Water Softener Issue

[Son]

I am new to water softeners and am doing a remodel I moved my water softener upstairs in a laundry room. I have read about the saltless systems and wonder if you have any good or bad info on them. I am trying to stay away from salt softeners due to maintenance and carrying heavy bags upstairs. If that is my best choice can you tell me which softener is best for 5 person larger home? Thanks.

[Gary Slusser]

Magnets and electronic anti-scale/descalers do not work in most cases; meaning they don't do what they are said to do, which is to prevent hardness scale problems. They DO NOT remove hardness, iron, lead, copper, radium, manganese etc. that a water softener does, so they are not softeners nor a substitute for a softener.

The "best" softener is the correctly sized one that lasts maintenance free the longest. Since all the moving parts of a softener are in the control valve, the quality of the quality of the control valve dictates "best"; at least in my opinion.

IMO, the best control valve is the Clack W-1. It has the fewest and least expensive parts and is the easiest and fastest to repair; bar none. It was designed to be that way. It is the latest version of the Fleck line that Fleck still hasn't produced, although the 7000 comes close but is overkill in most houses since it is a 1.25" ported valve. It still has the 1.05" distributor tube as 'standard'.