Thanks ByteMe, this quality of video, as poor as it is takes many hours to make, edit, do the voice overs, etc. I appreciate the comments.
The Clack WS1 is an exceptional valve. It is as good as any Fleck. It is more like a Ford vs. Chevy debate. Both are great, but some people have their allegiances and will nit pick everything to make their ridiculous point. I can speak to either valves problems and convince anyone who is not familiar with the valve that the other is a horrible piece of junk. I could talk about the seal materials, how one is good, the other is bad and why, the brine piston and how great it is to be inside the valve or how much better it is to be exposed like the Fleck. It is easy to argue either way, I prefer to be honest and just say both are awesome, extremely high quality, and if a person were to buy either one, they would not be dissapointed. I have my problems with both valves and both companies. These are all nitpicky little complaints that amount to almost nothing considering the positives of both. Their are many companies making terrible product for this industry, I prefer to save my criticisms for companies that legitimately put out junk products. If a valve is bad, i am glad to say it (the original Fleck 5000 electromechanical, and the Fleck ProFlo 8500 are good examples of bad products from great companies). Some of the early Clack valves had their fair share of prblems as well.
The Clack is easier to rebuild, that being said, the 7000 takes 5 minutes, the Clack takes 4 minutes. Either valve only needs to rebuilt every decade or so. The ease of rebuilding, when both are so easy to rebuild is a silly point. I work with both companies all the time. I regularly work on both and considering the massive numbers of these products we sell, we are very aware of every little flaw and problem with them. For residential, I am happy with either valve, and even have the WS1 at many of my families houses. I have replaced a few recently with the new 5800SXT for testing purposes. The 7000XTR is my current favorite valve, but I will be changing mine to the NXT when it becomes available. Commercially, the Fleck is preferred by the majority of dealers due to their dual piston design for water softening. Clack only offers single piston designs which require external components to allow for duplex, triplex, or quad-plex installations with alternating, sequencing, etc. But... a single piston design i better for single tank backwash filter designs... For single tank applications, the Clacks are as good as any Fleck. Sorry if this is getting overly technical, I am just trying to explain fairly the differences betwen Fleck and Clack. I dont want to forget Autotrol, another exceptional product line that has been around for many decades. It has its own unique design flaws and problems, but in general, it would be the Jeep of the group. Still great, hard to complain about, just not as common. Both companies do a good job at customer service, and both offer good warranties. Considering where the Clack designers came from, and the design they based their valves on, it is no wonder that they are a good valve. I am sure that people will say the 5800 took some of the ideas from the WS1, but considering the WS1 is very similar to the Fleck valves, who copied who? Both, it is called progress and innovation. Both companies have done a great job at making the highest quality controls for the water treatment market. Clack adds a lot more restrictions to the sale of their valves, Fleck is following suit with the 5800SXT release, and will probably do more restrictions in the future. I agree with this philosophy, private companies that want to protect their market can limit who purchases and sells their product and how they sell it. This had led to a huge increase in Clack sales. Some people think their 100 valve sales a year is a lot and would matter to a company like Clack. It is not, and it does not. Clack is more interested in the market as a whole and their large dealers who sell thousands a year for a decade or longer. At least Clack and Fleck are not like the import companies that simply copy a mold, and put a different colored cover on it and call that innovation.
My prognostication for the future,the 7000 will have some major updates coming in the next 2-3 years. I have noticed a few minor changes to the design that will allow for some exciting new functions and capabilities. They have already announced a NXT version of the 7000, and anyone familiar with the NXT programming can see the possibilities already with that design.