Anyone here replaced their water softener on their own?

[CurlyDave]

I have one piece of advice.

My original one had two drain lines. The installer teed them together and ran one to an outside drain. DO NOT DO THIS. If the single line plugs the unit will pump salt water all over your garage floor. Don't ask how I know this or how many times it took to figure it out.

Run the drain lines separate until they are outside of your building.

The new one had two lines but I ran them separately and have had no problems.

 

[speedbump]

speedbump...Water hardness test done shows 24 gr. harness and 1 1/2 PPM iron.
I have all the original installation paperwork and instructions.

24 grains of hardness is a lot. Average is 12 to 15 in my area and a single tank works just fine. At one house I owned the water hardness was 40 grains and I couldn't get through more than about half a day without the softener being totally depleted. That is why you have two tanks. When one needs to be backwashed, instead of waiting until 2AM the following morning, it just switches tanks so you still have soft water and the other tank gets backwashed. You never notice the swap out.

The other thing is, the iron. 1.5 is a little high as well and adds to the hardness. I never liked using a softener to remove iron, but when doing so, it does increase your hardness count quite a bit.

 

[sixdogs]

How else would you remove iron? Filter? I have an iron filter now in my whole house filter.

 

[RNeumann]

How else would you remove iron? Filter? I have an iron filter now in my whole house filter.

Some iron can be removed with the softener. You can also add a chemical to the brine tank that helps a bit as well. The GE softener came with a bottle of the chemical. I used the softener alone to see what happened and was pleasantly surprised- no more red stains. So the bottle was never used and I don't remember the name.

 

[coldsteelva]

Our well has a ton of iron in it, so in order to save the main iron filter/valve and the softener valve, we have a spin-down filter to collect the large iron particles and sediment. I have two screen inserts so I just unscrew it, swap screens and rinse the other one at my leisure. We also use the iron removing salt in our brine tank.

 

[speedbump]

How else would you remove iron? Filter? I have an iron filter now in my whole house filter.

Whole house filters will not remove clear water iron. They have no way of oxidizing the iron so a filter can trap it. That's why they make iron filters. And they are the size of softeners, not a ten inch in line filter that in my opinion is useless.

 

[hawkeye08]

Whole house filters will not remove clear water iron. They have no way of oxidizing the iron so a filter can trap it. That's why they make iron filters. And they are the size of softeners, not a ten inch in line filter that in my opinion is useless.

Yep, we have hard water and clear water iron. We had a softener in that helped, but it was killing the grass in the drainfield with the discharge into the septic system (and likely not so good for the action in the tank) and so I took it out and currently use electronics to help with the hard water. I will put a softener in again (like the two tank plus separate brink tank) one day, but will figure out how to discharge the softener to a dry well that is separate. Too many projects ahead of it right now..

Family does like soft water... I am also going to replace plumbing with PEX in the next few years and plan on designing the system so I can soften what I want (hot water, laundry, etc) and have unsoftened water other places (such as outdoor faucets for watering lawn).

 

[RNeumann]

Yep, we have hard water and clear water iron. We had a softener in that helped, but it was killing the grass in the drainfield with the discharge into the septic system (and likely not so good for the action in the tank) and so I took it out and currently use electronics to help with the hard water. I will put a softener in again (like the two tank plus separate brink tank) one day, but will figure out how to discharge the softener to a dry well that is separate. Too many projects ahead of it right now..

Family does like soft water... I am also going to replace plumbing with PEX in the next few years and plan on designing the system so I can soften what I want (hot water, laundry, etc) and have unsoftened water other places (such as outdoor faucets for watering lawn).

The bet is to take all the yard water before it enters the house. Most plumbers have the hose bibs come out of the house because they don't need to dig. But most of your water use is the yard and their is no need for that to enter the house. This would also eliminate the soft water in the yard.

 

[MossRoad]

Water softeners do not hurt septic systems. Washing machines pose a much higher problem.
Here's some good reading on that.

Do water softeners hurt septic tanks?, Webster County | University of Missouri Extension

 

[jimmyj]

We have serious iron in our water. After we had to replace all the sinks, tubs, toilets plus the dishwasher, clothes washer, well you get it. We decided to get a proper system. It has a stainless pre filter to catch particles, after that there is an iron remover. Looks just like a water softener media (bead) tank, but you put potassium permanganate in it. Then the water goes through a conventional water softener and after that another particle filter and last a UV light. It works amazing, I highly recommend it.