Septic & Water Softener

bczoom · Apr 15, 2005

( I wish I could remember the post, but someone posted the same stuff a while back and he was using a different additive for softening his water that wasn't sodium based because of what we have been discussing. )

Potassium?

BTW. I'm using sodium and haven't had any problems. Conditioner has been installed for 10 years.

PhilNH5 · Apr 15, 2005

Richard,
Besides the issue of softener chemicals in your septic there is also the issue of capacity. Leach fields are based on # of bedrooms which is used as a measure of household occupants. The recyle mode of the softner dumps a lot of water into the leach system all at once. My system in my old house was on a 5 day clock and ran for an hour plus. If I was pumping 5 gallons/minute that is an additional 300 gallons dumped into the leach field every 5 days.

Phil

Richard · Apr 15, 2005

Just got back.

Regarding capacity, it's a 3 br house with just two of us. I dont' think capacity will be a major issue (?).

bczoom · Apr 15, 2005

( The recyle mode of the softner dumps a lot of water into the leach system all at once. My system in my old house was on a 5 day clock and ran for an hour plus. If I was pumping 5 gallons/minute that is an additional 300 gallons dumped into the leach field every 5 days. )

Hey Phil,

That doesn't sound right to me so I just pulled the manual on mine.

The cycle on mine runs for a few hours but I'll paraphrase what it says is going on.

The valve fills the brine tank first then takes 2 hours to make the brine.
Then backwash will occur for between 6 and 14 minutes (depending on capacity exhaustion).
Settle for 3 minutes
Draw the brine for 20 minutes
Soak for 15 minutes
Slow rinse for 20 minutes
Pause for 1 minute
Fast rinse for 4 minutes.

Sounds like the brine tank is filled. 20 gallons or so?
Now it doesn't explicitly say the GPM used for the rinse cycles but talks about backwash flow rates at around 1.5 gpm. If the rince is the same, 24 minutes at 1.5 gpm + 20 to fill brine tank = 56 gallons total.

Brian

PhilNH5 · Apr 15, 2005

Brian,
I don't have any of the paperwork anymore. But I recall the dealer using a stopwatch and a bucket to measure GPM. He said I needed 5 GPM for the recharge.

When the unit went into recharge the well pump ran continuously. Also the discharge from the salt tank flowed for the entire 1 hour cycle. I don't know what was going on inside of the unit. It was a very simple mechanical clock with moveable pins that tripped either of 2 solenoids. I had always assumed that one solenoid delivered conditioned water and the other tripped to back flush.

either way, with 2 people in a 3 bdrm house Richard does not have capacity issues.

Phil

bczoom · Apr 15, 2005

Phil,

You got me...

All I know is that I get water out of the faucet which is my primary care.

Brian

Av8r3400 · Apr 15, 2005

There may be differant types of re-gen for differant brands of equipment. Mine runs like bczoom's does. A few minutes at a time, every 6 days.

bczoom · Apr 15, 2005

( Mine runs like bczoom's does. A few minutes at a time, every 6 days. )

You do mean hours, not minutes... correct?

Mine is a Rainsoft. It's not on a daily/weekly timer. It measures gallons used and then sets itself for the nighttime cycle when the limit I've set has been reached.

Av8r3400 · Apr 15, 2005

No, I mean minutes. Mine is a Culligan. It will fill, soak, rinse, etc. over a period of maybe an hour. The pump will run for maybe 5 minutes a couple of times for each re-gen. It is on a weekly (6 day) timer system. Their flow measuring unit (like yours) was a little too much $$ for me. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif