Ideal Hardness with softener?


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Old 05-04-06, 06:34 PM
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Ideal Hardness with softener?

Hello,

I have a Kenmore Water Softener and was reading the forum. In one thread someone posted this: "The fact that the treated water has 1 to 1.5 something of hardness (and who knows about the iron) means the softener is not set up properly."

My question is: What is the ideal hardness for water after being treated. I had always assumed that the 1 to 1.5 grains was good. Should it be 0 grains?

Thanks for reading.

Danny
 
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Old 05-04-06, 07:53 PM
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Danny,

Soft water has ZERO hardness. Hardness above ZERO is hard water. The higher the hardness the harder the water.

If your water has hardness after being treated by a softener then the the softener is undersized for the situation it's in, not setup properly, or (for a number of reasons) not working properly.
 

Last edited by justalurker; 05-04-06 at 09:21 PM.
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Old 05-05-06, 04:44 AM
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I think you are right about his equipment but the WQA says anything 1.0 or less is soft
 
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Old 05-05-06, 06:49 AM
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Originally Posted by jdp38
the WQA says anything 1.0 or less is soft
With respect to the WQA, the chemistry and physics of ion exchange water softening seems to disagree.

The "less than 1 gr hardness is soft" policy may be to accomodate the practical reality that lots of softeners are improperly sized and not quite correctly setup.

"Less than 1 gr hardness" soft water is prefereable to more than 1 gr hardness water but if you spend the money for a softener then the water should be soft.
 
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Old 05-10-06, 09:18 AM
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I seriously doubt that anyone could tell the difference between one grain of hardness and 4 grains of hardness. If your Kenmore is providing a hardness of one grain it is working as well as you could ever expect. If you get 5 years of service out of it the unit has outlived it's useful life by 4 years. I call the Kenmore unit, "disposeable water softeners."
 
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Old 05-12-06, 08:38 AM
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Originally Posted by steven15516
I seriously doubt that anyone could tell the difference between one grain of hardness and 4 grains of hardness.
I disagree, 4 grains is considered hard and you can see the difference between 1 gr and 4 gr at any faucet in a short time. Look for the white crud.

Originally Posted by steven15516
If your Kenmore is providing a hardness of one grain it is working as well as you could ever expect.
On lower hardness (usually city) water these ready-built softeners can be competent. Just because it's a Kenmore softener doesn't mean it can't be properly sized and correctly set up. If the water is 1 gr hard after the softener that is more a problem with the person who bought (sized) it and set it up then the softener itself.

Kenmore softeners can definately work properly they just can't work properly indefinately

Originally Posted by steven15516
If you get 5 years of service out of it the unit has outlived it's useful life by 4 years. I call the Kenmore unit, "disposeable water softeners."
Kenmore and other ready-built softeners don't do well in some cases because they don't deal well with really hard water. In many instances they are too small (in capacity and SFR) for the job they're asked to do and regenerate too frequently. They are built with less than top notch materials and components and little thought is given to servicability when they are designed.

The lengthy threads on this forum (and others) regarding Kenmore softener problems is testimony to how frequently Kenmore (and the like) softeners can need service and how much of a pain getting substantive tech info and parts at reasonable prices can be.

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is gone.
 

Last edited by justalurker; 05-12-06 at 09:26 AM.
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Old 07-01-06, 08:32 PM
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Originally Posted by justalurker
I disagree, 4 grains is considered hard and you can see the difference between 1 gr and 4 gr at any faucet in a short time. Look for the white crud.

......

The lengthy threads on this forum (and others) regarding Kenmore softener problems is testimony to how frequently Kenmore (and the like) softeners can need service and how much of a pain getting substantive tech info and parts at reasonable prices can be.

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is gone.

I like that quote, I think I'll use it myself, but my own prices are very reasonable / low, so I don't know.

As for Softness V's Hardness, it is clear that some water has no lime or some lime etc, but what's what?

Well its measured on a sort of scale (no pun) from zero to 30 odd grains.

"Hard" conventionally speaking is a limit where things get too much for pipes and appliances and they start getting a good punishing. This is usually set at 200 ppm of lime or around 11 grains of hardness.

Super soft and generally soft are often expressed as 0 to 25 and 0 to 50 ppm bands of softness / hardness or 0 to 1 grain = super soft or 0 to 3 grains as a more relaxed approached in describing "soft water".

So the next band "moderately soft" can be viewed as being 4 grains up and then "slightly hard" is from 6 grains up then "moderately hard" is around 9 grains up.

Very hard water starts from 300 ppm or 17 grains upwards where fairly quick damage is incurred to the household water supply within a year or so of water use.

Some schemes are above 400 ppm or 23 grains and over which goes beyond general band descriptions and could be classed as super hard.

At the higher end of super hard is 500 ppm and over of lime or 29 grains and above.

So looking at the different bands, just 1 grain of hardness is not by any stretch of the imagination hard water nor could you say is 10 grains. A house could live without a softener with 10 grains and this is what I tell my customers, unless they really, really want one, but I don't push it.

If you have a softener, and it is a proper thing, and working fine, then yes 0 grains should be achievable all year round, year after year.
 
 

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