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The UV tube is just a fluorescent tube without the interior phosphors. Thus as long as you match wattage, pins, etc., the ballasts are interchangeable. It's hard to say how useful the monitor is. UV sterilization is (I believe) not for mission-critical water problems, such as hazardous...

A dry well and a septic leach field are very similar. In fact, the leach field is often deeper than a dry well would be. The net effect of adding a softener to a water system with septic tank is to add a modest amount of salt to the leachate. Run your softener with high efficiency settings and...

OP, I was using Granular Activated Carbon interchangeably with Catalytic Carbon. I do not fully understand this media, but I would follow the advice and go with Catalytic Carbon. I did so on my well water to remove H2S. That "CC" was about the same price as my softener resin. For what it's...

Yes, but the cost per cf for GAC is about the same as that of resin, and getting rid of the chlorine has other benefits besides resin life ... Just how much longer does 10% crosslinked resin last?

I once put a hose bubbler on the end of a softener drain line. It had no flow control on the drain line, I guess to really really stir the resin on backwash.

Other guys will likely know better than me, but: - You probably have high levels of chlorine / chloramine in the muni (good guess, btw) water, which - has turned the resin into mushy fines that get past the bottom basket screen, and - has degraded the o-rings inside the softener head, but -...

By the way, my well water has 350 ppm iron, and the softener is after the carbon filter, so there's no H2S. There is a five micron prefilter, also, removing quite a bit of rust particles. My 1 cf of softener resin started to get fouled after about three years. However, I set the softener up to...

You are right; sodium has some ability to dislodge the iron from the resin, but I have the feeling it generally tends to accumulate over time. There is no single cutoff point, but obviously with very low iron and a lot of salt, the resin would stay clear. I think you could use pretty much any...

If you're mechanically inclined, they really aren't that hard to refurbish. I ended up doing three of them. One was to install in a house I was selling; I had put some effort into setting up a softener (not a cabinet type!) and wanted to take it with me when I moved. Another I donated to my...

Relying on a softener to remove iron is foolish. Phosphoric acid (ResCare) is cheap; you just have to remember to use it regularly.

The bro didn't want to spend that much, and wanted to tinker with it, so what you would have done is irrelevant. If you don't get corrosion on the board, and the o-rings don't fail due to chlorine, those softeners can last a long time. There isn't anything inherently wrong with them besides...

Good job. Softeners are fun; they're intimidating at first but with some effort you can get a handle on them. If you haven't already, investigate the regeneration parameters. If you set the softener up right, it will run very infrequently and will last a long time. The softening ability of the...

The regeneration could be called counter-flow. The brine goes in the opposite direction from the normal flow. Hence the most sodium-laden resin is at the end of the flow. In downflow regeneration, you have to push enough salt in that the resin is regenerated all the way through to the bottom...

I am on a well here in Idaho. We get some hydrogen sulfide in the water, and of course rust in the water. Hardness is 8-12 gpg. I only put in a 5 micron cartridge filter, followed by a softener and then a 1.5 cubic foot carbon filter tank. One micron filtration is probably overkill. I would...

Any amount of hardness will leave lime scale on your fixtures. Your water heater also adds hardness - magnesium - to the water. So your hot tap is probably about 3-4 gpg. You can put in an aluminum anode rod which will eliminate this source. Or you can get an electrical anode; the downside to...

My impression is Kinetico is wildly overpriced for what you get. The claims of greater efficiency or whatever are nonsense. Water softening is an ancient technology; all you need is a good quality softener head - and you absolutely should replace that timed regeneration head with a good...

Removing chlorine or chloramine is interesting, but is it overall cheaper and simpler to just top up the resin every few years, as the resin breaks down and is flushed down the drain?

I hook up the RO system to the hot water side in order to feed soft water. Don't worry that the RO membrane will receive hot water; it's a trickle, and by the time water gets through the big filter cans, it has cooled adequately. With soft water, RO membranes seem to last virtually forever.

It's a good questions. I too have struggled with threaded PVC joint leaks. I found that PTFE paste, along with a wrap of teflon tape, seems to work well. I believe the reason the joints are so problematic is because the threads are cast and not cut. If you have to do this again, consider...

Had a problem with partial softening. Input gpg 15, output 6. It wasn't an issue with the regeneration, as it remained the same after back-to-back regens. Broken bypass valve? Nope, seems fine. Worn elements inside the valve? Nope, all looks pretty much fine. However, I noticed an extra...