Water Softeners - What are the differences in brands?

Lifetime warranty. They are overcharging for the softener so they can afford the one out of hunderds of softeners, or more, sold that they have to change the resin in. It's a marketing gimmick.

You don't need a prefilter but... You can change a 4.5" x 20" cartridge filter yourself for $-20-$30 and buy new resin for $100 per cubic ft delivered anywhere in the lower 48 states.

Metered demand regeneration can save up to 50% of the salt and water a time clock day timer type softener.

You can buy a new high quality softener online and install it yourself or hire a plumber to do it and save half of what they want. I suggest a correctly sized softener for the SFR your house and family requires, using a Clack WS-1 control valve.

Since you are on city water you can replace your old softener with the
most efficient softener available - a brand new ERR 3500 from EcoWater

Salt costs about 9-11 cents per pound for a 40 lb bag. Buy it in larger bags and you pay less than that per lb.

Ummm... Pay $2000-$3000+ for a proprietary Ecowater softener that only the local dealer can service and maybe save 2-5 lbs of salt per week if that!

Or pay <$700 for a softener with a control valve that any local dealer, but especially an independent local or online dealer can sell you parts for AND probably use no more salt than the overpriced Ecowater. And you can rebuild the control valve yourself if you want to in less than 30 minutes which saves you the cost of a service call....

This choice shouldn't be very hard; it's do you want to be dependent on a local dealer for parts and service or independent? And maybe save over $2000 at the same time.

Ummm... the Clack valve is over rated and you charge rip off prices for what you peddle online.
And why does the WS-1 need to be rebuilt so often?


The choice is easy - don't buy any cobbled together system that is drop shipped to your door.
Avoid dealing with any online seller that never personally inspects what you are buying.

Your water, home and family are important - way to important to take a chance just to save a few bucks on the front end.

so, not knowing anyone in the industry, nor anyone that has a softener, how do you go about finding a good local dealer?

Look in the Yellow Pages and ask others in your area who they use.
Do your homework and check many references before buying anything.

HTH ~

interesting review of one of the sears ones

Since this is Sears' most expensive water softener, one might expect the kit to include the fittings needed to connect the 1" lines to the typical 3/4" home plumbing setup, but such is not the case. Most home supply stores only have 3/4" and smaller fittings. You might need to get them from a real plumbing supply store - and try to find one open on a Saturday! The service-bypass valve looks cheap and is just plastic with rubber O-rings. If you install this using the ball valve option instead, use rigid copper compression fittings for the threaded connections, especially when attaching the separate whole house water filter (not included in the setup, so you'll have to purchase it separately), which has plastic connections. The all copper setup will require at least 4 feet of rigid copper 3/4" pipe, about 8 elbows, 3 ball valves, 2 1" female to 3/4" adapters, 2 male 3/4" compression fittings, 2 3/4"T's, Teflon tape and the someone who knows how to make the necessary solder sweat connections. You will also need at least 2 bags of nugget salt, 40 pounds each. Count on installation taking about 5 hours. Don't forget spare filters. Expect to spend about $200 in extra parts and supplies, not including labor. Complications involve finding all of the parts and doing extra plumbing if the home is not already plumbed for a potential water softener connection (as mine was) to the water line and gravity drainage line for the 2 hoses."

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can i assume since i already have a softener installed that my install will be significantly less that all that person went through?

Yeah, you can find many such stories from DIYers ~ just one of the
many reasons homeowners should look to professional H2O dealers
for sales, installation and maintenance.

Replacing an existing softener with a new one can be much easier than a
virgin install - assuming the original was installed correctly in the first place.

Yes you can. It's usually easier to install a softener when there has been one there before but it's also very if there hasn't been one installed before. I've installed a few thousand and I'd rather not have another to remove before I can start installing the new one. Also, I sell at least one softener or filter or chlorination system every day of the month to DIYers and 95+/-% of them install the stuff themselves in a few hours. Of course they have my instructions but... it is simple plumbing.

You cut the main water line and run the side that comes from the meter or pressure tank to the inlet side of the by pass valve and then the outlet of the by pass valve to the pipe going to the house. Then you run a drain line and you're done installing.

You can use copper or plastic or some of either or both and/or flexible SS or copper corrugated tubing. You can solder or use compression fittings. Usually it doesn't take more than 2.5 hours and you have soft water.

Another source would be:
www.wqa.org

This is the Water Quality Association. Go to the site and local a certified professional in your area.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

is it really that much more beneficial to have a metered unit vs the old timer one i have now? I set it to recharge 1x a week since it's just 2 of us and i've always been happy with whatever degree of softness I've gotten. I know my resin is shot, he showed it to me years ago, but now with this imminent replacement it just got me wondering if i really need this metered device or do they even sell the old timer ones anymore?

oh if i didnt mention it before, the 'shot' resin is still so much better than the direct city water, my dishes /showers are really taking a hit in just the week i've been without the softener and i'm gonna turn it on and let it leak again when i do wash this weekend.

Current technology "demand initiated" metered softeners are more efficient than your old timer model. Less water and less salt used. In the long run lower operating costs.

The demand/metered softener can save water and salt IF your daily water usage varies, which it does in all houses but, as you say your day timer has been doing a good job with a regeneration once per week. It won't when you have overnight guests or more than 1-2 for more than a couple hours.

To fix your control valve and replace resin and possibly the gravel if any, probably the distributor tube, and probably change the brine pick up and brine tubing and add a safety brine valve etc., you usually will spend 75-80% of the $700 delivered price including the plumbing materials to install it, of a new softener purchased online. And to replace your control valve you may have to redo the pluming anyway.

Financially, comparing online to local dealers, it is not a good idea with an old softener to replace a control valve and resin etc..

It's not a good idea to purchase whole house H2O equipment from an online seller period.

Not sure why I chose those models been looking on line and I seem to have read that 2510se was a good model don't know where the 7000se came from but seem to look impressive. lol I also had one of my dogs get giardia only why was when sister in law came over and trying to help gave him water from tap when I realised what she had done removed bowl from him but to late he had already drank enough I guess so I am in need of advise for the ro system on how to make sure this doesn't happen again. Sent you an email, don't know if you got it or not.
Thanks
Larry

Where did everyone go? lol trying to get this done before xmas. lol

I stand by my original suggestion plus a Multi-Pure drinking water filter for Giardia removal.

I suggest the Fleck 5600, 2510 or 7000 are not as good a choice as the Clack WS-1.

I say that based on selling MANY 5600s, 2500s and 2510s (the replacement for the brass 2500) and a handful of 7000s since 1987 but, 925+/- Clack WS-1s since Jan 2 2004.

No one that posts here has that experience.

They have not sold and serviced near as many pieces of equipment or so much as one Clack WS-1.

I think I'm giving you the best no obligation information and I'm not running in a popularity contest, so now it's up to you to use the info or not but you barely have enough time if you decide today or tomorrow to get this done before Christmas.

I looked at that Clack a few times and decided it was not as good as
some with less experience than I have would lead others to believe.

For best results, make sure you deal with a local dealer that sells, installs and services what they sell

Good morning.

I'm in the market for a water softener and a reverse osmosis drinking water system. I'd prefer not to do it myself and due to an experience I had with my previous softener I want service readily available. (In our previous house we had a $5k whole house filter, softener, and under the sink drinking water system and we could never find anyone to come out to replace the parts or service). So I guess what I'm saying is local service is important to us.

Our water is very hard here- 26 grains.
I've narrowed my choices down to a few companies:
Aqua Systems: I'm considering the Smart Choice Premium or the Twin Tank options:
http://ilovemywater.com/Res-Water-Softeners.aspx
Either one installed with a reverse osmosis drinking system would be around or less than $2k.

I may also consider Culligan or Kinetico but I'm shocked at the prices of them- especialy Kinetico. Kinetico wants $1600 for a REFURBISHED unit without a drinking water system.

Does anyone have any experience with Aqua Systems and if I go with that company could you make a suggestion on which of the two softeners would be a better buy?

Thanks in advance.