Water softeners

[GORDON]

Anyone have any recent experience with them? Looking for a good brand or service (like Culligan).

My softener may or may not be shitting the bed. Was full of water tonight when I checked on it. Disassembled half of it... was pretty gunked up with hard water deposits.... MAYBE I fixed it. But if not, I need to move on getting a new one.

So.

Anyone of you soft city boys looked into softeners, lately?

[Cakedaddy]

It is something I'm probably going to be dealing with soon, and the little bit I have scraped off the surface is, renting isn't a bad idea. It's like $17 a month. They monitor the system and bring salt, and put it where it goes when needed. They maintain the hardware, etc. Being that some systems can cost up to 10k, that seemed pretty good. I've heard you can also get system for a few hundred though. I guess it depends on how bad your water is. How much is salt? How much do you use? Where does it go? Is it hard to put it there? I keep thinking $17 a month and I don't have to know or deal with any of that? Deal.

So, ya. As you learn more, share. I will do that same.

[GORDON]

Took it apart and cleaned it last night, and started a regeneration/cleaning cycle. The 4 feet of water drained off, I had about a foot of salt still at the bottom and as far as I could tell the tank was dry a couple hours into the cycle. Fine.

As of this morning there is about 10 inches of water in the tank... I don't know what my softener's "normal" is. I will look at it again in a day or 2 after the next regeneration and that should tell me if I need a new one, if I have 2 feet of water in it.

[Leisher]

I would assume your water gets soft enough when it's forced to touch you...

[Cakedaddy]

So what you're saying is:

Install clear water pipe entering the house. Hang a picture of Gordon next to the clear pipe. All water entering the house sees a picture of Gordon. Water is now ready for use.

[GORDON]

That doesn't even make sense.

[GORDON]

Another 6 inches of water in there right now. Apparently it is actively leaking into the salt chamber.

[GORDON]

Problem with researching this shit is that you hit a help forum and one guy is saying, "I have been a plumber for 27 years and I can tell you that residential homes don't need the $2k units, those are for commercial buildings and it is overkill in a house."

Then the next guy says, "You are a bad plumber then because I have been doing this for twenty EIGHT years and you get what you pay for and the $500 kenmore from sears is trash."

Then the first guy comes back with, "You sound exactly like a shill for *water softener company* who makes their money off commissions."

Then the second guy is like, "I totally am not and you know it is true since I am putting it in writing right here."

There's a lot of anger out there over this issue, and not a lot of solid fact.

[TPRJones]

I would think a typical house would have a higher water demand than a typical commercial property. Most people aren't doing laundry and washing dishes and taking showers at the office.



Edited By TPRJones on 1399493806

[GORDON]

I would think a typical house would have a higher water demand than a typical commercial property. Most people aren't doing laundry and washing dishes and taking showers at the office.

I disagree. 50 people taking a shit in an office building is going to use more water than a family of 4 taking showers and doing laundry.



Edited By GORDON on 1399493879

[TPRJones]

Perhaps, but do you really need softened water to poop in?

[GORDON]

Perhaps, but do you really need softened water to poop in?

No, but you need softened water so your toilets don't get encrusted in calcium and iron.

[GORDON]

I have a buddy who has a $1500 softener in his house. I asked him, "So, you are now getting zero iron deposits now, right?" (Our ground water around here has lots of metal for some reason) He says, "Well, we are, just not as fast as we used to."

So.

Sigh.

[GORDON]

Ha, just looked online for the manual for my softener... Kenmore guarantees this thing for 10 years against leaks. Bought the house 8 years ago, this thing was already installed. How much you want to bet it is 11 years old.

[Cakedaddy]

I heard that the worse your water is, the more salt you burn through. Then when you upgrade your kit, you use less salt. So, it implies that the more expensive ones treat the water better, rather than accommodating a quantity.

But not knowing what they do (how does salt make your water better? Doesn't it just make it salty? Where does the salt go if not into the water?), I can't really say what the better ones are getting you.

[Cakedaddy]

Another 6 inches of water in there right now. Apparently it is actively leaking into the salt chamber.

Or it's getting harder.

[GORDON]

But not knowing what they do (how does salt make your water better? Doesn't it just make it salty? Where does the salt go if not into the water?), I can't really say what the better ones are getting you.

Here's what I've learned:

Water is softened by flowing over these balls of "resin" in your resin tank, and I don't know what they are made of. They attract the iron and calcium and shit as the water flows over them.

During a regeneration cycle, the salt water flows over the resin balls for a couple hours, cleaning them off. That water is waste and flushes out to wherever. Then your balls are clean again.

So, the worse your water, the dirtier your balls get at a faster rate, so you have to set your salt rate higher to get your balls to a fresh state.

Right this second I am leaning toward this one.

http://www.sears.com/kenmore....Type=G2



Edited By GORDON on 1399495400

[TPRJones]

So I'm confused. Are your balls too dirty or too salty?

[GORDON]

So I'm confused. Are your balls too dirty or too salty?

Brine is used to rinse them off, so fresh balls are neither dirty nor salty.

[TPRJones]

Yes, but I thought you were having some sort of problem with your balls. Otherwise this thread wouldn't exist.