Reply With Quote
I can post a programming guide for that exact unit tomorrow. I return to California in the morning so I will be at the office then. My programming guide will walk you through exactly how to set up the unit.
|
|
|
Hello,
Been busy and about ready to turn on the new water lines. I got the 48K 5600xt softener and would like opinions on settings as follows.
capacity - 27.3
hardness - 22 (I added 1 because of the minimal amount of iron) good or bad??
Safety Factor - 10% (not sure)
Day override - 10
Brine Fill - 8
Or would I be better off just going with 30 capacity with 9 BF?
Thanks
I can post a programming guide for that exact unit tomorrow. I return to California in the morning so I will be at the office then. My programming guide will walk you through exactly how to set up the unit.
Appreciate that ditto, will take any help that's available.
This should help. It is self explanatory. It is what we send our controls out with so the builders can easily program them. If the water has excessive sediment, the backwash time should be increased. Otherwise, this is the industry standard programming for the majority of water supplies.Originally Posted by Kadex
Check out my program, please? New installation
2 people (about 100 gal. per day total)
32,000 Clack WS-1
hardness--16 gpg
using Potassium Salt
I reset to 30,000 capacity since I read potassium is less efficient....the unit is regenerating about every 16 days...The number of gallons I'm getting betw regens is about 1830......Could/should I do better?
Your 32,000 grain softener, 1 Cu. Ft. of resin should not be run at 30,000 grains, this will waste a large amount of salt. Use the programming guide. This will give you a good balance of salt and water efficiency, while maintaining high quality soft water.
Adjust the programming above to fill first. Potassium chloride tends to bridge in the salt tank due to its higher variance in solubility at varying temperatures. Sodium Chloride will vary approximately 1% for every ten degrees of temperature change, potasium Chloride will vary approximately 10% for every ten degrees. In a location where the temperature varies more than 10 degrees between regenerations, caking is a common problem with potasium. A garage in Phoenix can change from 60 degrees at night to 120 degrees during the day. The extra potassium is absorbed into the water, then as the temperature drops, the potassium comes out of soultion and precipitates into a cake. Here is a link to great article written in 2005 addressing this issue.
http://www.watertechonline.com/water...ssium-chloride
Hope this helps, and your Clack WS-1 system will serve you well for many years without fail, congratulations on buying a great unit!
Last edited by ditttohead; 03-15-2012 at 08:51 AM.
Thanks for your response, dit, but I have a question about it. First, I forgot to mention in my OP that the salt is set at 9.5 lbs. You wrote that by setting my capacity from 32K, which is what it's rated at, down to 30K, I'd be wasting salt..but..the instructions you cut and pasted call for reducing the capacity. setting all the way down to 24K. How could both be true?
The default settings of a Clack WS-1 is 24K and 9.5 lbs etc. etc. etc..
The K of capacity is adjustable and so are the lbs of salt. The lbs of salt dictate the K of capacity inj a given cuft volume of whatever type of resin is being used.
The lower the lbs of salt the higher the salt efficiency. To use potassium chloride, you may have to set the lbs up to 30% higher than you would to use sodium chloride, and you don't have bridging problems as you can with PC.
You should program for a salt efficiency of at least 3333 grains/lb. And do a regeneration on average once every 7-9 days, I suggest day 8.
To learn how to set the K of capacity, salt dose lbs etc. go here;
http://www.qualitywaterassociates.co...izingchart.htm
then come back if you have any questions.
Click Here to learn how to correctly size or program a water softener.
Great description, thanks.
A softener has a technical rating of 32,000 grains removal per cubic foot, but that requires using 15-18 pounds of salt per regeneration.
Cut the salt in half, to 8 pounds and your available capacity drops to 24,000
32,000 / 18 = 1777 grains removed per pound of salt
24,000 / 8 = 3000 grains removed per pound of salt
Setting a softener to 8 pounds of salt is the maximum amount to maintain some efficiency. Gary is correct that using less salt than my chart shows will get you to better efficiency.
20,000 / 6 = 3333 grains removed per pound of salt.
Most people are very happy with the water quality at 6 pounds of salt per cubic foot. The hardness should remain below 1 gpg. The only disadvantage is a slight decrease in water efficiency, but that is not the primary concern for most people. Most waster treatment facilities care far more about the waste water quality than the quantity.
We adjust ours systems to 8 pounds per cubic foot, this is primarily to minimize complaints. At 6 pounds, the complaints rise, but almost to an insignificant level.
As Gary said, 6 pounds is a more correct number and is required in California.
To set your system to the most salt efficient level, set the Capacity to 20K and the salt to 6 pounds. The computer will adjust the capacity, reserves etc automatically.
Thanks very much for the help, guys. I did the math..seems very little difference, in my case, between 20K @ 6 lbs and 24K @8 lbs...less than a bag a year.
You are correct on your calculations. Some states require that salt efficiency standards must meet or exceed 3333 Grains per pound. In all reality, the difference is usually a bag of salt per year as you stated. A far better way to save salt and waste water is to use less water in your house. The softeners have become so efficient that we have hit a point that the gains in efficiency are becoming silly. For my own use, i prefer 8 pounds of salt per cubic foot since it has a lower hardness leakge, and at 6 pounds, you can notice the difference the day the system will regenerate. The hardness leakage increases as the exchange sites inside the resin tank become depleted. Most people do not notice this, and the water hardness on a very accurately, properly sized unit will rarely exceed 1-2 GPG even just prior to regeneration. Less than 6 pounds per cubic foot is where the complaints rise significanlty about the water quality and the perception of hard water becomes noticable even thought the system may be producing fairly good water at 2-3 grains.
Use less water, use less salt. http://www.wcponline.com/pdf/June_Horner.pdf Here is an artilcle I wrote specifically on this topic.
Excellent article. We visited the topic of water and salt efficiencies a few months back with mixed results. It's easy sometimes to micro-manage efficiencies to the point where any gains are not worth the effort put forth but states like California drive these mandates to ever higher levels of ridiculousness from time to time. I too program for 8lbs salt. I know full well the small drop in efficiency but I would rather sacrifice a bag or two of salt in exchanged for less customer calls and complaints.
No, plumbing ain't rocket science. Unlike rocket science, plumbing requires a license!
If you've not set the salt dose to less than 8lbs/cuft, you don't have any experience with it and must be listening to plumbing supply house gossip.
If you think about it, which I have, with either salt dose you program each for their respective K of capacity and gallons between regenerations, how can 6lbs cause problems and the 8lbs not?
I have been using less than 8lbs/cuft for many years and have not had the complaints you mention. Maybe it's the color of the tank I use. Or it could be that my softeners were correctly sized for the peak demand of the house and then programed for the better salt efficiency while you and others here have accused me of oversizing.
Last edited by Gary Slusser; 03-17-2012 at 01:54 PM.
Click Here to learn how to correctly size or program a water softener.
I said the same thing 2 yrs ago and got beat up bad by our resident expert. I thought I was the only one that figured it that way. Glad to know others think as I do.
As I said, you are right to set the system to 6 pounds. Try to understand the base logic here. I distribute thousands of units annually, and I track every complaint, problem, issue, etc. Real or not. Any time a person calls with a problem or compaint of any kind, it goes into our complaint tracking system. We ask a long bettery of questions, fill out the form in the computer, and we can quickly build a profile of common problems and their cause/solution. The rate of complaints with water quality goes up with 6 pounds compared to 8 pounds, but the rise is almost insignificant. You are right, 6 pounds per cubic foot is the correct way to set a softener. The very slight rise in complaints does not justify setting the systems to more than 6 pounds. When systems are set to less than 6 pounds, the complaints rise significantly. This is not heresay, a guess, or an opinion, this is from raw data from years of tracking complaints. Now the reality, I set my personal system to 8 pounds per cubic foot, the water quality is better, as confirmed through proper testing. The additional bag of salt per year is insignifcant. If we go by your logic, we should regenerate with 2-3 pounds per cubic foot and we could now be getting getting more than 5000 grains removal per cu. ft. The issues related to this low of brining are considerable and should not be attempted by the DIY'r. Packed resin beds, variable brining, upflow brining, specialty resins, temperature and pressure monitoring with adjustable brine controls, HMI, etc. are all items that should be considered and applied when trying to get extremely high efficincies.
No need to argue this one, I agree with you.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks