Auto Shut Off Valve when Water Softener is Recharging

[sgamer]

I'm wondering if this exists; a valve that either works in conjunction with a water softener which would be ideal (possibly open to replacing ours) or a simple timed valve that will shut off the hot water during the time when the softener could be recharging like every night from 11pm to 3:30am?

My wife is a crazy morning person and I'm a normal night owl so the period of time to recharge without impacting the hot water tank is not long. I've found that it takes very little unconditioned water to harden the water in the tank. So at night, if the softener is running and I forget to use cold exclusively (which is not hard to do with single handle faucets) we have not so soft water for a few days. On the flip side of the coin, my wife showers at like 4am and if the softener is still running we have no soft water until we've used enough hot water to replace it with soft water. This should only happen if the clock is off which happens at least once a year due to DST but also when she gets up even earlier which I'll never understand

So basically I'd like to shut off the hot water whenever the softener is recharging. Is there a solution for this?

 

[LLigetfa]

You could always get a twin tank softener.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Bannerman]

A softener regeneration cycle will typically be only 1.5 - 2 hrs duration. Is there a 2 hr window where you both are sleeping at the same time?

Softener's are normally programmed at the factory to begin regeneration at 2am, but the time can usually be easily programmed to commence the cycle at an alternate time.

Suggest adding a 2X/yr repeating calender entry, so your phone will remind you to reset the softener's time setting.

 

[Reach4]

Here is a search term for you"

softener "no Hard Water Bypass "

I saw some incredibly high price for a special piston. You search, and see what you see.

Regenerating a softener every night is unusual.

Bannerman had good suggestions.

 

[sgamer]

I guess I didn't explain the situation very well. It's not a problem but an annoyance that happens all too frequently. I was hoping there was some simple, not too expensive solution that I was failing to find. Google results were mostly about auto shut off for water leaks or lawn watering systems. I couldn't come up with the right question so I posted this here.

My softener runs about 4 hours and it's not every night. Since there are only two of us, when the hot water gets contaminated it takes a day or two to run the bad water out. About that time the softener runs again and the whole cycle can start over. Also it's not just DST changes, that was just an example. When one of us (and by one of us I mostly mean my wife) gets up in the middle of the night to use the toilet and then washes up forgetting to turn the single handle faucet to cold. Should the softener be running at that time the hot water is contaminated.

I didn't think finding a low cost programmable water shut off valve would be so difficult. I did do some more searching and found a few that worked in conjunction with the water shut off valve which seems kind of rinky-dink but I'll keep looking.

I do like the idea of the dual tank softener. I'll check into it but expect it's probably more than I'm willing to pay since it's only an annoyance. However my softener is over 7 years old and was cheap to begin with so when I get a new one I'll definitely look into that.

Anyway, thanks for the help.