Water Softener/Filter System Needed

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Dzimm27

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Other than the single backwash vs double backwash, dF2b, are there any differences that stand out to you? C=24.0 would be more for a 1 cubic ft system, and that is the one that stands out to me.

OK, RT=12:00 does strike me as odd also. Maybe you mis-copied that one?

Even with water in it, they will startle you if you are near. I hope the units will not be near your bedroom.

The valves/tanks are in the garage, but my master bathroom does share a wall with the garage. Thankfully the tanks are on the far wall of the garage from the bathroom. There is straight line of sight/sound from that shared garage/bathroom wall to the bedroom, but hopefully will be okay. Worst case I figure I could rig some sort of muffling insulation cover for them. Just out of curiosity - day late, dollar short, but is noise consistent across all valves, or are Clacks quieter?

Regarding settings - I am sure these have some stock settings in them so by no means did I expect everything to be set how I need it out of the gate.

Softener:
Here I agree dF2b is what I want based on my reading. Everything from your list looks good, except there are some things I want to understand a bit more:
-how is the RS=cr reserve calculated? Is this absolutely a better bet than setting a percentage or set gallon amount reserve? Seems like a neat idea to adapt to changing usage. I certainly do not want it left at RS=rc , RC=0 That would lead to up to a full day without soft water if I am correct.
-Backwash, rapid rinse (isnt slow rinse a thing too?), etc all I understand to be values that have been determined to be effective but reasonably short to conserve water. Obviously want the gunk and salt water out of the resin before it goes into service again. Presume your settings are great for that
-Salt efficiency - here I understand all about salt efficiency, resin, etc. What I seem to be having a major brain disconnect on is where I read something that connected "x lbs per cuft" and the expected regenerated resin total from that to the settings on the valve in capacity, brine draw, brine fill, etc. I know you don't set the capacity to the total capacity of the unit, so in this case a 1.5 cuft is not a 48k softener in the settings. Am I correct in assuming that the amount of regeneration you want each cycle is what you set the capacity to be, and why you have C=36? Or is it the brine draw that matters - 60 min x .25 gpm = 15 gal brine? I am trying to track down what that equates to in dissolved NaCl (or in my case KCl) and how to adjust these settings for different salt efficiencies, namely what I would do for either 4lb/cuft or 6lb/cuft if I chose to go that route.
-Brine Fill - How is the gpm of this rated? I presume this needs to equal how much is drawn out for brine, or else either the brine tank will run dry or eventually overflow.

Filter:
-Time initially struck me as midnight, which clearly is not it. Good catch. Would want to backwash this at a different time than the softener since they are likely going to share a drain line, and make sure that the times involved cannot overrun each other. Better to backwash before or after a softener regen if they both happen the same night?
-DO=3 sounds way too short. I figure at least every week, maybe even longer. 14 days? 21 days? You mentioned 7 originally. Any standard to this? Or is it all based on water usage up to a point?
 

Reach4

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-how is the RS=cr reserve calculated? Is this absolutely a better bet than setting a percentage or set gallon amount reserve? Seems like a neat idea to adapt to changing usage. I certainly do not want it left at RS=rc , RC=0 That would lead to up to a full day without soft water if I am correct.
The 9000 and 9100 use softened water to do the brine fill but everything else too. So if the process takes say 60 gallons, do you set a 60 gallon reserve, or do you say that other factors compensate? Usually the latter, and set the reserve to zero.

Now if you have zero reserve, it doesn't matter if you say it is zero gallons or zero reserve. But if you were to want a non-zero reserve, as you would use with a 5600 SXT for example, I think you would want to specify your reserve in gallons. So while it does not matter which you use for the 9x00, I took my suggestions from the 5600SXT, where I think gallons is superior to percent.

-Backwash, rapid rinse (isnt slow rinse a thing too?), etc all I understand to be values that have been determined to be effective but reasonably short to conserve water.
Slow rinse is what is left of the BD time after the brine tank has been sucked dry. The checkvalve stops the sucking at the tank, but the injector still passes water. Ideally the BD time would be 3x to 4x the time it takes to suck the brine. Usually injectors are chosen to take about 15 or 20 minutes roughly to suck the brine. So 1 hour is a semiautomatic chose lacking more info.

If you can determine how quickly your brine is, or will be sucked, you could adjust the BD accordingly. You could watch, or you could predict based on the injector. If you identify the color of your injector, I could probably predict. Or just watch.

-Salt efficiency - here I understand all about salt efficiency, resin, etc. What I seem to be having a major brain disconnect on is where I read something that connected "x lbs per cuft" and the expected regenerated resin total from that to the settings on the valve in capacity, brine draw, brine fill, etc. I know you don't set the capacity to the total capacity of the unit, so in this case a 1.5 cuft is not a 48k softener in the settings. Am I correct in assuming that the amount of regeneration you want each cycle is what you set the capacity to be, and why you have C=36?
There is a lot of prior discussion. If you wanted to actually get 48000 grains of softening, you would need to use over 15, maybe 18, pounds of salt each regen. by using half or even a third of the amount of salt, you get way over half of that 48. If you want to optimize for water use rather than salt use, a slightly different set of choices can be made. 6 to 8 is usually the best for most homes. If you want other choices, those are easy to come up with.

Or is it the brine draw that matters - 60 min x .25 gpm = 15 gal brine? I am trying to track down what that equates to in dissolved NaCl (or in my case KCl) and how to adjust these settings for different salt efficiencies, namely what I would do for either 4lb/cuft or 6lb/cuft if I chose to go that route.
-Brine Fill - How is the gpm of this rated? I presume this needs to equal how much is drawn out for brine, or else either the brine tank will run dry or eventually overflow.
Brine fill (BF) determines the amount of salt used. 6 minutes * 0.5 gives 3 gallons of water. But each gallon of water dissolves 3 pounds of NaCL salt. So 6 minutes dissolves 9 pounds. With 1.5 cubic ft of resin and 0.5 BLFC, x minutes gives you x pounds of salt per cubic ft of resin. Just a happy coincidence.

Now for KCl, Ditttohead has written that it is complex. For one thing, the amount of KCl that a gallon of water dissolves is more dependent on temperature. But for easy average, you can compute the NaCl BF number, and add 10% for the fact that you are using KCl. Ideally you will find paying 5x (5.5 considering the 10% factor) to be money best spent elsewhere, and switch back to NaCl... OK, "ideally" was not a good choice of words, since the KCl was an "idealist" choice, but not ideal when economics are considered.

If your brine tank is going to be in a place that is not temperature controlled, that is another reason to not use KCl. When using KCl with the brine tank in a non-temperature controlled environment, it is better to have the softener fill the brine tank at the beginning of the cycle, wait an hour or two, and regen. I don't think your 9x00 softener controller can do that. The concern is that you fill the brine tank with its dose of water, and over the next week, the brine cools a lot. KCl comes out of solution, and you get mush or something.

As discussed earlier, the brine is all sucked out in the first 15 minutes or so, and the rest of BD is the slow rinse time.

Time initially struck me as midnight, which clearly is not it. Good catch. Would want to backwash this at a different time than the softener since they are likely going to share a drain line, and make sure that the times involved cannot overrun each other. Better to backwash before or after a softener regen if they both happen the same night?
If you set for immediate backwash, the RT will not matter. If you set CT=FI, the time will not matter. If you set CT=Fd, then the unit will switch tanks, but will not regenerate the used tank until the RT time. Is time zero noon, or midnight? I don't know. But I could see somebody selecting noon so that the softener near the bedroom does not do that backwashing etc while people are sleeping. I don't know how the 9x00 usually have RT set to from the factory. But others come set to 2 AM, and you change if you like.

You like the technical stuff. Take a look at https://www.lenntech.com/Data-sheets/Purolite-C100e-L.pdf for some stuff about resin, especially the Fig 3 graph. Also see http://msdssearch.dow.com/Published...?filepath=liquidseps/pdfs/noreg/177-01766.pdf
Also see https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/2-3 and check the table of contents. Some of the content is technical and much is product info.
 
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Dzimm27

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The 9000 and 9100 use softened water to do the brine fill but everything else too. So if the process takes say 60 gallons, do you set a 60 gallon reserve, or do you say that other factors compensate? Usually the latter, and set the reserve to zero.

Now if you have zero reserve, it doesn't matter if you say it is zero gallons or zero reserve. But if you were to want a non-zero reserve, as you would use with a 5600 SXT for example, I think you would want to specify your reserve in gallons. So while it does not matter which you use for the 9x00, I took my suggestions from the 5600SXT, where I think gallons is superior to percent.
I have a 5810 SXT, not a 9x00. For the 5810 SXT though, I do remember reading it uses soft water to fill the brine tank. However since that brine fill I believe happens at the end of the regen cycle (after backwash/regen/fast rinse), I don't think I need a reserve set just for the soft water brine fill portion. What I do not want however is for there to be a zero reserve and delayed regeneration (I do absolutely want delayed regeneration) where I hit my 0 remaining gallon capacity at 6AM when the dishwasher runs and it triggers a regen to run at 2AM the next morning and we have a whole day without soft water. Setting a reserve or using the cr (variable reserve) setting makes sense. I have seen most recommendations being for setting a set gallon reserve, however you recommended the variable reserve, so I was just curious if you knew how this was calculated or if it had worked out well for people, etc.

Slow rinse is what is left of the BF time after the brine tank has been sucked dry. The checkvalve stops the sucking at the tank, but the injector still passes water. Ideally the BF time would be 3x to 4x the time it takes to suck the brine. Usually injectors are chosen to take about 15 or 20 minutes roughly to suck the brine. So 1 hour is a semiautomatic chose lacking more info.

If you can determine how quickly your brine is, or will be sucked, you could adjust the BF accordingly. You could watch, or you could predict based on the injector. If you identify the color of your injector, I could probably predict. Or just watch.
Ah - so that makes sense. Thank you for that clear explanation. The valve information I posted previously indicated "Injector: 1". The manual shows this to be "White". I just went out and checked and it is indeed a white injector in the DF slot.

There is a lot of prior discussion. If you wanted to actually get 48000 grains of softening, you would need to use over 15, maybe 18, pounds of salt each regen. by using half or even a third of the amount of salt, you get way over half of that 48. If you want to optimize for water use rather than salt use, a slightly different set of choices can be made. 6 to 8 is usually the best for most homes. If you want other choices, those are easy to come up with.
Yeah, prior discussion not needed here regarding why 6 or 8 lbs/cuft is more efficient, how it works, etc. I do not want to run my 1.5cuft softener as a 48000 grain capacity unit. I just want to know the functional difference of setting the Fleck 5810 SXT C= value to 36, 32, 24, etc in it's operation and what that changes. My assumption is that it uses the C and H values to calculate the gallon capacity of the softener between regens, but has NO BEARING on salt amounts used (that would be controlled by BF and BD along with proper salt fill in the tank). In other words, C and H just provide "planning" for capacity, but BF and BD have to be set properly to ACHIEVE this capacity. Is this right?


Brine fill (BF) determines the amount of salt used. 6 minutes * 0.5 gives 3 gallons of water. But each gallon of water dissolves 3 pounds of NaCL salt. So 6 minutes dissolves 9 pounds. With 1.5 cubic ft of resin and 0.5 BLFC, x minutes gives you x pounds of salt per cubic ft of resin. Just a happy coincidence.

Now for KCl, Ditttohead has written that it is complex. For one thing, the amount of KCl that a gallon of water dissolves is more dependent on temperature. But for easy average, you can compute the NaCl BF number, and add 10% for the fact that you are using KCl. Ideally you will find paying 5x (5.5 considering the 10% factor) to be money best spent elsewhere, and switch back to NaCl... OK, "ideally" was not a good choice of words, since the KCl was an "idealist" choice, but not ideal when economics are considered.

If your brine tank is going to be in a place that is not temperature controlled, that is another reason to not use KCl. When using KCl with the brine tank in a non-temperature controlled environment, it is better to have the softener fill the brine tank at the beginning of the cycle, wait an hour or two, and regen. I don't think your 9x00 softener controller can do that. The concern is that you fill the brine tank with its dose of water, and over the next week, the brine cools a lot. KCl comes out of solution, and you get mush or something.

As discussed earlier, the brine is all sucked out in the first 15 minutes or so, and the rest of BD is the slow rinse time.
Ok - this is what I was missing (although my BLFC is .25). 1 gallon of water dissolves 3lb of NaCl. I recall this now and have read about KCl being more temperature dependent. I located the temperature chart that Dittohead put together, per it, NaCL is consistently 2.6-2.8lbs/gal across 40F-120F whereas KCl is 2.3-3.1 over that range. This unit is in my garage and in Texas. We have temperature swings but for a good part of the year we are well into the area where KCl will disolve as much if not more lbs into a gallon of water than NaCl. Of course, now during the winter, it will be less. I guess that is the decision with KCl - you either overdo it 90% of the year to cover the cold months or you realize when it is colder it may not soften quite as well and save on KCl the rest of the time.

For temperature swings and the "bridging" concerns, have read it recommended by Dittohead to see if you have the problem first and then go to brine fill first if needed I believe, so that was my plan. Again, I do not have a 9x00, but the 5810 SXT does have the ability to customize regen steps if you set VT=Othr and I think (but am not positive) it would allow for a brine fill first AND maintain the double backwash which would be ideal. The KCl choice is because we cannot bypass the outside hose bibbs. The cost is higher than salt, but with expected usage calculations in the 6/8lb per cuft range we are only talking about a bag of KCl every 2-3 months it seems. Not a concern.

If you set for immediate backwash, the RT will not matter. If you set CT=FI, the time will not matter. If you set CT=Fd, then the unit will switch tanks, but will not regenerate the used tank until the RT time. Is time zero noon, or midnight? I don't know. But I could see somebody selecting noon so that the softener near the bedroom does not do that backwashing etc while people are sleeping. I don't know how the 9x00 usually have RT set to from the factory. But others come set to 2 AM, and you change if you like.

You like the technical stuff. Take a look at https://www.lenntech.com/Data-sheets/Purolite-C100e-L.pdf for some stuff about resin, especially the Fig 3 graph. Also see http://msdssearch.dow.com/Published...?filepath=liquidseps/pdfs/noreg/177-01766.pdf
Also see https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/2-3 and check the table of contents. Some of the content is technical and much is product info.
I will leave it at CT=Fd on the softener. Filter is set to CT=tc as the carbon does not need to be metered. Per Dittohead this is an absorptive media where time exposed is the concern rather than amount of water that has flown through it. Since there are no AM/PM indicators, 12:00 would be noon, 0:00 would be midnight. If I am backwashing the softener during the night time, I might as well do both. We'll address noise concerns if they even prove to be an issue with insulation or schedule changes. I am sure will be fine. I am still interested in noise of these Fleck units vs Clack. Are the Flecks louder?

Thanks for the links, I will review. I am collecting a set of links that have been especially helpful in my learning process here and will post them once I weed them down from my various browsers and devices.

Bringing this all together, if I were to set C=36, H=10, that would calculate as 36,000 capacity in gpg and 3600 gallon water softening capacity between regens. Then, setting BF=18 (as you recommended for KCl) means 18 min draw * .25gpm BLFC=4.5 gal water in brine tank. If 1 gal of water dissolves 3lb of salt (less per Dittohead's chart), 4.5 gal water * 3lb/gal salt = 13.5 lb dissolved salt in the brine (12.15 if using 2.7 lb/gal dissolve rate). This would be pretty dead on to an 8lb/cuft setting (8 lb/cuft *1.5 cuft =12 lb), which I am reading regens 3000 grains per lb of salt which would be 3000 gr/lb * 8 lb/cuft = 24000 gr/cuft * 1.5 cuft (my system size) = 36000 grain capacity. If I am correct I have worked my way back to your C=36 setting and why that makes sense.

Do I pass?
 

Reach4

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I have a 5810 SXT, not a 9x00.
I got confused. Especially when the thread goes to multi-pages, that happens sometimes. That made a lot of what I wrote irrelevant to you. What the 5800 SXT does is that it computes how many gallons of softening capacity remain, minus the reserve. At the RT each night it regenerates if the countdown is down to zero. Suppose you count down to zero at 6 AM. The reserve amount is what serves you until 2AM or whenever your RT is.
Ah - so that makes sense. Thank you for that clear explanation. The valve information I posted previously indicated "Injector: 1". The manual shows this to be "White". I just went out and checked and it is indeed a white injector in the DF slot.
At 8 lb/cuft, a white injector will suck the brine in about 13.2 minutes. If you were trying to minimize the BD time, you could potentially go as low as 40 minutes. You could taste the drain line during BD or monitor with a TDS meter to see when the excess salt is gone from the drainage.

In other words, C and H just provide "planning" for capacity, but BF and BD have to be set properly to ACHIEVE this capacity. Is this right?
Yes.
For temperature swings and the "bridging" concerns, have read it recommended by Dittohead to see if you have the problem first and then go to brine fill first if needed I believe, so that was my plan. Again, I do not have a 9x00, but the 5810 SXT does have the ability to customize regen steps if you set VT=Othr and I think (but am not positive) it would allow for a brine fill first AND maintain the double backwash which would be ideal.
With the 5800SXT, as you nave noted, you would usually change RF=dFFF. That is downFlow, Fill First. That is OK with NaCL also. Ahh... and I see there is not a double backwash option for fill first. I forget the other potential downsides, but may only be that when you press to get an immediate regeneration, you have to wait. Oh, and letting the water sit in the salt longer makes sure the brine is saturated. Probably mainly the first part. Also, since the softener is still in service until the backwash time, you would set the RT earlier to cause the time in bypass to be during deep sleep time. I don't know what the delay is... an hour or two I think.

Maybe you can figure out a way to put in a yard hydrant for irrigation. I am not so sure that KCl is good for the grass, and I figure MgCO3 and CaCO3 are.

Do I pass?
Yes. What you may want to do is to measure residual hardness as the countdown approaches zero. If the hardness stays at or below 1, you could increase C a bit, or decrease BF. C has more granularity on a percent basis.




For NaCL, here are some BF and C pairs that you could potentially use, and maybe you can adapt for KCl:

BLFC = 0.25
cubic ft resin = 1.5
lb/cuft ; C=
4 ; 22.8
5 ; 27.3
6 ; 30.0
7
; 33.1
8
; 36.0
9 ; 38.5
10 ; 40.5
11 ; 42.0
12 ; 43.1
13 ; 43.9
14 ; 44.6
15 ; 45.0
 

Cara Levy

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Hello All.

Yesterday I got the water tested and had some amount of iron and it was hard water.

So I just reviewed various water softeners on different sites like thewatersoftener.com and many more but still confused.

Anyone have any thoughts? The high end products are quite expensive, but I'm wondering if its worth the price.

Anyone used any of the no-salt systems? Any thoughts on those?

Thanks in advance!
 

Dzimm27

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Hey all, sorry to rehash this, but after a long wait I got stiffed by my plumber so am going to have to start making calls to get install bids from other companies in the morning. In discussions with them is there any reason I should be happy or unhappy with someone who prefers to use 1" CPVC over PEX to run the soft water loop in from the water main outside? Seems CPVC was deemed to be fine but PEX might be better for freeze situations, right?

Also, what is the standard material for the 3/4" drain line? It has a compression style fitting on the back of the Fleck 5810 SXT so I am assuming a type of plastic hose is preferred over a hard PVC line. Just want to convey the right material to them if asked what I need.

Thanks again for all the help here!
 

Reach4

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Also, what is the standard material for the 3/4" drain line? It has a compression style fitting on the back of the Fleck 5810 SXT so I am assuming a type of plastic hose is preferred over a hard PVC line. Just want to convey the right material to them if asked what I need.
Hard or soft is OK, unless you are going in or through a wall. I expect through a wall should be hard. Backwash for a 10 inch softener is only 2.4 GPM.

Softener is not in the sun, right? Neither PEX nor CPVC nor softener stuff should be in the sun for long periods without being covered, such as by paint.
 

Dzimm27

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Hard or soft is OK, unless you are going in or through a wall. I expect through a wall should be hard. Backwash for a 10 inch softener is only 2.4 GPM.

Softener is not in the sun, right? Neither PEX nor CPVC nor softener stuff should be in the sun for long periods without being covered, such as by paint.
Everything will be in the garage. No sun. The soft water loop from the water main will pop out of the flower bed and go into a brick wall into the garage. I intend to insulate this or build a decorative rock cover for this that I fill with spray foam insulation (on the outdoor part) so it is protected from sun and cold.

Even if I go 3/4 CPVC for the drain inside it will will need a flexible part to get off the wall to the softener and carbon filter. Right? What is that material called? For some reason am thinking poly tubing. Need to know what connects to the drain lines of these things with the included compression fitting. Any input greatly appreciated. Do you run a short length of soft pipe to then convert to hard pipe for these typically? Or soft pipe all the way? Do you ever run hard pipe all the way?

Thanks!
 

Reach4

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The soft water loop from the water main will pop out of the flower bed and go into a brick wall into the garage.
Are you saying that you will run hard water from the ground to the softener, and then run soft water into the ground? That hard water riser would seem to be a good place to put a lawn-watering spigot.

For some reason am thinking poly tubing. Need to know what connects to the drain lines of these things with the included compression fitting. Any input greatly appreciated. Do you run a short length of soft pipe to then convert to hard pipe for these typically? Or soft pipe all the way? Do you ever run hard pipe all the way?
I have installed one softener. I think I used translucent white polyethylene tubing on the barbed fitting that came with the softener, and used a single worm gear clamp over the tubing. I think it was 1/2 ID. My backwashing softener uses what I think is black vinyl tubing. Not critical.

I had a nearby floor drain in a basement. If I wanted to go little longer distance, I would have used 1/2 inch PEX, PVC or CPVC. Then I could have used a threaded connection right to the controller rather than the barbed fitting. A softener drain can go a pretty good distance. It can rise, and you could run the drain line up and across the ceiling if it fit your needs.
 
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ditttohead

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Pex or CPVC is fine, absolutely no UV exposure to PEX. PVC is perfect for the drain line. Cheap and very easy to work with, extremely durable and kink potential.
 

Dzimm27

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Thanks guys.

Reach4 - yes, I will be coming off the water main before it goes into the foundation, coming up out of the ground to enter the garage wall to get to the softener, then pop right back out from the softener and into the ground to tie back into where the main enters the foundation. This bit will be the only part exposed to outside air, so my only freeze concern. I was going to have it insulated (I am guessing they would use the black foam that would degrade in the sun) and then probably put some decorative garden edgers/bricks around this to build a little wall/cover for it, perhaps filling it with spray foam. I do agree that this would be a convenient spot to install a spigot, despite us not really needing one right there. I will consider that.

dittohead - was not aware of the UV exposure issue with PEX, that is good to know. I was figuring hard-plumbing the drain line to the valves would be a pain for ever having to remove the valve heads to replace media, etc and a soft "jumper" to the hard plumbing on the wall for drain or else going with soft plumbing the whole way might be better. Ultimately up to the plumber I have put this in, but let me know if that is really a valid concern.
 

ditttohead

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The 5810 has a quick connect drain so no worries there. One clip and the drain is removed from the valve. Definitely run the drains in PVC. Cheap, reliable, and looks good.
 

Dzimm27

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The 5810 has a quick connect drain so no worries there. One clip and the drain is removed from the valve. Definitely run the drains in PVC. Cheap, reliable, and looks good.
I agree on all three, but Even if it is a quick disconnect, if hard plumbed I would imagine you would have to replumb it any time you disconnect or move a tank (rare), right?
 

Dzimm27

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Why? It has a quick disconnect. That is what the quick disconnect is for. it eliminates the need for a union.
Yeah it is a quick disconnect but you have to lift it out of position to disconnect once removing the clip. If plumbed in with hard pipe, there is no movement to allow that. Right? Well, I suppose 3/4” PVC may have some flex if there is a far enough run from the wall. Is this the idea?
 

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All - wanted to follow up here. Found several great plumbers who gave bids and selected one to do the install. Here is the final product, and I am very happy. Note the three valve bypass he put in as well as the pre-filter/softener hose bibb on the wall (there is also an additional shutoff on the wall before the hose bibb). All plumbing is done in pex, including the drain line (at the preference of the plumber). Seeing it installed now, the fact that the quick disconnects of both the softener and filter pull out upwards makes it clear that the flex in the pex would allow me to remove and replace (both at once) the quick disconnect drain lines without having to re-plumb anything. Bonus!

The water is fabulous. Water straight out of the regular taps I honestly think tastes as good as what we used to get from our Watts 3 stage membrane undersink filter. Showers feel great and we are already noticing a difference with our hair/skin moisture levels. I have never had a better lather with my shaving bowl/brush. The new RO filter we installed under the kitchen sink far outstrips the old Watts filter and tastes fabulous, better than water I've tasted out of any other RO system to date. Dittohead - a huge thanks for pointing me to the right equipment!

Here is what I ended up with for settings. I altered schedules a bit but also decided that RS=rc (Reserve Capacity) with a RC=200 was probably safer for our potentially large swings of water usage (pool filling) than RS=cr as I do not understand how it "learns" well enough to know that a week of light water usage would not lower the calculated reserve unneccessarily low. Not the end of the world either way I suppose.

Softener 5810 SXT 1.5 cuft
Piston = Standard
BLFC = 0.25 gpm
Injector = 1

DF=GAL
VT= 5810
DF=dF2b
CT=Fd
C=36.0
H=10
RS=rc
RC=200
DO=28
RT=2:00
B1=5
BD=60
B2=4
RR=10
BF=18
FM=t1.2
RE=OFF
VR=OFF

Catalytic carbon filter 5810 SXT 1.5 cuft
Piston = Standard

DF=GAL
VT=5810
RF=Fltr
CT=tc
DO=7
RT=4:00
BW=10
RR=10
RE=OFF

Thank you Reach4 for all of your assistance in getting me on the right track with these!

The following articles were huge in bridging the gap for me and giving me a very good understanding of the settings above.

Understanding brine efficiency and specifically why upflow regeneration in standard tanks like these is not as ideal as it may look on paper:
http://systematixusa.com/articles/downloads/WCP/2002/2002 - Feb - Brine.pdf
Anyone asking questions about upflow regeneration needs to read this!

Great reads on brine efficiency/leakage:
http://www.wcponline.com/2017/03/20/capacity-ion-exchange-resin/
http://www.wcponline.com/2015/02/10/softener-efficiency-its-not-just-about-the-salt/
http://systematixusa.com/articles/downloads/WCP/1998/1998 - Jan - Ion Exchange Capacity.pdf

Salt capacity of brine water (page 53):
https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/52-53

With these and the help here I was able to make spreadsheets that calculate out capacities, salt usage (including expected estimated bags used per year and price totals for NaCL vs KCl), brine fill minutes/gallons, etc. While this is not interesting for most I am sure, the big takeaway I gained was that (for me - 1.5cuft resin, 165gpd usage), the salt efficiencies from 6/8/10 lb per cubic foot of resin calculate out to an expected difference of about $3/year difference per jump in NaCL cost and $20/year in KCl cost. While certainly being efficient and saving money is good (and it was a great mental exercise), the concern over efficiency/cost I (and probably most others) had when I first started learning this stuff was really unnecessary. I doubt many/any will read this and make much of a difference (everyone needs to walk their own path to understanding), but with all the great help from Reach4 and Dittohead here I wanted to throw in my experience as well.
 
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intel2020

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Looks great!! Love my Pentair 5810 SXT/XTR2 dual tank (Carbon and Softener) and GRO PRO RO system too (can see my other posts if anyone is interested)!! Water is just awesome!! I hate when I travel now as I miss my water!! This board is the "de-facto" water conditioning board on the Internet today. Spend some time here, research, and you will learn more than most local dealers -- I did.....
 

ditttohead

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Well done! Ther RC setting vs cr setting... the cr is much better for undersized equipment or applications where fairly consistent swings occur. In all reality you might see a half of a bag of salt savings per year with CR over rc... but even this may be optimistic. In our quest to squeeze every bit of efficiency while maintaining high water quality we tweak the algorithms. We are currently working on larger system efficiencies by adding algorithms to the flow meters in applications where we know their accuracy is not optimal. This type of innovation and R and D is the type of intellectual property that is so easily copied after the years of work is done. Thanks to all of you who continue to support the companies who are actively involved in this type of work. You support it with your hard earned dollars and by not shopping based solely on price but rather quality, knowledge, and a companies desire to support a difficult industry that is constantly being copied by the lowest bidding overseas manufacturers.
 
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