Frequency of regeneration

[Gary Slusser]

A .125 gpm.... very odd.

I'd do two manual regenerations at 23 lbs each back to back with no water use during or between them; one starting at like 7:30 PM and then another on your way to bed about 11 or automatically at 2 AM.. Then set the lbs back to 4.

That regenerates the whole 1.5 cuft back to max capacity of 45K and that allows you to regularly use 4 lbs of salt without noticeable leakage (hardness bleed through).

[TWEAK]

A .125 gpm.... very odd.

I'd do two manual regenerations at 23 lbs each back to back with no water use during or between them; one starting at like 7:30 PM and then another on your way to bed about 11 or automatically at 2 AM.. Then set the lbs back to 4.

That regenerates the whole 1.5 cuft back to max capacity of 45K and that allows you to regularly use 4 lbs of salt without noticeable leakage (hardness bleed through).

I did the regens as advised so I think I'm good to go.

I'm pretty comfortable with this salt dose business and the brine tank fill calculations at this point, as well as the brine-making step. But if you wouldn't mind, may I ask you to teach me about the other steps and the logic used to select the time for those. Specifically, I'm referring to the "backwash", "Brine Draw", "2nd Backwash" and "Rapid Rinse" steps of the process. I can see from the manual what is happening in these steps, but I don't have a clue how to select an appropriate time for each.

I'm thinking there must be some logic to determining the appropriate time to allocated for these steps, right?

Thanks in advance!

[Akpsdvan]

I did the regens as advised so I think I'm good to go.

I'm pretty comfortable with this salt dose business and the brine tank fill calculations at this point, as well as the brine-making step. But if you wouldn't mind, may I ask you to teach me about the other steps and the logic used to select the time for those. Specifically, I'm referring to the "backwash", "Brine Draw", "2nd Backwash" and "Rapid Rinse" steps of the process. I can see from the manual what is happening in these steps, but I don't have a clue how to select an appropriate time for each.

I'm thinking there must be some logic to determining the appropriate time to allocated for these steps, right?

Thanks in advance!

Oh the days of old with the Hague gold crown with the double back wash when no one else had one..

1st back wash was 10-12 minutes on the 1.0 cubic foot
Brine draw/slow rinse was 50 minutes
2nd back wash was 6 minutes
Rapid rinse was 6-8 minutes
Brine tank refill on the 1.0 cubic was 4 minutes for the 6lbs of salt.

The Second back was was great when it came to iron in the water, some times not all of the iron would get removed after the brine/rinse and the second back wash would remove that part.. it would also let one cut down on the slow rinse time to remove the extra brine that might not have gotten out of the media..
The rapid rinse is more for packing the media bed and getting it ready for service ..

[Gary Slusser]

may I ask you to teach me about the other steps and the logic used to select the time for those. Specifically, I'm referring to the "backwash", "Brine Draw", "2nd Backwash" and "Rapid Rinse" steps of the process. I can see from the manual what is happening in these steps, but I don't have a clue how to select an appropriate time for each.

I'm thinking there must be some logic to determining the appropriate time to allocated for these steps, right?

Thanks in advance!

It takes years of experience to leran how many minutes for each of the cycle positions and they depend on the raw water quality, volume and type of resin and the K of capacity, the salt dose efficiency etc.. I normally use settings for good water conservation.

[Gary Slusser]

Oh the days of old with the Hague gold crown with the double back wash when no one else had one..

1st back wash was 10-12 minutes on the 1.0 cubic foot
Brine draw/slow rinse was 50 minutes
2nd back wash was 6 minutes
Rapid rinse was 6-8 minutes
Brine tank refill on the 1.0 cubic was 4 minutes for the 6lbs of salt.

With the exception of the refill, I think those settings are way high for a 1.0 cuft softener.

[TWEAK]

Just a quick update on my softener....

Since adjusting the salt dose per the information you gents explained, it is working great. Salt use is predictable and reasonable and, most importantly, the water quality is now what I was looking for in the first place. Before, I was getting reduced water spotting compared to not having a softener, but it wasn't reduced as much as I had expected - I wasn't using much salt at all and I think my softener wasn't being regenerated adequately. After some high-dose regens and correct programming (as opposed to the factory defaults I had been using), I'm now getting the performance I expected.

One last question! Is there a specific product that I should be dumping into the brine tank occasionally to clean/maximize resin life? There's no iron in the water (according to the water company).

Thanks!

[Wally Hays]

Glad to hear it's doing the job for you. If you have no iron then you should not have to put anything in the brine tank.