installing water softener


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Old 03-03-06, 03:15 PM
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installing water softener

When i had my house built i had a water loop installed so i can one day install a water softner. Well i went to install my softener and found out that the loop pipes are 1" CPVC but the inlet and outlet valves on the water softner are 3/4" CPVC. What can i do. I have had the softner sitting in my garage for a while so a refund is probably out of the question. The unit is a morton 27,000 grain softener. Thanks
 
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Old 03-03-06, 03:51 PM
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Short answer, there are adapters you can get to reduce the 1" BUT ...

Are you sure the Morton softener is the correct size for your home. Softeners need to be sized not only for hardness removal cpaacity but Service Flow Rate. In other words, the softener has to be able to pass the maximum flow of the plumbing without restricting the flow. If the flow is restricted then you have hardness leaking through.

Your water quality is important and your softener is a long term investment so if you want to do this right ...

Have your water tested and post the hardness, iron and manganese content. Are you on a well or municipal water system. Number of bath rooms in the house and number of people?

A quick and dirty way to ballpark SFR is to use a high volume fixture (bath tub) and time how many seconds it takes to put say 2 gallons in a bucket using BOTH the hot and cold faucets. Say it takes 10 seconds to put 2 gallong in the bucket. Multiply that by 6 to get gallons per minute so 6 x 10 = 60 seconds (1 minute) so 6 x 2 gallons (in 10 seconds)= 12 gallons per minute.

Most homes are plumbed with 3/4" so if yours is 1" them you probably have a higher SFR than older homes. Your plumber can mathematically calculate the SFR of your plumbing based on pipe size and fixture flow. Might be worth a call to get that answer from the plumber.

Do the quick & dirty test and post the answer here.
 
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Old 03-04-06, 08:54 AM
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If you have your receipt & the softener has not been installed, most retailers will allow you to switch to a larger valve type and capacity.

A couple quick things...what is the water hardness and are there any other water quality issues? How many people & how many bathrooms? This will help determine the type of system recommendation. Thanks.

Art
 
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Old 05-02-06, 06:44 AM
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Is it possible to go "too big" with a softener?
 
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Old 05-02-06, 07:59 AM
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Geobass,

Short answer is no ... within reason.

Suppose you and your wife live in a three BR house and have modest water usage. Next door in a similar house there's a husband, wife, and two kids. Their water usage would be much greater in the same size house.

You should size your softener to handle the maximum water usage of the house, including the SFR and water hardness (among other considerations). Then, you can setup the softener to think it's smaller to provide maximum efficiency for your (less than full capacity of the house) water usage. Down the road if you have kids or sell the house or your inlaws move in, then you re-set the softener to full softening capacity.

Some softeners don't allow as much flexibility in setting the variables in the control valves as others so that should be a consideration when shopping for softeners.
 

Last edited by justalurker; 05-02-06 at 09:35 AM.
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Old 05-10-06, 09:23 AM
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A general rule of thumb is a 27000 grain unit will serve 2-3 average people in a household. The smallest unit I would install in a house is a 40000 grain softener.
 
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Old 07-01-06, 09:04 PM
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Originally Posted by steven15516
A general rule of thumb is a 27000 grain unit will serve 2-3 average people in a household. The smallest unit I would install in a house is a 40000 grain softener.
Depends on water hardness it is used on. A 27,000 grain unit would be fine for a 4 person family on "hard" water per say.

As for having a 3/4" port softener and 1" feed pipes to the house, it is technically better to have the 1" port softener, but as you have 3/4" ports, I would not concern yourself too much and just fit it.

Firstly this is just a slight constriction at the port entry to the valvehead but it goes back to 1" in the riser tube and any restriction in terms of softener performance is welcomed as water gets chance to pass the resin bed just as efficiently.

If flow was too high, over the softner's ability to soften, then you would want to constrict flow at a given point.

Water flowing into the house is not used at any point in the household at 12 gallons per minute, or probably half that.

If a large attic water storage tank is fitted it can be sized for a whole days supply, and even then you have all of 24 hours to fill it. At a rate of 12 gpm it would be filled in around 15 minutes, thats 23.75 hours left over for filling each day.

European mains feed pipes are a maximum diameter of 1/2 inch to domestic households and 3/4 inch feeds are designated for commercial use.

1 inch feeds at good pressure, are industrial grade feeds, and with 1 inch valve heads, like the Clack WS1 you can get nearly 40,000 gallons throught the valve head in one day, but what is a house going to do with that amount of water or with just 1% of that amount in a day?
 
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Old 10-03-06, 11:56 PM
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Hire us we can do it for you www.lawisewater.com

we install water systems in a daily basics and we can help you


Originally Posted by ms1swawscw
When i had my house built i had a water loop installed so i can one day install a water softner. Well i went to install my softener and found out that the loop pipes are 1" CPVC but the inlet and outlet valves on the water softner are 3/4" CPVC. What can i do. I have had the softner sitting in my garage for a while so a refund is probably out of the question. The unit is a morton 27,000 grain softener. Thanks
 
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Old 10-04-06, 12:24 AM
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^----That reply can't be good.....
 
 

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