Clacium build up

Do you have well water?

I see your problem many times. What you need is a water softener. Not a Life Source. Did you understand what it was when you bought it? It does not remove calcium.

Calcium doesn't leave reddish colored staions, that would be iron. Did you have your water tested. It does not remove iron.

You can make it backwash everyday and will see no improvement. I am afraid your investment was not the best choice.

Since you have moved to a house with bigger plumbing, you may need to up grade to a unit that can handle the plumbing and water flow. Some companies make excellent valves as big as 1 7/8" openings for residential use.

If you install your old softener, you may be restricing flow when needed. That model is rather old style and has a poor salt efficiency. I'd repalce it.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

Thanks for your quick reply, I was not told that it will not remove any calcium, but he told me that it will keep my shower and bath tub clean and save $$$ also on detergent. I think the sales guy was full of bs, and I happended to be a victim, I should keep my culligan water softener even though it has a 3/4" piping and it has enough pressure for our application.

Re: Clacium build up

It's not a good idea to move a softener to a new location. The water quality is usually different and unless you have the same number and type of fixtures, the softener may be too small or large for the SFR gpm required for the new house.

You should not reduce 1.25" plumbing to 3/4", the velocity could be way too high and can damage the pipe but mostly, the pressure loss will be very noticeable. You can use a Clack WS-1 1.25" control valve but probably don't have to, you could a Clack WS-1 (on up to a 7.5 cuft 225K softener) with 1.25" plumbing connectors.

A Culligan softener does not need a prefilter and having one may be reducing the pressure to it during regeneration eventually causing the resin to fail. Your peak demand flow rate gpm is probably higher than the SFR gpm of the Culligan softener and no softener can remove all the hardness when the SFR is exceeded.

Lifesource is a filter, not a softener so it will not remove any hardness or iron. Iron causes orange staining. A specially built softener will remove up to 5 ppm of clear water soluble ferrous iron; most softeners will remove from 1 to 2.0 ppm of iron.

Gary, not sure what exactly is an SFR, I guess from what I read there is no solution to my calcium problem. BTW my salesman called me up earlier and I told him that we are not very happy of the quality, he told me that I have to scrub it after each shower and I told him that it is BS. He told me that you are better with life source because it does not have any salt compare to culligan, now my question is, does culligan water has salt content and not safe to drink, any info is greatly appreciated.

...you have to scrub it after each shower? Well, that is not a very good testimony to a 'better' system.

Softened water should not have salt (sodium chloride) in the water, There will be some sodium, but not salt. If he told you that, then he is mistaken and misleading.

SRF is service flow rate (gpm) that plumbing and equipment can affect.

Un fortunately we have seen this problem over and over again. Some customers actually believe their water is soft and the problem you describe don't exist. Well, that's good for them because they are happy.

The facts remain, that they are basically a large carbon filter. They be a nice addition to a softener, but as a stand alone unit, no, they won't satisfy most users, like yourself.

Did you understand when I said the orange color is not caused by calcium, but likely iron deposits?

Good luck and I'd try to get it returned. Don't they have some kind of warranty?

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

The SFR of a softener or filter is in gpm and that depends on the volume of resin or filter mineral in the tank. If you run a higher gpm through the unit than its SFR gpm, the unit can not remove all the hardness and iron in your water.

I take it the salesman is the Lifesource guy. As I said, you have a filter, not a softener and there is no filter that will remove hardness. There are filters to remove iron, but I don't think your Lifesource is an iron filter, usually it would be a carbon filter with some sort of ionization or some such toy type "conditioner" that rarely if ever works. Call them back and ask specifically what and how much of it is in the unit and what it is supposed to do for your hardness and iron removal needs.