Greg said:
I need some plumbing 101 on installing a water softener. I am installing a 2 cube with a flecks 5600 control valve. Can someone tell me how do I adjust the salt level in the brine tank that come into the resin tank. Do I need to make any other setting adjustment to get the right softening level. How often should I have it regenerate with two adults and a 2 and a 3 year old. Also what is the diff. between the 5600 and the 5600 econominder. Greg
Yes all softeners have an adjustable salt dose which establishes the capacity of the softener based on the type AND volume of resin you have. Look at the salt dose as the accelerator peddle in your vehicle. Gas mileage is best when you keep your foot off the peddle... but you need to get there sooner than idle does it so you push on the peddle and watch the spee-do-meter. Well the salt dose determines the salt efficiency and thereby the capacity of ALL softeners no matter who makes them and/or sells them, here's how....
Your specific control valve has a salt dose setting cam in the right rear of the power head. Remove the one screw and loosen the other and then remove the back cover. For a 2 cuft of regular mesh resin, 12 lbs (6 lb/cuft) gets you 40k of capacity. The salt efficiency is 40000/12= 3333 grains per lb used; not bad huh. Well unless you don't have anything to compare it to it's meaningless huh LOL. For a higher capacity such as 48k, set the salt dose at 17 lbs (48000/17 = 2647 grains/lb used). That's one comparison.
Well many 'guys' will look and say WHOA!! I bought a 64K softener, not a 40K!! Or 48K! Okay, to get 60K, that's the max capacity no matter how much salt you throw at it BUT, you have to use a salt dose of 30 lbs (15 lbs/cuft) to get that 60k, and 82 lbs gets you ...a... 60K! Now that gives you a salt efficiency of 60000/30= only 2000 grains per lb. So the question becomes how much salt do you want to go to the store and buy and then lug home to pour into your salt tank?
Most guys then change their opinion of bigger always being better 'cuz they don't want to brag about their inefficient softener's high salt use! But now the guy with 3333 grains/lb has something to really brag about, and that's how little salt his uses. Now you can get better than 3333 grains/lb if you reduce the salt to say ... 4 lbs total but that's stretching things more than a bit and you'd be better off using fine mesh or SST-60 resin. pssst, you get higher kinetics, like 5000 grains/lb used BUT, you'll have a larger pressure loss across the softener..., not good huh..
For more on this, search for "softener sizing chart" with the "" and find one that mentions SFR. BTW, your 2 cuft has a SF of 13 gpm. Only your 5600 has a SFR of 21 gpm and that has nothing to do with anything other than to tell us water treatment guys how large a tank we can use that control valve on; not the peak demand flow rate gpm that the softener can successfully remove all your hardness from. Your 12" diameter tank is the largest the 5600 can be used on REGARDLESS what some web sites say. All you have to do is read the Fleck spec sheet on the 5600 and it tells us that (I'm right'n those guys are wrong).
You don't use the float in the brine tank, if you have one, to set the salt dose; that's done on cheap control valves/softeners. You should have a float and it is a safety overflow float. To set the salt dose, you adjust that cam I mentioned, loosen the screw and point the itty bitty pointer to the lbs; the white numbers on the black gear the cam is attached to. But you have to know how many K of capacity so you can set the meter gallons correctly; so do that search and some reading.
The Econominder is the mechanical metered version of the 5600. The other versions are 12 day timer and electronic metered.