Anyone???

My sister in law is in the process of buying a water softener for her home. It will be a new installation. She has city water but it is from wells, and is treated for hardness. She is worried about the mineral build up she is seeing on her plumbing fixtures, I guess it would be lime and or calcium?? She has gotten two different estimates and got the following results. I cannot figure out why the big difference and what, if anything it means. I have tried to use the links I have found here in the forum to figure it out, but it is still Greek to me. Would one of you pro's or knowledgeable persons mind offering some advice on what capacity water softener she needs to handle these statistics? She really wants an on demand system with the single all in one style. Her neighbor told her that they have a softener and still have buildup on their fixtures. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Culligan Michigan Water
21 Grains 42 Grains (minerals/bacteria)
350 TDS 360 TDS
0.5 Iron 1.0 hard
7.8 ph
.5-1.0 ppm chlorine

21 grains per gallon is fairly hard, 42 of course is even more so. I don't understand the comment about bacteria, because no softener, RO system, or filter of any kind is rated to handle water which is not bacteriologically safe. With the chlorine content, it is probable that the water IS safe.

Many softeners are rated to handle a certain iron content. Check the specs on that one.

As for the softener: Let's say family of 4, uses 300 gallons per day. Lets take a softener rated at 39,000 grains. 300 X 21 is 6300 grains per day. 39,000 divided by 630 means about every 6 days it will regenerate. This is a reasonable number. If they use more or less than the 300 gallon per day in my example, the regeneration would change. If the softener uses 4 pounds of salt per regeneration, that gives you an idea of your salt cost.

Make sure that the softener is installed so it does not soften water to any irrigation system or the back yard hose bibb.

water softener or savastat anyone?

Thanks for the quick comeback Jimbo. Do you expect a softener as you computed to take care of the scale or staining my sister in law is concerned about? Someone told her that she also needs something called a Savastat. It charges the water or something like that. Would that be a quack idea or if it does work, is it needed in a softened system?

beware of water conditioner salesman

their are a lot of scam artists out there selling
these things for astronomical prices..

what price are you
being quoted anyway???

the C....... man can really rip you off...they think that
they invented soft water and have a monopoly on it.....

and their are others even higher...
like the Rain....... man


Its best to get a two piece system in metered
becasue of servicability and salt bridgeing
in the one piece brands.....

If you must have a one piece then you are
limited to the size of the mineral bed..in most cases and brands.....
but its not that big a deal if she lives alone.
..it will be big enough.


The absolute best you can get is a CLACK..
probably followed by fleck or Autotrol.

the price should range between 875 through
1200.00 for a 48,000 grain metered unit
depending on what plumbing has to be
done to get it installed..


on another note I am pretty sure that you can
LEASE a metered unit from a
local small town family owned company
for probably about 20 bucks a month..then
you can try it for a few months to see if you like
the results without having to
shell out the big bucks.





and they wont try to sell you high priced salt,
or all sorts of thiings that
they say you need.

just look in your yellow pages at the smaller adds.

http://www.weilhammerplumbing.com/galleryii/

answers to questions

Thanks for reply Master Mark,

My concern is also that my sister in law not get sold a bill of goods or scammed. She did not tell me how much they wanted for their equipment, but I will ask. Right now I want to know what size machine she needs, and I think I now have a pretty good idea, thanks to this forum.
I guess I need to find out more about this Savastat product. I had never heard of such a device, but it sounds too good (although I don't know price) so it probably does not live up to its' claims. I think I may post a new thread to see if anyone else has heard of it.

just dont sign anything...

they really ike to play head games with
the victims and try to intice them into signing
something for some spceial "today only" deal.....


just tell her to walk away and call around
for other quotes

this "special product" you are talking about is
probably their own "high tech" product that has some
"exclusive patent" with rights to them only....
and its been installed on the NASA space shuttle
or someting like along those lines....

smoke and mirrors...


there is a fellow named Gary Sussler that might
leave a comment here about what it is you are
lookking into

softener

A friend's brother had a soft water system installed. By financing it, he received a free installation. The only problem is that by the time he finishes paying for it, it will cost him about five to eight times what any legitimate plumber would have charged. Smaller capacity softeners recharge more often than large capacity ones, but they both produce the same water. Normally the deposits from soft water are easier to clean than those from hard water. Softening replaces the calcium ions with sodium, but the sodium can still produce deposits.

water softener

I am definitely going to pass this along to my sister in law. One of the reasons I think she asked me for advice is that she has the same fears about being taken advantage of because she is a woman and/or unfamiliar with this equipment. (I HAD to be her only alternative....LOL) Now I am learning too!