ; 38.5 ; 9 ; 2853
10 ; 40.5 ; 10 ; 2700
11 ; 42.0 ; 11 ; 2546
12 ; 43.1 ; 12 ; 2396
13 ; 43.9 ; 13 ; 2254
14 ; 44.6 ; 14 ; 2121
15 ; 45.0 ; 15 ; 2000

C and BF combinations higher in the table are more salt-efficient, as noted in the last column, which is grains softened per pound of salt. Lower in the table is less salt-efficient but with less residual hardness.

You could even go to
C=27.3 ; BF=5 or C=22.8; BF=4;

The changes would not be felt until after 2 or more non-early regenerations. Regenerating early will not speed up the change.
 
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Claybe

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Thanks. I don't know how much resin I have, but I do know it is a 10x54 tank as that is what is says on the receipt. I will try these changes for a month and see what we get. Thanks again.
 

ditttohead

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Actually... you may want to run the system to the exhausted state then do the regen as stated. Lower salt/more efficient settings will allow some hardness leakage to occur. Trying to control hardness in this way is unlikely to be successful. If it were me I would tell the wife you hade some changes... and that it will take a couple months to really kick in... :)
 
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