Twin tank: kinetico, culligan

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kiselev

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Hi Gents,

I would greatly appreciate yo advice here.

I am looking to purchase a twin tank system to get a continuous flow of soft water.

One thing I am really interested in is to set up a twin system in a way that regeneration happens at night rather then immediately, but tank swap to be immediate as soon as one tank is exhausted.
I want this to avoid pressure drop if regeneration happens during a day. But I need a switch happens immediately to always have soft water.
Exhausted tank must pass control to a new tank immediately but must wait till night to start regeneration.

Kinetico twin systems regenerate immediately and cause pressure drop.

I started looking into culligan twin units where it is possible to set up time when regeneration happens.
However, I do not understand whether it is both swap and regeneration happens at a preset time or Exhausted tank passes control to a new tank immediately but waits for preset time to regenerate (what I want).
culligan sale reps are confused here and tell different things.

Please advise.

Thank you

/ John
 
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Akpsdvan

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Are you running a large family?
High hardness?
High Iron?

What you are looking at doing in my view is defeating the reason of a twin softener. The whole idea of a twin is to start cleaning when the tanks change.

With a single it can be set up to clean between 12mid and 4 am.... when people are in bed and not using water.
 

Chevy427

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What are your water conditions, especially hardness and iron? Have you had your water tested yet? You are on well water? Submersible pump with pressure tank? Do you know what your high/low line pressure is?

You won't really be able to get a twin tank that is set to regenerate at night unless you go to sleep with the water running. Not really sure where you got the concern about pressure drop during regeneration, but that is very rarely a problem. Do you have some unusual household water usage, appliances or fixtures? There are some twin-tank systems that are able to provide very high flow rates. If you set up an electric twin to automatically regenerate at night or during no-water usage, then you are sacrificing efficiency and the whole point of the twin-tank design.
 

kiselev

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thank your for your reply.

water is hard 40.

I would not call this as defeating the reason since There still be continuous flow of salt water because tank swap happens immediately.

A fresh tank will last for two day at least and I am asking only several hours till night time for regeneration happens for the exhausted tank (fresh tank is already in use and I want to postpone regenerating old tank).
I do not want to experience pressure drop.

We had a single tank before and experienced hardness leakage; thus my wife insist on a twin tank to always have soft water even at night time. She hated when pressure drop happens when she is taking a shower or watering lawn.


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http://www.culliganwater.com/reside...er_softener/soft_minder_twin_owners_guide.pdf

As treated water is used, the Volume Remaining display counts down (in gallons) from a maximum value to zero or (----).
Once this occurs a Regeneration cycle initiates immediately or delayed to the set Regeneration Time

-------------

Thus I was wondering is it both a tank swap and regeneration of exhausted tank happens at Regeneration Time or swap happens before and regeneration is postponed till Regeneration Time. or at least it is what I try to achieve.
 
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Chevy427

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I see. But again, what is your line pressure? Can you describe your plumbing fixtures? Type of pump? Are you using 3/4" lines reduced to 1/2" lines to fixtures? I know a system that will not suffer from pressure lose to any noticeable degree depending on your plumbing size and pressure set up and still get high efficiency.
 
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Akpsdvan

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The Fleck SXT control does have the clean now and delayed and day over ride.. It might be possible to set the programing up so that it cleans at X time after the tank change, but I my self have never had the reason to do so for a twin set up.

Now the new Culligan use of the Fleck 7000 for the twin set up might work, but not sure about what they are doing for that.
 

LLigetfa

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I see. But again, what is your line pressure? Can you describe your plumbing fixtures? Type of pump? Are you using 3/4" lines reduced to 1/2" lines to fixtures? I know a system that will not suffer from pressure lose to any noticeable degree depending on your plumbing size and pressure set up and still get high efficiency.
+1
I have to wonder where the bottleneck is. Most softeners don't use a whole lot of GPMs to regen so it sounds like the supply problem should be fixed. Is there any filter before the softener?
 

kiselev

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Being honest, I am not a professional to describe all plumbing, but I have 1/2" lines to fixtures.

I cannot describe the pump now.

Efficiency it term of water and salt used for a softener is not really important for me.
E.g. I could switch a tank earlier than needed.
Thus now I manually reduced volume for a unit to regenerate earlier at night to avoid hardness leakage and the problem is to use water at night that happens sometimes.

My main concern is continuous soft water and no noticeable pressure drop since some of my neighbors with Kinetico complains about it.
Did you experience similar Kinetico issue?

I have been reading through a new Culligan HE twin tank system (Global) manual and am confused regarding what the control actually allows (not even sure if it can work with delayed settings)

http://culligansocal.com/download/manuals/softeners/soft-minder-twin-high-efficiency.pdf
 
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Akpsdvan

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With the 1/2 lines , I would say that is most if not all of the real problem and til that is changed, any thing that you put in to treat the water is going to cut down on the pressure and flow rate.
 

ditttohead

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I like the idea of delayed metered regeneration in a twin alternating design, very unique and it would be beneficial in some rare circumstances. I am not sure if the 9100SXT has that ability (I doubt it, but I will check). A standard 10" system will only take 2.4 GPM away from your total available supply. Depending on your water temperature, you could lower that to 2 GPM with little concern. If your water is clean (no turbidity) the length of backwash and fast rinse can be reduced considerably as well. Many of my customers have me program their systems to a 3 minute backwash, and a 3 minute packing rinse. The remainder of the time (brine draw) will be taking no more than .45 - .65 GPM from your total available supply. See if these numbers will help you decide. The 9100SXT should be a perfect fit for your needs, and you should not notice the pressure drop in most circumstances. A standard 9100SXT has a peak flow rate of 14 GPM when it is installed on a 10" tank.
 

Chevy427

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Chances are you have 3/4" trunk lines that are reduced to 1/2" to fixtures. I am assuming you have a submersible pump that can easily produce up to 70psi in the lines. Of course, you mention that only two people are using water and there are no unusual fixtures or water usage---pretty normal, in other words. Please correct me if not. A 10" twin will work wonders for you and I really doubt you ever experience pressure loss that will be greatly noticed or become a nuisance even with multiple water usage.
 

kiselev

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thank you all for your insights.

I was thinking to go with 9" tank.
How bad is that in comparison to 10" in terms of pressure drop.
Could you please provide more numbers to compare 9" and 10" here?

Culligan reports:

Rated Service Flow @ Pressure Drop
9": 9.0 gpm @ 11 psi
10": 9.4 gpm @ 12 psi

I must be mistaken but these values rather tell me that 10" has bigger drop?

Could you please explain how these values relate to my problem?

Cullagen mentioned that having large tanks may end up with forming "water channels" in resin when not regenerated frequently.
They mentioned that it is not good for tank resin to stay without use for 15 days for instance. Does it sound familiar?

On another hand they indeed mentioned that bigger tank should help with water pressure drop. But they mentioned that having twin 10" tanks will be "overkill" and it makes me thinking whether going with bigger can have complications.
 
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Akpsdvan

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I know that I have taken a 2510 SXT put in the NHWBP in it and set it up to regen when the gallon count reaches 0, it was feeding a 300gallon holding tank, so it might be possible to take that controler the other way to delay its cleaning after changing tanks..
 

Chevy427

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Channelling will not be a problem with those sizes of tanks. Water will travel uniformly down through the resin and, when backwashed, will be completely re-settled the resins afresh. These twin tank systems under normal use would regenerate often enough. Even softeners that sit for long periods of time show little negative effects unless high in iron or other special water issues.

Kinetico doesn't make a 9" (one cuft) tank anymore. Theirs are either 8" (standard or overdrive) or 10" (likewise). An 8" standard or 10" overdrive is what I would recommend for your water use. I still don't know the specifics about your plumbing and pressure. Softeners are rated by flow rate at 15psi loss and 30psi loss in gpm.
 

ditttohead

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I totally agree with Water Solutions, The Kinetica 10" tanks or 9100SXT 10" twin alternating will be perfect for you and it is very unlikely you will notice any drop. A larger diameter tank has a lower pressure drop. Culligan uses some interesting testing procedures which are highly accurate, but they can be confusing. Notice they are testing at a slightly higher flow, which in turn produces a slightly higher drop. Most companies use more generic flow rate/ pressure drop numbers, and we also take off 10% to keep the numbers very conservative. My system technically has a peak / max flow rate of 17 GPM, but I can easily get almost 20 GPM out of it.

Water channeling is a major problem with large tanks in residential applications. But... when I say larger, I am referring to tanks in excess of 16" diameter. This is also a common problem that still occurs in larger applications that experience low flows. A huge house with a 10 cu. Ft. softener will usually only flow at 1-4 gpm max, but the systems will have a low flow rating of 7 GPM. Anything below it low flow rating is unlikely to go through the resin bed evenly and it will channel. The same goes for commercial applications with intermittent high flow rate needs. This has been greatly reduced in the past 10 years with the progressive flow softener designs.

I can forward you the backwash rate charts that have water temperature compensation built ino them as well. If your water is very cold, you can drop the backwash rate considerably and still get the same bed lift and cleaning.
 

Gary Slusser

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Hi Gents,

I would greatly appreciate yo advice here.

I am looking to purchase a twin tank system to get a continuous flow of soft water.

One thing I am really interested in is to set up a twin system in a way that regeneration happens at night rather then immediately, but tank swap to be immediate as soon as one tank is exhausted.
I want this to avoid pressure drop if regeneration happens during a day. But I need a switch happens immediately to always have soft water.
Exhausted tank must pass control to a new tank immediately but must wait till night to start regeneration.

Kinetico twin systems regenerate immediately and cause pressure drop.

I started looking into culligan twin units where it is possible to set up time when regeneration happens.
However, I do not understand whether it is both swap and regeneration happens at a preset time or Exhausted tank passes control to a new tank immediately but waits for preset time to regenerate (what I want).
culligan sale reps are confused here and tell different things.

Please advise.

Thank you

/ John
Yes Kinetico and all other regular twins have a pressure loss and reduced flow rate when they regenerate a tank.

Reading the above and the rest of your posts in the thread, I think you may want to look into a Clack Alternating twin using two regular softeners. It can delay regeneration as you want and you can get the no hard water by pass. The system has been on the market for a number of years.

Here is a bit of information on it is done. clacktwin.jpg
 

kiselev

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Please advise whether twin 10" will be too large for 2 people.

I obviously like to with higher diameter to reduce pressure loss but try to avoid channeling as well.

Is twin 10" for 2 people will be okay or risky for channeling?

I think we use one tank in one week or so.
Is it okay for another tank to stay without water for 1 week?

Or I should go with twin 9" instead?

Thank you.
 
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LLigetfa

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I'm not a pro, just a DIYer, but will put forth what I think are some of the channeling issues. The "time" component would be for a softener that is in service. I think with a twin, one tank is in service and the other is in waiting.

The other factor with channeling, is the GPM flowing through the resin. Higher flow disperses better than low flow. If you oversize for more GPM but then don't use the capacity, you increase the risk of channeling. It is not so much the number of people unless they are using water concurrently. It is more about how it is used WRT to the flow rate.
 

kiselev

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but do I understand correctly that it is the same with a single tank as well and not related to twin systems?
or waiting without water for a tank for 2 weeks can be harmful?

Thank you
 

LLigetfa

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When a softener is backwashed, the resin bed is stirred up, so any channels that formed over time are no more. If there is low flow for a long enough time, water taking a path of least resistance may form channels and deplete the resin along the narrow channels. If you have herd of cows slowly moving along, they may follow one another on narrow paths. If you create a stampede, they will spread out and take different paths.
 
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