Water filtering/softening first steps?

[bombcar]

It seems the first thing to do is get a test done on my city water (New Richmond, WI, small city, three municipal wells). After I have that I can start to determine what filters and softeners I should get, and in what order. Is that correct? What's a good water test? I assume the $5 test-yourselves from WalMart aren't worth much.

Also, what fixtures/water is it recommended to NOT soften? It's easy enough to get a cold water line before the softener - though to get hot unsoftened water you'd need two water heaters or a transfer.

 

[Reach4]

You may be able to get the test info from the city. If the info is not on their website, give them a phone call or visit. The server pointed to on the bottom left of https://www.nrutilities.com/ is down at the moment. I would get contact info from http://www.newrichmondwi.gov/index.asp?SEC=B2950298-2A06-4C65-ABDE-0B4164EB62AB&Type=B_BASIC . From a treatment point of view of city water, you need hardness mainly. If they give a hardness range, you want to concentrate on the higher.

Typically you would want a suitably sized softener that has 10% crosslinked resin. A softener with a separate brine tank is usually preferable. For sizing, besides hardness, the number of people that the softener will serve is good. Some people put a backwashing carbon tank (looks like another softener) in front of the softener. That removes chlorine and chlorine and other stuff. Unless you smell the chlorine, I would probably not do that. It could be worthwhile.

You would want the outside hose spigots to provide unsoftened water normally. Some leave the kitchen cold unsoftened, but softening everything except the hose spigots is usually the thing to do.

I like a cartridge filter on city water for the incoming water. It should last a year or so.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Bannerman]

Municipal supplies are typically lab tested multiple times per year. Test results are available to residents, often posted on the town/city web site. Hardness should be tested at your location as hardness can vary in the distribution system depending on your home's proximity to each of the city's water sources such as wells, rivers and lakes.

 

[bombcar]

Sounds good - I've emailed them and will see if they respond, if not I'll walk over and poke them.

I have tons of filters (clearance sales are great places to pick up whole-home filters) but the real filtration will be done with these SST1HA that I ordered - but I have to decide what filters to put in them, and where.

Removing chlorine taste is a big one - but that's easily enough done by filtering the PEX line to the refrigerator as necessary. I'm interested if it's worthwhile at all to filter water going into a softener (given that it's city water and should be pretty clean already).

 

[bombcar]

193 grains/hardness 11-12
iron: .6 ppm average

So those seem to be the numbers - they blend from the five wells so the numbers are relatively constant across the city.

The 2017 CCR may be available soon.

 

[Reach4]

'm interested if it's worthwhile at all to filter water going into a softener

Do it before or after. Ditttohead likes after, and he knows a lot more than I. He has probably seen broken down resin in a post-filter.

193 grains/hardness 11-12
iron: .6 ppm average

The iron will all be turned into filterable ferric iron by the time it gets through the pipes to your home. So if you had 0.6 ppm of iron from your well, that would be very significant. For your city water, you can ignore that number.

1.5 cubic ft of 10% crosslinked resin in a 10x54 inch tank would be the right size for up to 4, maybe 5, people.

 

[bombcar]

If you plan on having more people later (kids happen) - is there any harm going larger early, or is it better to resize at that time?

I could do a filter before and after if that would help with the life of the components.

 

[Reach4]

If you plan on having more people later (kids happen) - is there any harm going larger early, or is it better to resize at that time?

If you had 22 grains of hardness, that question would a strong yes to going bigger. Yet there is some efficiency upside and little downside for going up to 2 cuft (12" x 52" tank), even with 2 people. I have recalculated. With 1.5 cuft, you should be good for 6 people. All of the calculations presume 60 gallons of softened water per person per day. With your water, could be looking for a bigger house when you are expecting your fifth kid. ;-)

With a single tank softener, each night the softener decides if it has enough capacity remaining to make it through the next day. You will leave about 1/2 day of unused capacity on average. That is a small percent of unused capacity if the period is over a week. But if you were regenerating every 4 days, that would be more significant.

But here is more. Presume 12 grains of hardness. 2 people. With 2.5 cuft of resin, you would expect that to be good for about 32 days. Normally you regen at least every 28 to 30 days (the DO setting) with city water. Not bad. If you went with 2 cuft of resin, regenerate about every 26.6 days. That would be slightly more efficient.

So bottom line, 1.5 and 2.0 would both be very nice choices.

 

[ditttohead]

The larger diameter tanks also offer lower pressure losses than smaller diameter tanks.

The problem with filters before/after softeners is that they are usually junk filters... if you use Pentek or Atlas Filtri, you should be fine. I have seen thousands of failed filters in my 30 years, almost all of them were some cheap piece of junk sourced from some no name company that has the goal of making the lowest priced filter housing... Pentek, Atlas Filtri are expensive but considering the potential problems, they are well worth the extra cost. Also the filters should have a 3 valve bypass installed so if a failure occurs you can still have water.

For junk softeenrs, a filter afterward is important so as to catch the resin when the bottom screen inevitably fails. Again, being a field service technician for 20 years, I have seen massive amounts of bottom screen failures. These are usually caused by the company that made the unit found bottom screens made in China for 25 cents... not exactly a bargain when I would get called out to fix the problem and would spend 4-6 hours clearing the plumbing and rebidding the units with new resin and a properly designed and manufactured bottom screen.

Here is a picture of a counterfeit cheap bottom screens that we see all the time in low cost softeners. You can easily crush the cheap bottom screens in your hand... These look identical to the budget Fleck bottom screen, they may look identical but these are absolute junk.

 

[bombcar]

Is the 3M Aqua-Pure SST1HA durable as a filter housing? I have two of them on order and plan to run a bypass myself (I suspect my basement is going to look like the inside of a submarine when I'm done). I also have some possibly yum-cha plastic filters with the 3 way bypass but I trust them about as far as I can throw them, so they're on separate valves/bypasses.

 

[ditttohead]

Why use those? They are not really necessary for your application. We typically use the stainless for hot water applications. A simple Pentek or Atlas Filtri Big Blue style filter would give you massive flow rate and almost no pressure drop for a much lower cost.

 

[bombcar]

Mainly because they look good and (hopefully) will never fail - I didn't know about good plastic filters at the time. I may repurpose the Aqua-Pure for hot water filtering if needed.

 

[Donald Kells]

Water softeners are generally accessible and there are a few different sorts. Look for proficient advice before acquiring a system, or play out a water hardness check yourself using the water testing kit. A few softeners will naturally recover though others utilize a PC to track levels of water use.