Water Softener settings

[OhioTurner]

Just bought an foreclosure that had sat empty for 2 years,needless to say I had alot of frozen stuff.
I replaced the softener with a 60,000grain that has a autotrol 255 valve/460i control it installed easily
then I got to the programing, I set the time, my water has 30gpg of hardness and 2ppm iron with 4 residents so I set the hardness at 30 not sure thats right but its what I did, Capacity and salt dial,the manual gives no clear answers just says your dealer will set a time of install and if you have any
questions contact your local dealer. Thats so helpful.....The plumbing store is great but they are just
sales people with no field experience. Seems like there should be some sort of formula to come up with the correct settings. Anybody ever set one up with autotrol controls?

[mialynette2003]

When setting up a softener on water that has iron, you want to raise the hardness 3 grains for every part of iron (some will say 4-5 grains per part of iron). So with 2 ppm iron, you would raise the hardness 6 gpg or to 36 in your case. I would also recommend the use of Iron Out. This will keep the resin clean. If not, the resin may get fouled by the iron.

[hj]

Just to let you know. The settings have absolutely NOTHING to do with the degree of soft water. They just determine WHEN the softener should regenerate. Set them too low and you will run out of soft water before a regeneration. Set them too high and it will regenerate too frequently even if it does NOT have to.

[OhioTurner]

Thanks for the replies!
If the salt setting the key What does the capacity setting do?
I don't like having stuff in my house I don't fully understand..LoL

[mialynette2003]

1 cubic foot of resin will yield 30,000 grain of removal using 15 lbs of salt. If you use only 6 lbs of salt, you get 20,000 grains. So you get less salt useage with slightly less grain capacity. 60,000 grains with 2 regens @ 30 lbs of salt or 60,000 grains with 3 regens @ 18 lbs of salt.