New softener settings/setup..what do you think

luckydriver wrote:

I'm not exchanging anything now unless i find out (and understand well enough to be able to go toe to toe) that they lied to me about what they gave me and it wont do the job it's supposed to.

You had the advantage of being able to look your dealer in the eye and evaluate their credibility. You felt confident enough in your decision to hand over your money to them.

You made the right decision and I'm sure your dealer stands ready to answer all your questions and service what they sell... now and in the future.

Don't be second guessed by any stranger with a keyboard.

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Water is either hard, meaning it has one or more gpg of hardness in it or soft, 0 gpg hardness. If a softener allows hard water through it, there is something wrong, although the WQA says no more than 1 gpg is acceptable. I say 0 gpg and size for that.

luckydriver wrote:

well so far i have no hint that i have anything but soft water. And i have no idea what your last line means

Soft water, water out of the softener with 0 gpg hardness left in it, is the whole idea; enjoy. The last sentence means I size the by the volume of resin in the softener so that the softener 9actually the resin in it) always produces 0 gpg soft water.

luckydriver wrote:

I forget what you or someone told me before about sizing but from what you are now saying, it appears if it set it at 6lbs every 650 gallons is right ? I did pop the hood and the only measurement i can see is that the dial on the right is set at about 350 gallons (black arrow on plate pointing to it). Now i admit i dont know what that 350 means. But if he told me 650 does that mean he's set it wrong or does that mean i'm reading the wrong thing?

I don't recall what I said about how many gallons or if I did but... the black arrow points at how many gallons are left before the next regeneration. When it regenerates the meter is reset to the gallons he set it for and the black arrow will be pointing at white dot across from the number of gallons. So look at it each morning until you see the white dot and higher number which means it regenerated at 2 AM. That's what the gallons he set it at.

luckydriver wrote:

The big dial only says inservice and lists the time on it.

And if you rotate it clockwise to the word Regen it does a manual regeneration.

luckydriver wrote:

950 for the unit, about 300 more than what i have seen on other sites for the same thing. I knew that going in. If i didnt say it before, they put together these systems themselves with their own brand. Their other option was kinetico and i wasnt spending that kind of money

I put my own together and installed them for 18 years, that's how I could say that $1300 including install was high. Good thinking on the overpriced Kinetico.

luckydriver wrote:

So i'm still a bit confused by all these stats. Based on what i've given as specs from their sheet, did they tell me the truth on what they gave me or not?

The "stats" are simply numbers demonstrating the flexibility in programming and salt efficiency. They sold you/you bought a 1.0 cuft softener with a Fleck 5600 mechanical metered control valve. That's what you've got.

luckydriver wrote:

You said if you run more than 9gpm thru the thing and ill get hard water. I dont get that. How does one control how much goes thru the softener? I assume that's part of the setting the tech did and what you are asking me to check on ( but i dont know how)?

That is the SFR (service flow rating) gpm. The volume of resin dictates the SFR and the total gpm of water you use at one time in the house that goes through the softener is your peak demand gpm. Every time your peak demand gpm exceeds the SFR gpm of the volume of resin, or we could say the softener, the resin in the softener can not remove all the hardness from the water as it goes through the softener. In other words, if you have 10 gpg hard water, and use more than 9 gpm of water at one time, you will get 3-5 gpg of hard water through the softener. How's that?

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I'll pat myself on the back as i actually noticed this morning the count down dial and figured that part out Smile

As far as the 9 gallons per minute..ok now i got it. Well in this house we'd never be using that much at once. the most that could ever happen here would be washer in use and maybe someone flushing or using the sink. certainly I can see where a larger house may have more demand at once but not just us 2. So it sounds like everything is A OK here and now that i know how to tell when it recharged, i'll keep track of that. It's down under 300 today and i'm doing wash so i'm guessing sunday night maybe.

I had played with my old culligan years ago, they had it set for 2x a week and i know it was just 2 people in here in the immediate time before i bought the house. I changed it to just every 6 days and was more than happy with that performance even with the liquidy resin soup.

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Enjoy.

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boy this thing is loud. Usually my wife is up late and so heard it a few weeks ago but i got up one time in the middle of the night and wow, so much louder than the old culligan

our bedroom door is closed and even if it wasnt we probably wouldnt hear it but for anyone that has the utility room on your main floor, you may want to take this into consideration

I dont know if there are any 'quiet' valves out there though

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The sound level depends on the your water pressure and probably temperature. It will be louder based mostly on the pressure and if any water lines or the drain line are touching a wall etc. that can transmit the sound. Isolate or insulate the lines and it should reduce the level.

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I had thought during the past few weeks towards the end of the count down to recharge the water wasnt soft. Well i tracked when it recharged and friday it did. But saturday the water was harder than ever. So they are coming out in a few days to look at it.

he mentioned the brine may not be drawn up? or something like that?
so does that mean they wasted a months worth of salt recharging 'nothing?"

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luckydriver wrote:

he mentioned the brine may not be drawn up? or something like that?
so does that mean they wasted a months worth of salt recharging 'nothing?"

If you have not used any salt since installation, you have gone back to hard water.

Loosen the fittings on either side of the brine line, make sure all of the little parts are in place, make sure the end of
the tube is cut square, push the line into the fitting as far as it can go and hold it in place while tightening the fitting.

Is the float on the brine flow controller set at the proper height?

I that helps, H2O MAN

________________
WHAT CAN H2O MAN DO FOR YOU?

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How is he supposed to know what little parts he is supposed have, or the correct height of the float?

And that float controlled valve, it isn't a "brine flow control".

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H2O_MAN wrote:

luckydriver wrote:

he mentioned the brine may not be drawn up? or something like that?
so does that mean they wasted a months worth of salt recharging 'nothing?"

If you have not used any salt since installation, you have gone back to hard water.

oh the salt level has gone down but the water isnt soft

i'm gonna ask them for more salt!

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ok here's the story

is .5 hardness now and i have 200 gallons to go before recharge so the water is still soft from the weekend charge (650 setting). He said some hardness does get thru sometimes. Do you guys agree with that? I made him test on bypass and i had my 24 grains there.

He said it must be PH that made me lose the 'soapy ' feeling i like and used to have. My ph is 7.1 and i guess 7 is neutral. He told me that the PH must have decreased from the township changing wells.

no service charge and he offered to walk thru the entire softening process so i got a good lesson. It's set at 6lbs and 650 gallon. He said i have 32K capacity so if the water gets harder up to about 32ish i would still have a good unit. He says they build in a little reserve so in theory the last day i may not have as soft water with occasional heavy use. But most of the time i should. He told me he could up the salt usage to 10 or so and then have 10 lbs of salt be used per regeneration but he said the 6 lbs at 650 gallons was more efficient.

so i'm stuck not feeling all soapy but i guess it's soft water still. Just isnt as much lather and hair feels 'squeaky' clean as does skin.

he said at .5 chlorine my resin may only last 5-7 years but it's not worth putting in a chlorine filter.

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luckydriver wrote:

ok here's the story. is .5 hardness now and i have 200 gallons to go before recharge so the water is still soft from the weekend charge (650 setting). He said some hardness does get thru sometimes. Do you guys agree with that? I made him test on bypass and i had my 24 grains there.

It's just me Lucky, I doubt anyone else will be helping you, the other 'residents' here don't know enough about this stuff.

Your water is not soft IMO; 0 gpg. No I do not agree with him and if you had a car that wouldn't start every time you plopped yer butt in the seat and turned the key, would you consider it right or remotely OK?

Your softener should always give you 0 gpg soft water IMO. Isn't that what you expected and thought you were buying? And how does it feel to be told "some hardness does get thru sometimes."?

luckydriver wrote:

He said it must be PH that made me lose the 'soapy ' feeling i like and used to have. My ph is 7.1 and i guess 7 is neutral. He told me that the PH must have decreased from the township changing wells.

That's what we call BS, or an excuse for the PC among us.

luckydriver wrote:

no service charge and he offered to walk thru the entire softening process so i got a good lesson. It's set at 6lbs and 650 gallon. He said i have 32K capacity so if the water gets harder up to about 32ish i would still have a good unit. He says they build in a little reserve so in theory the last day i may not have as soft water with occasional heavy use. But most of the time i should. He told me he could up the salt usage to 10 or so and then have 10 lbs of salt be used per regeneration but he said the 6 lbs at 650 gallons was more efficient.

Now THAT is A LOT of BS!! At 6 lbs you have at best 20k. You need 15lbs to get the max 30k out of a 1.0 cuft with regular mesh resin. The reserve... you get 20k with 6 lbs but... 650*24=15+k so his reserve is the 20000-15xxx. Or, we could go 650/120=5 days between regens but here we are with 200 gals, about another 2 days (at 120 glas/day for two people) before it regenerates!!! He didn't explain this properly or you didn't understand correctly. The reserve would be a 24 hr reserve of the daily grains used and subtracted from the max galls at 20K.

luckydriver wrote:

so i'm stuck not feeling all soapy but i guess it's soft water still. Just isnt as much lather and hair feels 'squeaky' clean as does skin.

That lack of lather and soapy feel, they say the water is hard. And unless you regenerate sooner or with more salt, it will be like this forever.

BTW, he has a 2.0 gpm DLFC. For a 1.0 cuft, it should be a 1.5 IMO; the 2.0 uses more capacity.

luckydriver wrote:

he said at .5 chlorine my resin may only last 5-7 years but it's not worth putting in a chlorine filter.

At 650 gals between regenerations, it should be regenerating about every 5th day @120 gals/day for the two of you BUT, that does not include a 24 hr reserve.

The .5 gpg now with 200 gals remaining says your water isn't 0 gpg (soft) and it will get harder before it regenerates. That .5 gpg is why you have lost the 'feeling' of soft water on your skin and hair.

You insisted that a family of two can't overrun 9 gpm. That depends on what fixtures you use but, you have hard water and the pH has nothing to do with the softener allowing hard water through it!! If the hardness gpm goes over 24 gpm, that will, but so does a peak demand higher than 9 gpm.

I would have told you a 1.5 cuft softener. The difference between 1.0 and a 1.5 in my prices is a great big $66. And you would have soft water for all of 8 days between regenerations even if you used up to 12 gpm and you'd be using less salt AND water than you are now before 'fixing' the problem with your new softener allowing hard water in just 4-5 days (Sun-Fri). And who was it that told you to buy a 5600 or other model Fleck that does not have variable reserve? And was it the same guy or guys that said you should buy locally because I don't know what I'm doing and you can't look me, drop shipper, doesn't service or install and you can't look me in the eye etc. etc.? And wouldn't you call this "Service after the sale" even though I didn't sell you the softener... I didn't sell Zozzie his softener either and I've helped him too.

Any other questions etc. just ask.

You should do two manual regens back to back at 15 lbs each.

_________________
Gary Slusser
The internet water softener and well pump goto guy since Jan 1997.

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I have to read your post a few more times to digest it but i quickly wanted to note that the water feels the same immediately after recharge as it does a few days later..so i dont think reserve or any other calculation has anything to do with why i feel hard water after 1 day.

Thats why i called. I said it recharged last night and i still have hard water.

will comment more about the other stuff but let me ask you, from what the guy says a bigger softener wouldnt make the water softer..i asked if i got the right size or if using more salt etc would make it more soft and he said no its set most efficient now

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Gary Slusser wrote:

It's just me Lucky, I doubt anyone else will be helping you, the other 'residents' here don't know enough about this stuff.

You don't know as much about this stuff as you claim, but it is entertaining to watch you slap people around that didn't buy from you.

Trust me, if luckydriver gets into trouble with you help is just a simple request away Very Happy

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talked to the owner...in no particular order he suggested the following

1. if i have a slow leaking toilet (i do), the water may not register against my 650 allowance and it wont charge 'in time'

2. he agrees that after recharge, and i ran all the water out of the pipes and boiler, that i should have zero hardness. So we agreed that 2 days after recharge it should be zero

3. he said he set my unit for 25 instead of the 24 grains he tested 2 months ago. And that water in my twp has been known to 'spike' to 27.

4.mentioned something about 'short salting' but i dont remember those details so cant say what he said/didnt say but i did remind him that day 1 after recharge i didnt feel soft water. Thats when he said i may have had boiler water that was hard from the end of the last cycle not being hard water.

5 i probably will buy some test strips if i can find them close by or just order them from him..or he said he has a more precise test kit for 25 bucks.

6 we didnt discuss PH at all or that soapy thing the other guy talked about.

7. he said it is possible that something is clogged and the water may not be getting where it should be in the lines...they may have to look at the valve/lines to see (unsure why the guy that came out didnt check into that)

thats all i remember for now

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luckydriver wrote:

talked to the owner...in no particular order he suggested the following

1. if i have a slow leaking toilet (i do), the water may not register against my 650 allowance and it wont charge 'in time'

2. he agrees that after recharge, and i ran all the water out of the pipes and boiler, that i should have zero hardness. So we agreed that 2 days after recharge it should be zero

3. he said he set my unit for 25 instead of the 24 grains he tested 2 months ago. And that water in my twp has been known to 'spike' to 27.

1 is true. 2 you mean run all the hard water out. 3 Then he should use 27, not 25.

luckydriver wrote:

4.mentioned something about 'short salting' but i dont remember those details so cant say what he said/didnt say but i did remind him that day 1 after recharge i didnt feel soft water. Thats when he said i may have had boiler water that was hard from the end of the last cycle not being hard water.

Yes and hot will be hard until all scale is dissolved and the coil etc. is scale free.

If you are seeing .5 gpg in the cold water, do those two manual regenerations at 15 lbs.. BTW, how did they measure a half a grain/gal?

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Your water is not soft IMO; 0 gpg. No I do not agree with him and if you had a car that wouldn't start every time you plopped yer butt in the seat and turned the key, would you consider it right or remotely OK?

Your softener should always give you 0 gpg soft water IMO. Gary Slusser

I agree with Gary on this point. A softener design should be able to provide soft, treated water WHENEVER you need it. The key word "always" has, in the past, been a point of contention. I am glad he understands that now.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Yes and hot will be hard until all scale is dissolved and the coil etc. is scale free.

If you are seeing .5 gpg in the cold water, do those two manual regenerations at 15 lbs.. BTW, how did they measure a half a grain/gal?

is there any possibility that the boiler coil is so bad off that it will always be giving me some hardness? There was a 2 month or so period that i had to bypass and run hard water last year while my culligan was leaking and of course the culligan had decreasing performance over the years since it was so old. But it was definitely doing 'something' and now that i think about it, it may have 'still' been working even ! oh well

he measured the hot and cold .5 with the liquid test kit and then also showed me a test strip. Then i said let me bypass the softener and measure that and it was .23. What kit should i get for most accurate?

What will the 15 regens do for me and is it just a matter of changing that switch on back of the unit ..or i thikn i have to adjust the float? if so, by how much? Are you saying the 15 will 'knock' something back into place so to speak?

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Andy CWS wrote:

Gary Slusser wrote:

Your water is not soft IMO; 0 gpg. No I do not agree with him and if you had a car that wouldn't start every time you plopped yer butt in the seat and turned the key, would you consider it right or remotely OK?

Your softener should always give you 0 gpg soft water IMO. Gary Slusser

I agree with Gary on this point. A softener design should be able to provide soft, treated water WHENEVER you need it. The key word "always" has, in the past, been a point of contention. I am glad he understands that now.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

Thanks, i thought something was fishy when immediately after recharge it didnt feel 'soapy' but did when i first got the unit. So something has changed. I didnt just imagine wonderful bubbles lol. And my hair and skin isnt the same either.

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It may be a very simple problem to fix.

Perhaps the brine solution is not getting to the bed during regeneration. Once it is working, I am sure you will like the product and its service.

Keep at it till it's fixed.
Andy Christensen, CWS-II

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New softener settings/setup..what do you think

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