Recent content by Eric Wesson

I am on a well here in Idaho. We get some hydrogen sulfide in the water, and of course rust in the water. Hardness is 8-12 gpg. I only put in a 5 micron cartridge filter, followed by a softener and then a 1.5 cubic foot carbon filter tank. One micron filtration is probably overkill. I would...

Any amount of hardness will leave lime scale on your fixtures. Your water heater also adds hardness - magnesium - to the water. So your hot tap is probably about 3-4 gpg. You can put in an aluminum anode rod which will eliminate this source. Or you can get an electrical anode; the downside to...

My impression is Kinetico is wildly overpriced for what you get. The claims of greater efficiency or whatever are nonsense. Water softening is an ancient technology; all you need is a good quality softener head - and you absolutely should replace that timed regeneration head with a good...

Removing chlorine or chloramine is interesting, but is it overall cheaper and simpler to just top up the resin every few years, as the resin breaks down and is flushed down the drain?

I hook up the RO system to the hot water side in order to feed soft water. Don't worry that the RO membrane will receive hot water; it's a trickle, and by the time water gets through the big filter cans, it has cooled adequately. With soft water, RO membranes seem to last virtually forever.

It's a good questions. I too have struggled with threaded PVC joint leaks. I found that PTFE paste, along with a wrap of teflon tape, seems to work well. I believe the reason the joints are so problematic is because the threads are cast and not cut. If you have to do this again, consider...

Had a problem with partial softening. Input gpg 15, output 6. It wasn't an issue with the regeneration, as it remained the same after back-to-back regens. Broken bypass valve? Nope, seems fine. Worn elements inside the valve? Nope, all looks pretty much fine. However, I noticed an extra...

Yeah, thanks for the confirmation. That's exactly what I ran into. Conceivably there would be a way to gravity separate the two - there were very pretty layers of orange and black in the clear plastic tub I was draining into - but totally not worth it for used resin. I was wondering if there...

Last one was a Kenmore. I was pleasantly surprised; it seems to work fine, and we went ahead and installed it in our church's kitchen hot water supply. Fingers crossed, it should last a while there. This one is an EcoWater. I'm looking for a cheap but working softener to sell with the house...

32 feet is 14.7 psi I believe the only problem with the line going up is it changes the gpm of the venturi that sucks brine out of the tank. If you put 5 psi back pressure on the drain line, and the supply pressure is 50 psi, you've effectively dropped the pressure across the venturi by 10%...

Nah, the plastic is too thin. I guess it's thicker than a trash can, but not by much.

Well yeah, there's that. If all the things we've pointed out were fixed, it would be a good softener.

If you disconnect the tube that runs to the brine tank, you can test whether you can blow into it and suck water out. It should flow both ways. Have a glass of water on hand if you get a mouthful of brine. Also, there is a disc in the head that rotates orifices around to run the regen. The...

lol thanks for thinking of me I think this is a somewhat improved design; the controls are separated, but there are still air passages between the salt tank and the chamber that houses the controls. No corrosion, yet. I think the softener is only a few years old; the casting for the outer shell...

Thought I'd troll a little with the thread title. Follows is a partial answer to the question. I want to set up my church's kitchen with a softener. I browsed craigslist and found a Kenmore ... price is right, $0. I got the thing home and started inspecting it, and pleasantly surprised it looks...