To begin with, forget about twin tank unless you are running a 24 hour laundromat or apartment building. Forget about non-electric unless you don't have electricity (a softener will use $1.50 a year). Unless you have money to burn, don't bother with Kinetico - they are very good at differentiating themselves with things that don't actually matter (like twin tanks and not using electricity).

Ion exchange water softening is a commodity process. There's no special sauce that someone has to make it "more soft". There's more reliable hardware than others and there are better dealers than others if you need someone to figure it out, set it up, etc.

I recommend you find a softener that's built with a Fleck or Clack control valve. The control valve is really the heart of the unit. Fleck allows their valve to be sold online - Clack doesn't. Both have millions of units in the field, are super reliable, and repair parts are common.

You can get a very capable unit on Amazon for $700-800 for the softener itself - not installed. I have one - working great for 6 years now for $600. Most local dealers - unless they are selling a national branded unit (Culligan or Kinetico, for example) are built using a re-branded Fleck or Clack valve.

Don't mess with any unit that tries to combine carbon filtering, for example, in the same unit. Stick with a basic water softener. If you want carbon filtering, do that separately.

I have no experience with uranium removal. Looking online though, a water softener will remove low-levels of uranium and a R/O filter will remove it for drinking water. You can drink softened water - or you can install a R/O filter under the sink for cooking/drinking.

hi Jake,

Thanks for the info!

Some follow on questions if you don't mind...

If we go with single tank, what would be the implication of someone trying to use the water when it's regenerating?

What is the purpose of carbon filtering - I thought it was for chlorine? Does it have a use if on a well?

Are there specific brands that are well recommended outside of the franchises?

I read online that for iron free water supplies, which we look to have, soft water regeneration is an oversold benefit. Would love to get your thoughts on whether this is true?

Do you have a recommendation on a separate RO system? Do people typically only do specific drinking faucets, or say the whole kitchen?

How would I go about sizing the system, and how is all this typically plumbed? We are coming from a well and have a whole-house pump to ensure good pressure.

Many thanks - apologies for bombarding with questions, i'm new to all this!

cheers

David

Yes... those are a lot of questions <g>.

Two Tanks

The primary purpose of two tanks is to allow for continuous soft water. If you were to use the water during a regeneration, it would be hard water. Not really a big deal. If you were to use a lot of hot water (shower, for example) while the softener was going through a regen, it would potentially fill the hot water tank with hard water - again, not a big deal... but you might notice the water not being soft for a while until that got flushed out.

If you are set to re-gen every 10 days or so, and you do that at 3:00 AM, this goes from "not a big deal" to a "non-issue".

Soft Water Regen

You are right, there's no significant benefit to soft water regen. I think that Kinetico uses some marketing nonsense about "regeneration with hard water is like rinsing your laundry with dirty water". It's a marketing gimmick - there's no discernable benefit, particularly in a low-iron situation.

Carbon Filters

Carbon filters are good at removing chlorine, improving taste and odor, and removing VOC's (volatile organic compounds) and various other chemicals. They are often used to improve drinking water when a R/O filter isn't needed. I'm not suggesting that you would need a carbon filter - my point is that some water softeners try to differentiate themselves by also adding carbon filter. You don't want one of these combined units.

R/O Filter

I don't have a recommendation for an R/O filter. These seem to be pretty low-cost items and you can find a review on CR or someplace. This is just going to be for drinking water - a separate faucet in the kitchen if you decide to do that. They produce small volumes of water. The plumbing for R/O water - including the faucet - (so everything after the filter) is usually specifically designed for R/O water.

How are things plumbed?

-Hose connections outside do not go through the softener.

-Run a cold water line to the kitchen sink that does not go through the softener - this will be for drinking water that goes through the R/O filter. (So, soft cold water, soft hot water, and untreated cold water)

-Everything else goes through the softener

Sizing a water softener

Softener sizing evolves some math.

We know how hard your water is, we now have to estimate how much water you will use.

We typically use 75 gal per person per day. That does not include any outside irrigation - because that doesn't go through a softener anyway. How many people are there in your family?

HI Jake,

Thanks for the info - appreciate it!

There are 5 in the family, but we'll likely have an in-law living with us for at least 60 months a year. We also will likely have multiple frequent guests.

LOL! I meant 6 :)

also, we will have 4 1/2 bathrooms.

I've got family time tonight but I will show you the math tomorrow.

Great, thank you!

Also, is there a material difference between systems that use downflow vs upflow?

So the easy to understand part about the math is:

5 users x 75 gal a day x 12.6 grains per gal = 4725 grains per day.

We will plan for it regenerate about every 10 days so that if you have more people, it's still going to be on a reasonable regen cycle. So, 47250.

Then we will add 10% buffer ~ 52000

A softener with 2 cubic foot of resin will provide a capacity of about 26,000 grains at 10 lbs per pound of salt per cubic foot. 2x 26000 = 52000. (Note that when softeners are marketed, they are marketed at 15# of salt per cubic foot - which is a crazy amount of salt - with a capacity of ~31,000 per cubic foot. So, a 2 cu ft softener would be advertised as a 62,000 grain softener @ 15# per cu ft)

So you are looking at a softener with 2 cu ft of resin and a capacity of 52k grains when set to 10# of salt per cu ft. It would regenerate about every 10 days - depending on usage and use 20 lbs of salt each time.

You might save some salt using an upflow softener. Don't believe the marketing hype though.

thanks Jake!

I'm struggling to figure out how to find the right sized system? I'm not seeing 52k grain system on Amazon - should I purchase a larger one (64k grains) and fill with less salt?

Is it fairly easy to learn how to use a Fleck system - some reviews I saw indicated the interface is pretty complicated?

Also, are the different manufacturers of these systems on Amazon much of a muchness? Any that are recommended above others? I was looking at this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GC2LL8/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Many thanks, again!

David

hi Jake, just checking you saw this? Would love to understand how to create a 52k system.

@Redcoat Dave

Sorry, just seeing this:

You are looking for a 2 cf unit. You will see them advertised as 64k grain.

That is their capacity when you regenerate them with 15 pounds of salt per cubic foot.

When you set the brine setting to 10 pounds of salt per cubic foot the capacity of that very same softener becomes 52k grain.

At 15 pounds of salt per cubic foot:

32k grain = 1 cf

48k grain = 1.5 cf

64k grain = 2 cf

The one you linked to is fine. It uses the Fleck 5600sxt valve and is the correct size.

You do have to go through the programming for the valve - that's where you set the hardness level of the water, number of cubic feet of resin, and amount of salt you will use.

The programing isn't difficult and there are lots of videos and such.

Excellent - thanks so much for the help!

time to actually install - is there any recommendation on best salt to purchase?

whelp - was just told that the system is too tall for the crawl space. Are there any systems out there that are on the shorter side?