Water Softener Settings & Salt/Brine Grid Question.

[John5]

Hi,

I got tired of washing dishes by hand or hiding them in the oven so I finally broke down and installed a softener...

I have "temporary" hard water, total hardness 224mg/l (13.44 grains) iron is negligible (0.039mg/l).

Using Gary Slusser's Softener Sizing Chart and Cubic Foot and Capacity Calculator and based on a 75 gal/day usage I obtained a suggested softener capacity of 8157.6 grains with .5 cu/ft media and a 10 day regen. I did not consider .5 cu/ft adequate for my SFR or future household needs, I live alone at the present time but to get suitable Service Flow Rate and to allow for another person or family later on I opted for a 1 cu/ft softener. It is my understanding that the minimum practical or recommended salt dosage is 3lbs cu/ft, again playing about with Gary's Cubic Foot and Capacity Calculator I came to the conclusion that 12,800 grains is sort of the minimum practical capacity of 1 cubic foot of media with a 3lbs salt dose.

My softener is:

- Fleck 7000 SXT with 1 cu/ft resin
- .12 gpm (.37lb/min) BLFC

and my settings are:

VT: dF2b
CT: Fd
C: 13,000
H: 13 (my hardness is 13.44 should I round up to 14... or is 13 good enough?)
RS: SF
SF: 10
DO: 8
RT: 3:30

Cycle times are (minutes):

B1: 10
BD: 60
B2: 0
RR: 10
BF: 9

After a regen the softener indicates that I have 948 gallons available.

My questions:

1- Do my above calculations, assumptions and settings look correct? Any comments?

2- My Fleck manual says that the second backwash (B2) is not normally used and to set it to 0 unless instructed otherwise by a qualified technician. Yet, in some other documentation on the internet it is suggested that a second backwash of 5 minutes or so be set to avoid the risk of resin channelization. Should I set a second backwash? Comments?

3- I have a salt/brine grid installed. the type with 4 coffee cup sized legs with about 1/4" holes in the bottom of the cups. After the brine draw there is about 2-1/2" of brine remaining in the bottom of the tank, that is at the valve check mark. (The softener empties the tank at about 1/2 to 3/4 ways into the BD cycle and then sucks air for the remainder of the cycle). The 9 minute brine fill adds about 2 inches of water to my 12" x 12" tank for a total of about 4.5" of water after the fill, the grid level is at 5 inches, so, except for the salt in the cups, the salt is above the water. Do those 4 coffee cup legs with the 1/4" holes at the bottom really work and allow for the proper creation of fully saturated brine? Will those 1/4" holes in the bottom of the legs eventually plug up?

Thanks in advance;

John