water softener advice, 32K grain, twin vs single, 1" valve

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ditttohead

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An RO system will eliminate 92-98% of sodium from your water. This will bring the level down to trace amounts. You should make your softener as efficient as possible for many reasons. Salts in the waste stream are difficult to treat and by minimizing it, the sewage costs can be minimized as well. Especially for areas that resuse the waste water. It is very comon for waste water to be treated, then allowed to go down into the aquifers, and then pumped back up for resuse by the next municipality. Toilet to tap has been common in the US for many years.
 
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Gary Slusser

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The HACH test kit is on order. I already have an RO filter for drinking water and the fridge. I don't really want to add sodium to drinking water, even in small amounts.
When the city sends you harder water than your test shows, and they do that from time to time, than you have the softener programed for, you will start getting hard water through the softener.

Then you change the salt dose lbs to 15 lbs/cuft of resin and do 2 manual regenerations with no water use during or between them, and then reprogram for your new hardness level and K of capacity. That blows your previous salt efficiency away in a hurry. You should program for the highest hardness in the city system to begin with. Or do a lot of testing.
 

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You should program for the highest hardness in the city system to begin with. Or do a lot of testing.

I plan to do both. I think this summer should represent heavy use of groundwater, which is hardest. I will keep the softener programmed for a few grains harder than tested until I get an idea of what the maximum is.

Will that Fleck 7000 SXT tell me how much capacity it has left until it thinks a regen is in order? I should have the test kit on monday, just wondering if I'll have the info soon enough to reprogram before the next regen.
 

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No. Metered Fleck etc. valves show how many gallons are left before the next regeneration.

Unless those you bought it from programmed it for you based on data you gave them, you should program it yourself because otherwise you get to use factory default settings that are not based on water quality.
 

ditttohead

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The metered SXT controllers will alternate between the time of day and gallons remaining before the next regeneration. sxt.jpg
 

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Ah, yes, I see that now. At the rate we are using water I'll have another week and a half before regeneration. I am currently programmed with 44,000 grains capacity at 17 GPG incoming water hardness, which I'm guessing is 2- 4 grains harder than actual. Test kit will tell me the answer next week. I intend to modify the programming for my actual hardness plus some margin early next week, and switch to 6lbs/cu ft in my 1.5 cu ft setup for improved salt efficiency and regeneration intervals less than two weeks.
 

ditttohead

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That would be a great way to do it. The SXT also has an adjustable safety factor in the programming that you can use to give you a little buffer for varying hardness. If you know your hardness changes significantly at certain times of the year, testing the hardness occassionally is a good idea. With the Hach 5B, an accurate test takes less than a minute, and reprogramming the hardness on the SXT also takes less than a minute.
 

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When you change the salt dose to 6 lbs/cuft, the regeneration will not regenerate any capacity above the K of capacity the new dose will regenerate. So if you use capacity above that K now, that resin/capacity will not be regenerated.

I understand the capacity will be reduced and the programmed capacity adjusted accordingly with a lower salt dose, requiring regen more often.
 

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I understand the capacity will be reduced and the programmed capacity adjusted accordingly with a lower salt dose, requiring regen more often.

Maybe I wasn't sufficiently clear. You said "I am currently programmed with 44,000 grains capacity...." I asked what your present salt dose is and you didn't answer but if it isn't sufficient to get 44K, and a couple weeks from now you reduce the salt to 6lbs/cuft (9 lbs) your K of capacity will be 30K. None of that additional 14K will be regenerated. In other words if you have used any capacity above 30K in the first 2 weeks or so, it will not be regenerated.

To prevent the problem you have to set the salt dose for 44K (22.5 or 23 lbs). When you want to reprogram to 6 lbs.cuft you do a manual regeneration at 22.5 or 23 lbs and when it is finished, program for 6 lbs/cuft and the 30K; or you don't get all the resin fully regenerated.
 

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It is currently programmed for 12 minutes at 0.25 GPM. I am told it is configured for 0.25 GPM by the softener vendor. Any way I can independently verify this? I assume it is a restrictor in the brine port.
 

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You can remove the brine line and have the system fill into a bucket to confirm the flow rate is correct.

A gallon of water will dissolve approximately 3 pounds of salt.

The valve will usually say what is installed but these are easily changed so testing it is important if you are not sure that it is correct.

You are correct, there is a flow control button that regulates the refill rate.

Hope this helps.
 

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So, at 3 gallons, or 9 pounds of salt, my softener was already 30,000 grains capacity? It sounds like the vendor gave me bad info setting the capacity to 44,000 grains.
 

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7000156.jpg
So, at 3 gallons, or 9 pounds of salt, my softener was already 30,000 grains capacity? It sounds like the vendor gave me bad info setting the capacity to 44,000 grains.

Here is a set up sheet for a 1.5 Cu. Ft system, 10x54, with 6# salt per regeneration. This is a generic set-up sheet we use during assembly, you will need to set the actual hardness, and you can probably set the SF to 10 instead of 15. Set the RR to 5 minutes instead of 10.


oops, I converted the file wrong and have a minor error, not sure how to remove the attachment below, but the top one is correct.
 

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Lifespeed

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OK, got the hardness test kit and I am only at 7 grains hardness right now. Could go a bit higher in the summer, but I'll check periodically and program a safety factor for now.

Configuration below is where I am set right now. It will definitely regenerate too soon based on current programmed hardness being too high. Will changing the hardness be reflected immediately in more gallons of capacity remaining, or does it not recalculate until the next regeneration? Right now I'm at 1856 gallons remaining, which will take me another week to use up.

I am still unclear about my capacity being set to 44,000, which I believe was a safety factor without using the percent safety factor from 48,000 for a 1.5 cu ft system. But with a 12 minute brine draw at 0.25 gal/min, which is 3 gal or 9 pounds of salt, I thought my capacity would only be 32,000.

I think I should set H to 7, C to 32,000 and separate the capacity from the safety factor by setting SF to 15.

What do you guys think?

DF Gal
VT df26
CT Fd
C 44,000
H 17 (obviously this is too high!)
RS SF
SF 0
RC (this did not appear, probably because it is programmed for safe factor as a percent)
CR (did not appear)
DO 30
RT 3:00
B1 10
BD 60
B2 0
RR 8
BF 12
CD (did not appear)
FM t1.2
 
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Lifespeed

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Re-programmed as shown below. Indeed the hours remaining did increase when the hardness was decreased. But the capacity was erroneously large and it had run for a week, so I did a manual regeneration.

One thing that I don't understand is why the brine line runs dry? It is programmed to Brine Draw for 60 minutes, yet sucks up the 3 gallons of brine in less than 15 minutes. Then it sucks air. Is this why I get air bubbles out of my faucet for days after a regen?

What determines how much brine is used, the brine fill time? So it dumps in three gallons after the regen, then next time it draws until those three gallons are consumed, then sucks air?

I have a safety float and an "air check valve" in the brine tank. Is the air check valve supposed to stop it from sucking air?

DF Gal
VT df26
CT Fd
C 30,000
H 7
RS SF
SF 10
DO 21
RT 3:00
B1 5
BD 60
B2 5
RR 8
BF 12
FM t1.2
 
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ditttohead

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Re-programmed as shown below. Indeed the hours remaining did increase when the hardness was decreased. But the capacity was erroneously large and it had run for a week, so I did a manual regeneration.

One thing that I don't understand is why the brine line runs dry? It is programmed to Brine Draw for 60 minutes, yet sucks up the 3 gallons of brine in less than 15 minutes. Then it sucks air. Is this why I get air bubbles out of my faucet for days after a regen?

What determines how much brine is used, the brine fill time? So it dumps in three gallons after the regen, then next time it draws until those three gallons are consumed, then sucks air?

I have a safety float and an "air check valve" in the brine tank. Is the air check valve supposed to stop it from sucking air?

DF Gal
VT df2b
CT Fd
C 36,000
H 7
RS SF
SF 10
DO 30
RT 3:00
B1 5
BD 60
B2 5
RR 8
BF 12
FM t1.2

Its late and I have one of my many daughters birthday party in the morning so I will answer part of your question, and I will recommend you copy my set-up sheet above, except change the hardness to 7. I tried to modify your settings as well.

The BR cycle is called by many the brine cycle, but it real name is very specific. It is "Brine and Rinse" The "brine" portion should take approximately 15-25 minutes, or approximately 1/3 of the total time. The remaining time is the "Rinse" cycle which slowly rinses the remaining salt from the resin bed. The water still flows through the injector causing suction on the brine line. The air check inside the brine tank should prevent the system from sucking air into the softener. If you here air being sucked in, you have something in the seat of the air check or it is worn. These air checks typically last for 10-20 years. String from the salt bag, a piece of paper, etc. Anything can an airleak, if you hear one, remove the aircheck and thoroughly clean it with water and check it carefully with a flashlight.

Hope this helps,
 

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Its late and I have one of my many daughters birthday party in the morning so I will answer part of your question, and I will recommend you copy my set-up sheet above, except change the hardness to 7. I tried to modify your settings as well.

The BR cycle is called by many the brine cycle, but it real name is very specific. It is "Brine and Rinse" The "brine" portion should take approximately 15-25 minutes, or approximately 1/3 of the total time. The remaining time is the "Rinse" cycle which slowly rinses the remaining salt from the resin bed. The water still flows through the injector causing suction on the brine line. The air check inside the brine tank should prevent the system from sucking air into the softener. If you here air being sucked in, you have something in the seat of the air check or it is worn. These air checks typically last for 10-20 years. String from the salt bag, a piece of paper, etc. Anything can an airleak, if you hear one, remove the aircheck and thoroughly clean it with water and check it carefully with a flashlight.

Hope this helps,

Thanks for the info. The air check valve (actually the whole system) is brand new, so I don't understand why it would fail. The brine tube is definitely full of air after it draws all the brine out, and it does sound like it is sucking air. I rinsed it out and blew it with compressed air. Hopefully that unsticks it. I could hear the valve rattle freely.

I reprogrammed DO to 30 and C to 36,000. Can you explaine the reasoning behind the increased C? I thought 1.5 cu ft with 3 gals/9 lbs was 30,000 or 32,000 grain capacity? Right now it shows I have 4,572 gallons capacity remaining, so should go for a good 3 weeks before needing a regen, so I certainly understand the reasoning behind increasing DO. I will do it manually so as to observer the air check valve function, and replace if it does it again.

On the one hand, it seems my system is slightly over-capacity. But a smaller 1 cu ft system has a pretty low service flow rate, which I thought would be inadequate under some circumstances.
 

ditttohead

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Sorry, I should do my math a little more carefully when I am tired. long day here with my daughters B-day. Your salt setting is 12 minutes, x .25 gallons per minute. = 3 gallons x 3 pounds per gallon, = 9 pounds. I am doing this quickly so please check my math. 6 pounds per cu. ft. = 20000 grains x 1.5 = 30K I was thinking 8 pounds. You are correct to set it to 30K, not 36. Thanks for the catch.
 
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Lifespeed

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Sorry, I should do my math a little more carefully when I am tired. long day here with my daughters B-day. Your salt setting is 12 minutes, x .25 gallons per minute. = 3 gallons x 3 pounds per gallon, = 9 pounds. I am doing this quickly so please check my math. 6 pounds per cu. ft. = 20000 grains x 1.5 = 30K I was thinking 8 pounds. You are correct to set it to 30K, not 36. Thanks for the catch.

No problem, thanks for all the help. I'll figure out the air check valve at the next regen and replace if necessary.

I'm 43 years old, and this is the first water softener I've ever had. Had I known what I was missing I probably would have installed one years ago. I'm glad the re-pipe and tankless water heater prompted me to take the plunge.
 

ditttohead

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Excellent choice on the softener. Tankless heaters really should have softeners, not conditioners, hydromag, anti-scale, phosphate injection, etc. Just good old fsshioned softening. You can test the aircheck fairly easily. Remove it from the brine tank, clean it, and then use it as a straw. It should not allow any air to be sucked in.
 
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