Water Softeners & snake oil

[ronjhall]

Patrick
Several threads have a lot of information on water softeners and iron. Here are two of them.
and <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=off&Number=30123&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post30123> Calcium in water pipes They should help with your water system.

 

[gator]

Patrick,
Take a look <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.waterboss.com> HERE</A>.I am on a shallow well in eastern N.C., and like you I have high iron content.I have the Big Boss model (for higher usage or harder water,high iron content-the instructions tell you how to set it for high iron).Paid $500 something for it at Lowes.It can demand regenerate or timed regeneration.It removes the iron and sedement great.I would recommend using red out(aka iron out) salt as it cleans the resin tank of iron better.They are simple to install yourself, it even comes with the hookup lines(3/4") and a video, all you need to do is cut a chunk out of your main line(mine is PVC), attach male adapters to both sides then connect the hoses.The unit must be near an power outlet.Most if not all water softeners use gravity feed discharge lines, so if you put it in a basement, it will have to go to a drain, or in a garage like mine, you just drain it to outside, not into septic tank.Just my opinion.

 

[Bayrat]

<font color=blue>I leased a water softener from Culligan for a number of years when I was first with young children and could not afford to purchase one. It was a waste of money and used far more salt than it should have. I bit the bullet and found a demand unit at Sears that calculated everything with a few entries into the on board computer and never touched it again except to pour pellets into it (at a far lesser rate than the timed one from Culligan). One tip; install it yourself and use bypasses for outside faucets, drinking water (raises sodium content drastically) and anything else that doesn't need it.

 

[genelp]

We have very hard water with a high iron content. We use a Sears water softener, which can be programmed to regenerate every day if we prefer. Like most softeners it also has a manual regeneration switch. Between our holding tank and the softener we have three string filters to remove the iron. Our heating and airconditioning is an open-loop geothermal system, so we want to make sure our water is fairly clean before it gets to the heat-pump. We only have one of our "kids" left at home so you may have a larger demand on the softner from the laundry and showers (my son likes to take a shower till the water turns cold).

Gene

 

[beenthere]

My son would stop showering when the water ran cold too, but it wasn't because we ran out of hot water. Seems after a reasonable length of time, the hot water valve in the basement turned off! /w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif They pay attention to the length of their shower real fast.
When I was his age, I had to get the wood fire going to heat the water I needed to take a bath. Not such a terrible thing either, but there wasn't unlimited hot water.

 

[RPM]

ronjhall,

Thanks for the threads - I swear I searched TBN before posting but must have used the wrong terms. They were helpful - seems that we are also turning up some additional information here so I hope it won't be redundant in the end!

Patrick

 

[hartsjc]

I grew up on well water and my Dad is still using his kinetico water softner. I have recently purchased one and I am happy as could be. They use a 2 tank approach, charge one while you run on the other. They also do not use any electricity, so a electrical surge won't harm them. My $0.02 worth

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.kinetico.com>Kinetico's WebSite</A>
/James

 

[JoeR]

I just installed a Sears water softener 2 weekends ago ($550). I have a 330 foot well with very hard water. The systems works great. I had to adjust the softness to get just enough softening without making the water too soft.

I drove a 1 inch pvc pipe into the ground, and send the salt backwash into this pipe. Florida soil is sandy, so the discharge remains under the soil. Unfortunately, the salt discharge kills grass and I had to send the backwash somewhere and that is why is put the pipe into the soil... The other choice was to use Potassium Chloride instead of Sodium Chloride. Although, the Potassium Chloride is consumed 25% faster than Salt, and costs more! Yet, the backwash is a fertilizer, and Potassium in your drinking water is better than sodium.


I chose the sears sytem since the brine tank and salt tank were all in one unit. This reduced the amount of plumbing I had to perform and it minimized the footprint required for all the equipment.

If the iron is too high, a salt softener may not work. At my old house, I had to use a super chlorinator, de-chlorinator to remove the iron. This only works with "Clear water iron". By the way, the salt softeners only work on clear water iron too. If the iron is visible out of the faucet, then you will have to get a special iron removal system.

Good luck!

 

[RPM]

DaveV,

Thanks for the information ... the statistics for my water are:

Iron 1.6mg/l (1.6ppm)
Hardness 4 grains / gallon
pH 8.2
Nitrates - none
Hydrogen Sulfide - none

So ... hardness and other content really isn't a problem - just the iron.

Patrick

 

[RPM]

James,

Would you mind sharing what the price range was that you paid for your Kinetico - the $2500 quote I was given was for the Kinetico Model 60.

I've already seen a few quotes several hundred dollars cheaper for the same model - and the numbers given by other folks here have given me a better guideline for the regular 'timed' water softeners.

Thanks,

Patrick