@luckydriver,
Well, I guess I will be the only one sticking up for the Kinetico brand here. But I have had numerous friends with softeners that they have to tinker with and have gone through many of these lower end products over the years. In five houses over the past 40+ years we have had four Kinetico systems. They really are designed to last a lifetime, imo. My parents system was still fine at 30+ years, my mother in law's well water Kinetico was still going at 20+ years and mine is now close to 20 years and has been moved from one house to the other because I like it so much and didn't want to give it away. It is completely different having a Kinetico versus a Kenmore, etc. Culligan and Rainsoft are intentionally not built very well, imo. We do lose power in my area plenty of times so having a system that doesn't rely on electric operation is GREAT. We didn't have power for two weeks 10 years back and my softener ran the whole time. Right now for the past year there is a problem with TTFMs and I have no concern because my system is removing it from the water all the time. I don't get up in the middle of the night, for whatever reason and have not soft water and the regeneration uses a lot less water than an electric controlled unit and isn't set on some magical guess for when regeneration is needed. The huge downside is yes sadly they don't want you really doing anything on the unit, so you won't be able to find a service manual or easily buy most parts. My husband would prefer to fix things himself. We did once have a Kinetico guy mess our head up by putting some sort of black goo all over the head and ever since the techs that come out are still finding pieces of it that clog up the cogs on the head even after a rebuild. But I don't regret buying any of the Kinetico systems, though none of ours cost more than I think $2000. Our first one I won in a contest years ago, but when my parents finally moved at retirement they put a new Kinetico in their house again. We have had very few service calls over the many years. I can only think of two on this unit I have, beyond the normal bed replacement. The well water systems can be a little more finicky and I recall my mother-in-law's would pick up rocks that would get caught in the valve and it needed a prefilter. But I have never regretted the amount of money I spent on the system and in comparison I have seen many of the lower cost units come and go for friends. But I would never purchase the RO system, I see no benefit to that for me, the water out of the softener is fine.
I do wish everyone luck with your systems but Kinetico is not the bad way to go.
Take care,
Alysa
