Water Softener System needed for new house build

[Danny Soroudi]

So I am learning about the intricacies of water softener systems here, very useful information indeed!

I am about to start a new home construction, about 6,000sf, 7 bathroom house in Los Angeles, CA.

I will be going with a tankless system (yes yes, I already know some of you dont like that), and I will need to soften my water so as to not damage the system / potentially void warranty, etc.

I've already confirmed that the water's average hardness is 290 mg/L or 17 grains/gallon. The flouride concentration ranges from 0.6 to 1.2 mg/L. I've also confirmed that chloramines are used to treat/disinfect the water.

Would very much appreciate being pointed towards a solution or some options that I should consider.

Thanks

 

[Bannerman]

• How many residents?
• Are there multi-head showers or other fixtures which will require high flow rates?
• What diameter plumbing is to be installed? What material?
• Hardness should be tested at your specific location, not based upon an average. Hardness levels can vary throughout a municipal distribution system.
• While you only mention softening, are you also considering removal/reduction of other contaminants such as chloramines at point of entry, or, at point of use for drinking and ice maker?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Danny Soroudi]

• Residents: 6
• No multi-head showers. California is very difficult and has strict restrictions on flow rates etc
• Plumbing is copper (going to price out PEX, but I doubt I will use it)
• Diameter of line from house to the city meter is a 2". Within the house its 1.5" for HW and CW for the main loop, of course branches to smaller for specific fixtures (some are .5" others are .75" branches)
• I will get a testing kit asap for water hardness and see what it is at my property, however, the municipality I live in with LA is small, probably does not use numerous sources for its water.
• I would consider point of entry for removal/reduction of other contaminants, cost dependent for such a system of course. Original thinking was point of use for drinking water and ice maker.

 

[Reach4]

You could use a system with 2.5 cubic ft or more of 10% crosslinked resin and a Fleck 5812 SXT controller. A 3 cubic ft system would use a 14 x 65 tank.

I would consider some filtering before. If you were not removing chloramines, you could use 2 Pentek 4.5 x 20 filter housings in parallel to keep down the pressure drop. That would be to take out sediment. If you put a valve at each end of each filter, you could take one out of service and work on the other, but normally have all 4 valves open.

 

[ditttohead]

Considering the size of your plumbing a larger valve would be recommended, it is technically required by code. You are not allowed to reduce pipe size. This gets into a lot of wonky technical jargon but well keep it simple for now. A backwashing Catalytic carbon tank and softener would be ideal for you application. A slightly larger than average system would be ideal. The math says a 2.5 Cubic foot unit would work but considering the plumbing size I would recommend going to a slightly larger unit.