water softener systems

[cj7]

Well I am looking to invest in a new water conditioner for the house. I have a well and yes there is iron in it. I currently have an old Colligan brand Brine sytstem that is probably over 25 years old.

I want to upgrade to the newer system so I use less salt and do not have to reset the timer all the time...lol

Any one using one of these systems?

http://www.kinetico.com/KineticoSystems/WaterSofteners.aspx

just found it today and will do more research.

looked at the GE unit at the Home Depot too. That seems to fit the application well also.

Thanks for any comments.

 

[Melensdad]

When I built my house I got a hard sell by Kinetico, got a hard sell by Culligan, talked to the locally very well respected water guy, talked to a bunch of others, including a wise old plumber . . . I ended up buying a Sears Kenmore unit for about 75% less than the cost of the Kinetico. Mine is one of the better Kenmore units that is an on demand system, my water is horribly hard and has lots of iron too.

Kinetico wanted over $2000 for their unit and told me I might need an iron remover too. Culligan was also expensive but I think they offered me a couple different options. It was 13 years ago and I can't remember all the details, I just remembered that Kinetico was the highest and over 2 grand for the system.

My Kenmore unit is an on-demand type unit, listed for about $800 but was on sale for about $500. It was one of the top of the line units at the time and was considered to be very efficient. I go through about 40 pounds of salt each week.

Not sure if that helps you or not.

 

[bczoom]

OK, Bob says he's going through 40# of salt/week.
Rick - How much are you going through?

I don't think I go through that much in a month.

Have you looked at/considered having it rebuilt? What part(s) of the system are (or have) failed? I've heard that these older systems are very easy and cost-effective to have re-built.

 

[Melensdad]

OK, Bob says he's going through 40# of salt/week.
Rick - How much are you going through?

Salt volume is based on 3 factors.

Water use (measured in gallons).
The level of hardness (my softener is set at 95 grains(?) of hardness on a scale of 0 to 100).
How efficient the water softener uses the salt.

So it is hard to compare my water to someone else's water unless they have similar hardness issues and similar volume use, given those 2 things, then it would be easy to compare the efficiency of the softener to determine if the added cost of a more expensive softener is worth the price. Even then, if a bag of salt is $4 and an efficient unit uses 1 per week and an inefficient unit uses 1.5 per week, then the cost of operation costs an extra $2 per week or $104 per year extra to run the 'inefficient' model water softener.

But if the efficient model costs $2000 and the less efficient model costs $500, then it will take about 15 years before the efficient model starts to actually save you any money, and that is presuming that your cost of money is free. OR, even worse, in Brian's case where he is using 1 bag of salt per month, and presuming his is an efficient model, then an inefficient model may use 1.5 bags per month. So Brian might save $2 per month, or $24 per year, at which point the Kenetico, if it is actually more efficient, would never realize the homeowner any saving in the normal lifespan of the homeowner!!!

And all of this is presuming that my $500 "efficient" model is actually less efficient than another brand that was quoted at a much higher price.

 

[fogtender]

Well I am looking to invest in a new water conditioner for the house. I have a well and yes there is iron in it. I currently have an old Colligan brand Brine sytstem that is probably over 25 years old.

I want to upgrade to the newer system so I use less salt and do not have to reset the timer all the time...lol

Any one using one of these systems?

http://www.kinetico.com/KineticoSystems/WaterSofteners.aspx

just found it today and will do more research.

looked at the GE unit at the Home Depot too. That seems to fit the application well also.

Thanks for any comments.

Well for what it is worth, here in interior Alaska our well water is really bad. If I don't use the softner the tub fills up with yellowish water, then after about ten min's it looks like coffee after the air gets to it...

I bought a Sears softener, but they all work the same with the resin bed that they use. I go though about 60+- pounds of salt a week unless the kids come home for a bit and the water useage goes up.

Softeners with the type of use that we get here has a life cycle of about five to seven years, then you have to either replace the resin or the unit, it is set at the max iron removal.

I got the Sears unit because they have the parts for them if needed and when I buy a new one, they just click in to replace the older one. It works very well, it takes all the iron out and the water is very clear after that. We have a very strong smell of "Rotton eggs" in the water though after the softner is done, so I have an inline charcoal filter just after the softner and that takes out all the smell and taste from the water, really nice. The latest softner I put in about four months ago doesnt' need resetting except for the salt level alert that goes off after the salt is just about gone, which is pretty neat.... It counts the gallons used to determin when to regenerate the resin, so it is pretty much a "Fill with salt" and forget... If we had less iron in our water, we would use a lot less salt if that helps any.

 

[cj7]

This is all good info guys. The Kenitico just came to mind since a flyer was mailed out to me last week. I was figuring that unit would be pricely anyway. I like the $500.00 or less range myself.

As for the amount of salt I use is a little hard to say. I am not home often enough to worry about tracking it that close or keep any records. But!

I do know that I am using more salt than in the past. This really could be just an adustment issue as I had to remove the salt tank and repair the bottom for a leak. So I had the float assembly out of it. Now I did not change anything but...I do not think it is sticking but..

I did try to adjust the number of times in a week it regenerates. And ever since then it seems to be using more salt.

The instruction sheet I have for it I had to get a reprint. It is not the same one that came with the unit when it was new. The timer and salt regulater assembly is similar but is not exactly the same as in the instructioins.

Plus I see now that I am getting a little seepage near the back of the timer box.

I am really looking to purchase a new unit sometime in the next few months. Like I said this unit is 25 years plus old. Has had the salt tank patched twice, now has a new leak, is cauing me fits with using more salt.
It is regenerating more often for some reason than it used to.

The things I see with the new units are that they are a single tank so takes up less space. They only recharge when needed. They are NEW.

I figured I would see what our community has experienced with their systems and shop around before I make a purchase. Limp this one along for a bit longer.

 

[k-dog]

I have the Kenmore from Sears and I only go through maybe 200 pounds of salt a year. Our water is quite hard with all the limestone and we use quite a bit of water with 3 kids. In the summer I even keep the pool topped off using soft water. It has a bypass on it, but I never fool with changing it over.

 

[alaska120]

As Fogtender says, the H2O up here is pretty hard. You can make a sidewalk out of it.
I have an older Kenmore but only plow through about 40 lbs a month.
I also have the discharge on a seperate 'grey' water leach field so it won't screw around with the buggies in my septic tank. The salt is bad juju for buggies...

 

[OhioTC18]

I had a Hague system in the house when we bought it. The softener was a rented unit whereas the iron filter was mine. When we finally got a visit from the Hague guy, we listened to his sales pitch about how we needed to upgrade...yada yada yada. He even did a water test for us NO CHARGE. Only trouble is he dipped the hard water out of the toilet tank. No telling how long it's been since the deposits and so forth had been in that tank. Anyway Hague removed their softener a couple of days later. I bought a decent sized Kenmore unit and installed it next to the iron filter. Finally the iron filter timer motor went bad and getting parts from Hague was not looking good. Picked up a Water Boss aka Hague from Lowes and we've been pretty happy with the whole set-up after we also added a cartridge filter for sediment. We go through about 3 lbs of Potassium Permanganate every 6 months and 40 lbs of salt every 4-5 weeks.
When it gets close to the time for the cartridge filter to be replaced, we know it quick. The cat that drinks out of the faucet will run when you turn it on

 

[jwstewar]

We never had a water softener in the old house, but we are wanting to put one in the new house.

I had Kinetico out yesterday and listened to their commercial. Actually the guy was pretty decent, it really wasn't a hard sell or anything. Our total hardness is around, our biggest problem is our chlorine - it is around 4. We looked at Lowes last night. They don't sell a dechlorinator. Looking around on the net a little this morning and I keep ending up at aquarium places. I'll head to Sears sometime and check out what they have to offer. Anyone else use a dechlorinater?

 

[fogtender]

We never had a water softener in the old house, but we are wanting to put one in the new house.

I had Kinetico out yesterday and listened to their commercial. Actually the guy was pretty decent, it really wasn't a hard sell or anything. Our total hardness is around, our biggest problem is our chlorine - it is around 4. We looked at Lowes last night. They don't sell a dechlorinator. Looking around on the net a little this morning and I keep ending up at aquarium places. I'll head to Sears sometime and check out what they have to offer. Anyone else use a dechlorinater?

If you install a good Charcoal inline filter, it removes most of the clorine in your system, and is much cheaper than some of the "Marketed" stuff that people try to sell you. Easy to maintain, change out the filter depending what your water use is.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed....nodak.edu/extpubs/h2oqual/watsys/ae1046w.htm