over softening water?

[Mr T]

I have been battling heavy iron in our water plus hard water. (well)

I recently installed a whole house water filter to knock out a good chunk of the iron and a water softener just past the filter. Our softener is a sears/kenmore (probably whirlpool). You need to enter the water hardness into the softener.

Our hardness is 17 with iron at 4ppm. The instructions say to add 5 to the hardness for each ppm of iron.. This makes our number at 37. I had this in and we noticed that we can really taste the 'softening' in the water. Now that I'm thinking, I probably should factor in the iron reading since I have a pre-filter. Should I kick the setting back down to 17?

What does this setting actually change? I'm guessin just how long it takes between recharges, and leaving it high just makes it recharge mroe then needed. Will that effect the taste of the water? I know a softener will change the taste.. but not this much.

[CraigFL]

Telling a water softener how many grains the hardness is just sets the recycle time. Essentially, the softener is watching the flow, looking at the suspected hardness(number that you put in) and then when the unit reaches it maximum grain filtering capacity, it recycles. The increase for ppm iron is because the iron also adheres to the softener filter media so it's taking the place of harness grains. Unfortunately, when you do a regular recycle with plain salt, it doesn't always remove the iron very well which is why they sell salt with an additive to help remove the iron. If you have a high iron and don't use this additive, you may be reducing the effectiveness of the softener over a period of time.

Now that you have installed the iron prefilter, you should no longer have to compensate for the iron in the settin of the softener-- if it's removing that type of iron.

Usually people like the taste of water best when it does have some minerals in it. Totally clean (distilled water) is usually pretty tastless...

[Gary Slusser]

Sears, GE, Whirlpool, Morton Salt, North Star and low end Eco Water softeners are all made by Ecodyne/Eco Water. They share the same parts except a slightly different motor on the GE and the cabinets/covers. They usually last service free about 2-6 years. For what they are the parts are very expensive. They are not good on problem water such as high iron, manganese etc. You can't get larger than a 1.2 cuft model. They do not use industry standard components. They have very short warranties.

A pre filter, assuming a sediment disposable cartridge types (not an iron filter), usually cause more problems than they solve or prevent. Like starving a softener/filter for backwash water flow and causing iron fouling of resin or mineral because they are not changed when they should be. They should be changed by pressure loss across them but usually are changed by time or when the pressure loss gets bothersome; which has harmed the softener long before then.

Soteners must be set up (programmed) based on the compensated hardness; that's the total of all ions that will be exchanged, hence 3-5 gpg for each ppm of iron and 2-3 for each ppm of manganese etc. added to the actual gpg of hardness in the water.

Then you need to know the average gallons of water used per day and then, you multiply them by the number of days between regenerations and calculate a reserve capacity to give you the total grains of capacity needed then, you find the salt dose that will regenerate that amount of capacity based on the type and volume of resin being used.

Changing the 'hardness' setting can mess things up unless the computer selects the salt dose for you (that's rare IMO). Usually the dealer sets the salt dose and capacity in the dealer side of the programming; the consumer isn't told how to get in to that programming (I tell all my customers).

You would be better served by a real softener using an industry standard Autotrol, Clack, Fleck or Erie control valve on a correctly sized and set up softener or, an iron filter before the softener so the softener doesn't have to deal with that amount of iron.

No dealer would set a softener for maximum capacity, which requires the maximum salt dose for the cuft volume and type of resin, if they knew what they were doing.

For more on correctly sizing a softener http://www.qualitywaterassociates.com/softeners/sizingchart.htm