Increasing resin?

Is it possible to add more resin to a softener?
How do I do this?

My softener is a Clack WS1 with 1cu ft of resin. We have a water hardness of 24 in the city with no iron. Two people in the house.
I've set the unit for 8lbs of salt per regeneration with the auto-regen set at 8 days.

I'm running out of soft water after about 5 days.

I wondered if I need 1.5cu ft of resin. Will upping the salt to 10 or 12lbs help?

Is there a website that explains all this? The manual doesn't.

 

The volume of resin you can put in a resin tank is based on the size of the tank, to a point. For a standard downflow brining softener there needs to be a certain amount of free space above the resin. This space is called FREEBOARD and is necessary for the resin to lift and move during regeneration.

1 cu ft of resin needs a 9x48 tank and 1.5 cu ft of resin needs a 10x54 tank. You'd need to buy a 10x54 tank, a new longer distributer tube with bottom basket, and .5 cu ft more of the same resin you have. Then remove the control valve from your softener, drain the water, move the resin to the new 10x54 tank, add the extra .5 cu ft of resin, reassemble the softener, and reprogram the control valve. Moving wet, heavy resin from tank to tank is not a fun job.

At the time of softener purchase it's relatively inexpensive to move up to 1.5 cu ft of resin from 1.0 cu ft, but much more costly after the fact.

Based on that sketchy info your 1 cu ft softener is a little small. There are other details to be considered.

Sizing a softener is based on water conditions, # of people in the house, number and type of plumbing fixtures in the house and other factors. The SFR of the resin type and volume needs to be considered. In general, you want a softener to regenerate no more frequently than every 7 or 8 days and not less frequently than every 14 days. Once a week is ideal.

Who sized the softener, you or the seller?

The following are general numbers for standard resin regenerating with NaCl (sodium chloride) and will vary depending on exactly what resin you have...

6lbs of salt per cu ft of resin = 21,000 grains of hardness removed
9lbs of salt per cu ft of resin = 25,000 grains of hardness removed
11lbs of salt per cu ft of resin = 29,000 grains of hardness removed
15lbs of salt per cu ft of resin = 31,000 grains of hardness removed

As you increase the salt dose you lose salt efficiency (more salt used for grains of hardness removed).

At this point, with the softener installed the easiest thing is to increase the salt dose and that isn't a major cost increase even over the long run cause salt is cheap.

What you won't gain by upping the salt dose in an increase in the SFR (Service Flow Rate) of the resin/tank/softener and I suspect your 1 cu ft softener has too low an SFR for your installation. That means that at high water flow hardness will leak through.

 

Thanks an excellent answer Justalurker. Thanks. I'll re-read a couple of times and digest.

 

Who sized the softener prior to your purchase, you or the seller?

 

Ok I've re-read your post and I'll make comments on your comments or questions.


I thought I'd listed the pertinent info. What else could there be? Two people (as said), two toilets, two showers (never more than one in operation), weekly laundry, dishwasher. We never use two major water appliances at the same time.

It goes off about every 7-8 days now but the water feels harder after about 5. I don't have a hardness test kit.

The seller (mail order). He asked all the questions you did and he looked up my city's water hardness. This could be the issue. He told me it was 12.5. From all this he suggested a 1 cu ft.
It's only regenerated about 4x so I don't have a lot of data but I can feel the harder water after about 5 days.
Because of this I called the city and asked about the water hardness and THEY told me it was 24. That's 2x as much as the seller said we had. He said I should set it at 10lbs of salt. It's set at 8 at the moment as I've done a lot of reading and that seems to be the most efficient salt dose. I'll be upping it to 10 for the next re-gen.

I just e-mailed the seller and asked what was the water hardness that he quoted me. His answer might make a lot of difference. Maybe he owes me a bigger resin tank.

As we're not high users of water I kinda doubted that we would exceed the SFR. I can get an average GPD from the valve computer and the calendar I keep if it's any use.

How can I tell what the SFR of this unit would be?

 

You have the calendar override set at 8 days so that's the longest it will go before regenerating.

It'd be smart to order a bunch of hardness test strips and have them around. Google for online sellers.

At 12.5g your softener would be in the ballpark but the SFR would still be low for the house. At 24g that softener is small.

A big difference between 12g and 24g. You should have had your water tested and known the conditions because that info determines what needs to be treated, how, and how much.

If so, you need a bigger tank, more resin, AND a longer distributer tube.

You can get the average SFR from the Clack WS1. The average SFR is a concern but a specifc volume of resin has a specific SFR and past that hardness leaks through.

According to information from Purolite (resin manufacturer)...

The max SFR (gpm) of Purolite C100 resin in gpm is:

1.0 cu ft C100 resin = 5 gpm
1.25 cu ft C100 resin = 6.25 gpm
1.5 cu ft C100 resin = 7.5 gpm
2.0 cu ft C100 resin =10 gpm

I've seen these other numbers quoted but can't confirm their accuracy):

1.0 cu ft resin = 9 gpm
1.25 cu ft resin =10 gpm
1.5 cu ft resin =12 gpm
2.0 cu ft resin =13 gpm

5 gpm is not a very substantial flow for an entire house. Hardness will leak through when water flow exceeds the max SFR of the resin.

 

Thanks for all your tech help here Lurker. I'm gonna wait for the seller answering my e-mail I sent about "What water hardness did you tell me I had?" He claimed he had a book of everyones' hardness.

From his answer I'll go from there and get back to ya.

 

That's rich... even on city water systems the conditions of the water are stated at the treatment plant and not at your water meter. A book of everyone's hardness published when?

Whenever anyone is considering water treatment of any kind a water test of their water at their sink is the logical first step.

Please let us know how this goes...

 

Newbysoft -

Something isn't right in your softener programming. Last summer I installed a 1 ft.^3 Clack WS-1 softener in our home with 24 gpg water and there is soft water all the time. I will contact you via the mail posting here - I can send you my program set-up sheet for the softener.

 

What a great site this is with helpful people.

 

1 cu ft of standard resin regenerated by 8 lbs of salt = approximately 24k capacity

2 people x 60 gpd (average water use) = 120 gpd water usage

120 gpd x 24g hardness = 2880g per day hardness to be removed per day

24,000 capacity divided by 2880g hardness per day removed = 8.3 days before regeneration

As your softener is set (if you set it for 24,000g capacity, 24g hardness, and 8 lbs of salt) you should be regenerating every 7th or 8th day which is about perfect.

You might be feeling the water going hard sooner because your 1 cu ft softener has too low an SFR and the hardness is leaking through.

Water feeling hard and a test strip measuring it as can be two different things.

Get some hardness test strips to know for sure.

I believe your 1 cu ft softener has too low an SFR and that is where "early" hardness problem is coming from.

 

Thanks for this 'Lurker. I'll be taking some water to the Clack dealer I found in town yesterday (not where I bought my Clack setup). He seems like an agreeable fellow. He has test strips he can sell me too.

Today I checked my setup and even went into the Diagnostics to get some past data. I'll list it here. Notable is the GPD usage which I calculated from total gallons used (4000) and days since last reset (49) - that gives 81.63GPD average for two people. You mentioned that I might be exceeding the SFR of the unit. We're careful not to use two appliances/units at once meaning we don't do laundry and take a shower at the same time etcetera. I just cracked a laundry tub tap and it gave me a flow rate of 6.6gpm. The basemant shower gave 1.9gpm. The max gpm in history is the 6.6 value above.
How can we be exceeding the SFR?

Here's what I settings I have -
Pushing Next and UP arrow -
Hardness - 26. (the man tells me it's 20-24 in our city water).
Regeneration Day - 8
Timer - 2am
Then there is a "C 3" that comes up next. He told me to change it to C5 but I can't see how to do this. It gives longer washes/backflushes I guess.

Pushing Next and DOWN arrow -
Softening
23.0x1000
10.0lbs
Normal backwash
Auto 0 gallons
Post
dn
normal (I now know it should be 'normal on 0')
C 3

Diagnostics -
Days since regen - 2
Gallons since - 102
Gallons reserve cap used for 7 days - 42
Gallons 62 day history - the max was 279.
Flow rate (tap was opened) - 6.6
Flow rate max, last 7 days - 6.6
Gallons used total - 4000
Days total - 49 (81.6gpd average)
Regenerations - 8

What think you 'Lurker? This is fun.

 

NewbySoft,

I think that...

Flow rate (tap was opened) - 6.6
Flow rate max, last 7 days - 6.6

... your Clack is telling you that you are exceeding the 5gpm flow rate of your 1 cu ft softener. 6.6gpm, as the Clack reported, is greater than 5gpm (Purolite's spec SFR on 1 cu ft of C100 resin) right?

It's simple arithmetic and the numbers say you are exceeding the SFR of 1 cu ft of resin.

Increasing your salt dose from 8 lbs to 10 lbs will get you more softening capacity but not increase the SFR of 1 cu ft of resin.

If test strips tell you that your water is going hard before the 7 or 8 day regeneration then you are seeing hardness leaking through because you are exceeding the SFR of the 1 cu ft softener.

 

Ok I understand 'Lurker. My ears are hurting from your shout! Yes I understand what happens when the SFR is exceed.

I was just over at the local Clack dealer (Water Depot) and I asked him if a 1cu ft softener (as I asked the M/O place I bought mine from) was enough of a softener for my setup and he answerd that a 1cu ft was what he would have recommended. My M/O place sold me this 1cu ft unit based on the questions he asked me.

Earlier today I was at a softener website (apswater.com) and their calculator uses the gpm of my showerhead to get the gpm to punch into their computer. Hell I tested my showerhead and it showed up as 1.9gpm on my Clack diagnostic. The laundry tub cold tap (full bore) got me the 6.6gpm reading. So what use is using the flow from a bleepin' water saving showerhead?

Here's their calculator -
http://www.apswater.com/Water_Soften...0&perperson=50

My Clack dealer sold me some dip strips plus he told me to go back with samples of my water to test it definitively. I'll talk him into letting me go back for a daily test for a whole week.

So why would anyone be sold a 1cu ft unit? Surely everyone has a tap like mine that gives that kind of flowrate?

 

Sorry, after having to repeat myself a few times, and then prove it over and over, I tend to shout.

Everything I've told you can be checked. The specs on resin SFR are readily available on the resin manufacturers' web sites.

No softener seller can change the laws of physics.

Many customers don't want to take the time to learn the nitty gritty. Many customers simply do what they are told. Many customers want the cheapest thing available. Many customers are simply screwed. Many customers never check to see what they got.

SFR of the plumbing and fixtures can be mathematically calculated. The plumbing code in the US requires it and all (most) plumbers do it accurately. That's how they know the drainage requirements and service pipe sizes. Check the plumbing codes in Canada, I'm sure they are similar.

If you check the SFR of you bath tub (hot and cold at the same time and are usually not low flow) you'll be surprised.

Unfortunately, many softener sellers don't take the time to read and learn the specs of the components they sell. Many softener sellers only look at the max SFR of the control valve when the limiting SFR factor is the SFR of the resin.

If most water softener sellers really knew what they were doing I'd think there'd be a lot less posts on these self-help forums seeking assistance like you did.

 

Aww no problem 'Lurker.

The local Clack dealer (Waterdepot) had about five 1cu ft units lined up ready to go out when I was there this afternoon. He's been in business for years. Surely (rhetorical question cummin' up here) if 1cu ft was too small (not many familes are smaller than mine and I'm sure most houses have a laundry tub tap with a flow rate equal to mine) then people would be screaming constantly that they had no soft water. And even a complete idiot would figure it out within their first month of business that they had better stop selling 1cu ft softeners.

Yep I'll certainly do it but I can't imagine it having the flow of my laundry tub tap. I could be wrong and I'll check it this evening.

Another rhetorical question here (meaning it's not aimed directly at you). If that is so then they must be very slow learners if they're selling 1cu ft units to anyone. I can't imagine anyone using less water than Momma and I (81.63gpd) or having less maximum plumbing flow. And as said above, the local Clack chap had a few 1cu ft units ready to go out and he's been around for maybe fifteen years.

 

I just tested the bathtub (hot-cold mixer tap set in the 1/2 & 1/2 position) - max flow varying between 3.9 & 4gpm.

Again, the laundry tub cold tap was 6.6gpm.

No other tap in the house, shower head or flushed toilet came close to even the 3.9. I didn't check the dishwasher or washing machine.

It's very rare that the laundry tub tap is run full bore and it's almost never that we use two water using outlets at the same time so the chances of us exceeding the SFR rate of 1cu ft of resin at 5gpm seems (to this dumb b@$tard anyway) very slight.

What's your learned opinion 'Lurker?

 

Another rhetorical answer here (meaning it's not aimed directly at you)...

I am not changing the laws of physics. I'm just pointing them out.

Not to single you out, but it is your thread, if you had come here and asked what you should know BEFORE buying a water softener then you'd have gotten a correctly sized softener regardless of what the seller would have tried to pawn off on you. You would have been an educated consumer and been in a position to make an informed decision.

I am constantly amazed at how many people will not take even a little time to do their homework when contemplating a significant purchase even when the answers at at their fingertips (keyboards). People don't even take the time to search on this forum for an answer that was given 10 times. They just post the same questions over and over.

It is not the consumer's job to educate the seller and people who don't research what they are buying get what they deserve.

People are not necessarily knowledgeable or professional just because they sell things... remember what P.T. Barnum said?

It'd be interesting to know how many water softeners Sears sells every day in the US and I'd venture to say that only rarely is the softener properly sized for the application. At Sears people are only asked is "how hard is your water" and then walked to a water softener OR the people come in with a sale ad and say "will this work at my house" or simply say "I'll take it".

I want to help you get your softener working as well as mine and I'm pretty poorly compensated for the effort.

 

Your bath tub mixer fixture is a compromise and won't flow what a simple H&C faucet will so use the 6.6gpm reading from the Clack.

I gotta go with what the Clack says because it is monitoring real world water usage and flow in your home and says... 6.6gpm.

Take the test strips and check the cold water hardness around the time it feels hard and every day till the softener regenerates. If the test strips say the water is hard before regeneration then you need a larger softener and you learned something.

So, as Clint Eastwood said "do you feel lucky?". Well, do ya?

 

I did homework and I'm still doing it. Gary Slusser's online calculator using my figures (24g hardness, 2ppl, 84gpd etc) gives me 16128 grains. At 6lbs of salt with 1cu ft of resin I would get 20000grains - almost 4000 above my needed capacity.

Using the calculator at apswater.com they recommend a 1.1cu ft unit.

My mailorder place (that mostly sells assembled units to plumbers & supply houses) and my local Clack dealer both suggested 1cu ft for me. Surely they're not in business to give out bad advice? How long would they stay in business doing that?

I've been kicking all this around and messing with my own softener settings since mid December so there can be few people that have done more softener homework than I. I guess I can be faulted for not stumbling into this fine site before yesterday. In that time I've been entertained with the back & forth arguments of the posters (names withheld!) at the softener forum on AbleToKnow.com. The "experts" there can't agree on anything.

Thanks for being patient with me 'Lurker. I'm doing my best here and all I can do is to check everyone's opinion (sellers, forum posters) and make up my mind.

But, all this still begs the question - who ARE 1 cu ft units for if they're not for a small house, low water user like my Mrs and I?

I'll bet those units outsell all others total.

You said this -

"I want to help you get your softener working as well as mine and I'm pretty poorly compensated for the effort"

I would imagine you're compensated by the satisfaction of helping others. I'm sure no-one on this forum mails $20 bills to you and I don't see you advertising a softener business so it must be self-satisfaction that drives you.

I hang out, and have for years, on a few other forums and I hand out MUCH tech advice on expensive bicycles. I've been instrumental in hundreds of people building their first bicycle wheels. I even have a website that (for free!) tells you how to do it. My sole payment is personal satisfaction. What payment (you say you're poorly compensated) are you expecting?

 

I was being completely factious and apparently failed badly.

Opinions are like (you know)... everybody has one.

The more people you ask, the more answers you'll get, but physics is physics and math is math and resin specs are resin specs.

If the test strips show hard water before your softener regenerates then you have the answer.

If the test strips show soft water all the way through till regeneration then everything is OK.

Online calculators are an average and are a sales tool but your Clack is measuring your peak SFR not averaging it.

And you are still making the same mistake in your logic. The problem is not an undersized softener based on less hardness removal capacity than needed but an undersized softener based on the lower SFR of the resin volume (5.0gpm) giving you that softening capacity than your plumbing and fixtures require (6.6gpm).

Those are two entirely different considerations when sizing a softener and both have to be considered to properly size a softener. Yes, you have adequate softening capacity but the volume of resin giving you that adequate softening capacity (1 cu ft of resin) has an SFR of 5gpm which is less than the 6.6gpm you require (according to your Clack).

You have to increase the resin volume to handle the SFR required and then program your softener and salt dose accordingly.

 

Either it's not your strong point or I'm too thick to get it! No matter!

Yep I'm aware of that 'Lurker but mine is a "below average" house. Hear me out here - I have 1/2" copper supply into the house. Not 3/4. As I've found, the biggest water flow is my laundry tub tap that flows at 6.6gpm. There ain't nothing unusual about MY tap. It's probably the same they sell by the boxfull at the Home Depot. If MY tap flows at 6.6gpm then millions of laundry tub taps flow at that rate. So they all overpower the generating capacity of 1cu ft of resin right? As I said in an earlier post - it's awful rare that we run that tap wide open.

This is where it gets comical - my old softener, that lasted me 28 years of trouble-free softening, was a brass-valved Fleck 3600 in a Myers softener. The model was a FAC 20-6. I just got out the manual that I have had since I bought the unit ($363) in 1979. From '76 we had one kid and from '81 we had two - both until the year 2000. Get this - that FAC 20-6 is a 2/3rds of a cubic foot softener. It has a service rate of 6gpm.

I had it set to re-generate every 4 days and use 6lbs of salt - I just looked.

And in all that time I don't ever remember running out of soft water.

We had the same 6.6gpm laundry tub tap all that time.

Just FYI !!

Yep I AM aware of the two different ratings even though you think I'm not. But the overwhelming thing that keeps going thru my thick noggin is that if MY 6.6gpm laundry tub tap is overwhelming my 1cu ft of resin's softening capacity then it must be happening to millions of other people as my tap and my softener are probably the most used units out there. Yep I also know that my skewed logic can't change the facts of science.

Tomorrow I'll be asking my local Clack dealer two questions -

1. Can you test my water for a week?
2. When you size a softener, what SFR is it based on and what is the max SFR that you consider your softener will handle? I will mention my tap's 6.6gpm max flow.

 

6gpm with the old Myers is certainly possible depending on the resin in 1979. One cubic foot of Purolite C100 has an SFR of 5gpm so 2/3 of a cube of whatever the popular 1979 resin was could have been 6gpm.

There are only two SFR figures pertaining to a water softener. The SFR of the control valve. In the case of the Clack WS1 that is 27gpm in service @ 15psi drop (includes bypass and meter) but that figure is limited by the SFR of the resin volume which is the second SFR figure and is the number limiting the SFR of the control valve (softener). The softener's SFR can be mitigated further by the system plumbing's SFR.

When you ask the Clack guy I bet he will say 27gpm or he'll tell you what you want to hear because you have been discussing this subject with him. When he gives you the answer it'd be a good time to pull the resin spec sheet out of your pocket and say 'then what about this?'.

It doesn't matter if you have a below average or average or above average house because your Clack is reporting 6.6gpm SFR.

How about waiting a month and then looking at the SFR reading in the Clack.

 

I'm smart enough (that surprises you eh?) to ask what the peak SFR is before hard water by-passes the resin. Let's see what he makes of that.

But here's a question for you 'Lurker. We know my peak flow is 6.6 as I measured it on the Diagnostics of my Clack. If I'd never had a softener where this was possible and I walked into your store, how would you calculate (without the above hindsight) the SFR capacity (peak demand gpm) that I need? I wouldn't be surprised if most sellers don't even think about it.

Apswater.com's calculator calculates it this way -

Bathrooms x Shower Flow Rate + 2 g.p.m. for other items = Peak flow rate.

For me (two BR's but never two showers running) that would be 1 x 1.9 + 2 = 2.9gpm. That's a long way from my laundry tap of 6.6.

I dunno what make of resin I've got.

I'm thinking of chillin' out on this subject for a few weeks as it's been forefront for two months. By then my Diagnostics can give a better picture. That max of 6.6 was the 6.6 I measured today. Maybe I've never used 6.6 before. I just talked over our peak usage with Momma. We can't ever remember running that tap wide open before. Nothing else in the house came close to 5gpm.

I think a week of daily water testing will tell me lots plus (after that) weekly dip-strip testing.

Goodnight! I need a stiff double rum.