HELP - No Experience with Water Softeners

[vh5150]

Hello Everyone,

I have been reading many of the threads on this and other forums, trying to educate myself as much as possible. I have zero experience with this technology, and I wanted to ask the experts for advice as I am looking at purchasing a water softening system for our home:

Here are the particulars profile:

location is Southern California
(6) people in the home
(4) full baths - + laundry room and a dishwasher
City Water (no well)
Hardness level of 25 gpg
No iron issues / no pH issues (based on what I am told and the "tests" performed)
based on the formula to size a softener the numbers work out to be: 6ppl X 70gal = 420 gallons/day X 25 hardness = 10,500 grains X an average of 7 day regen = 73,500 GPG
I have spoken to the following major companies for water softeners - Culligun, Rayne, & EcoWater.
To purchase they are all in the ball park of around 3K (give or take) - which I feel is just way too high (and I believe I want to purchase vs. rent/lease)
I have a 1.25 inch water main coming into the home.

Questions:
1. Is the 80K grain unit correct? is this too large?
2. Will I lose water pressure? (big concern of mine)
3. Are these Fleck units easy to program and maintain?
4. I am thinking I need the Fleck 7000 SXT Valve because of the 1.25 water pipe size correct? (again water pressure loss is one of my biggest fears)
5. How much should it cost for a plummer to install this? (is $400 reasonable? - my house is not pre plumed for a water softener)
6. Are the tanks that these on-line places provided as good as the Culliguns, Rayne's etc.? (will they last I suppose is my real question)
7. Where is the best place to purchase - Affordablewater.com, OhioPureWaterco.com, discountwatersofteners.com - does anyone have a suggestion or experience with these or other sites you can recommend?

Are there other things I am not thinking about that I should be thinking about? Any advice you can provide me is really appreciated - Thank you in advance!

[ditttohead]

PM sent.

There is a lot to sizing a softener, but with your application, a standard, slightly larger system will work fine.

More modern calculations are as follows.

6 people x 60 GPD (probably less but this is the new standard) x 25 grains = 9000 grains daily, x 7 days between regenerations minimum, =63,000 grains. A 2.5 cu. ft softener with a 1-1/4" control valve is realistically rated for 60,000 grains when it is regenerated with 8 pounds of salt per cu. ft., the maximum most companies recommend to maintain good efficiency for both water and salt. This is technically not proper for California and many other municipalities have followed Californias efficiency standards. This is where it gets difficult to meet the standards, reasonable costs, etc... In all reality, you will do just fine as I have stated. You could use a slightly larger unit, but the jump in equipment size is considerable, as is the cost. Peak flow rate of this system is in excess of 18 GPM, as is the "service flow". Consider your water usage, even with 6 people, will you ever exceed 10 or even 15 GPM? Not likely.

[silversaver]

I think this is a good place:

http://www.qualitywaterforless.com/F...-r80-70sxt.htm

It offers 32mm hi-flow distributor upgrade from std 1.05" for $12. most of online sellers don't offer this upgrade. My system will be install next Tuesday (2.0 ct ft 7000). If everything turn out positive, perhaps you can get the system + installation from the guy I bought from. pm me if you are interested

there's installation guide at www.qualitywaterforless.com which makes installation job easier to understand.

[vh5150]

Thank you both for your information and advice. I greatly appreciate the detail. Silversaver, I am very interested in how your install goes, thanks for the offer.