Water Softners

I installed an Aqua-Pure by Cuno softener a year ago. http://www.aquapure.com/sysproducts/cws.html
I had my plumber pick it up through his local distributor. With tax, it was around 800.00. The unit will soften using either sodium pellets or potassium. It was simple to hook up and I'm very pleased with it's performance. Our water 10 grains hard and was clogging up my on-demand water heater, shower heads and aerator. Before I installed the unit I was cleaning these out every 2 weeks, now I don't have to touch them. I would highly recommend one of these if you can find a plumbing professional to help you get your hands on one. I had quotes from all the TV advertised companies - they want around 5K for their systems. Their hardware doesn't cost this much - they make their money on the service contracts that sell with the units. If you get one of these sales reps in your door, good luck getting them out of your house without a signed contract. They almost had me and my wife sold after they did an in-house demo. I had to kick 2x sales reps out of my house - both with a major attitude after I politely declined their contract because I told them I wanted to shop around.

Anyone ever heard of this?
http://www.easywater.com/
Does it work?

Easy water ! WOW what a pricey little bugger bear.
They have been around for years and as far as I know
have not had their pants sued off for fraud, so the must
do at least some good, or at least no harm.

TSB

I picked one up at Sears. Have alot of iron in a deep well. I put in a whole house water filter before the unit. Catches tons of crap. Have to change it about once a month. Also every moth I drop 2 or 3 1"round concentreated swimming pool chlorine tablets into the well. One of the biggest things that you have to do to keep the unit working right is to clean the beads out once every 3 months. They sell a special cleaner to clean them.

ken wrote:I picked one up at Sears. Have alot of iron in a deep well. I put in a whole house water filter before the unit. Catches tons of crap. Have to change it about once a month. Also every moth I drop 2 or 3 1"round concentreated swimming pool chlorine tablets into the well. One of the biggest things that you have to do to keep the unit working right is to clean the beads out once every 3 months. They sell a special cleaner to clean them.

Be aware that chlorine reduces the useful life of the resins (beads) used in a softener.

When chlorine is used to treat for high iron levels it is common practice to put a stage of treatment before the softener to remove the chlorine.

rockwood wrote:Anyone ever heard of this?
http://www.easywater.com/
Does it work?

No, they do not. I had to ask for a refund & they were nice enough to give me one(after I played the Jesus card). They did try to sell me another "more powerful" model though. Finally went with a Sears Kenmore. Nice unit. Even tells you when to add more salt, on sale with no intrest for a year, 471 bucks..............

Bob wrote:

ken wrote:I picked one up at Sears. Have alot of iron in a deep well. I put in a whole house water filter before the unit. Catches tons of crap. Have to change it about once a month. Also every moth I drop 2 or 3 1"round concentreated swimming pool chlorine tablets into the well. One of the biggest things that you have to do to keep the unit working right is to clean the beads out once every 3 months. They sell a special cleaner to clean them.

Be aware that chlorine reduces the useful life of the resins (beads) used in a softener.

When chlorine is used to treat for high iron levels it is common practice to put a stage of treatment before the softener to remove the chlorine.

If I recall correctly, the cleaner that was sold by Sears is actually Sodium Hypochlorite (Hypochloride salts). I used it once many years ago on my first Sears softener with good results. This is the concentrated form that is diluted down for household use as chlorine bleach. The difference must be - guessing here - that when using it as an iron treatment, the resin is in constant contact with the chlorine in solution. When use in concentrated Sodium Hypochlorite form prescribed to clean the resin, the instructions state to run it through several rinses. It was a long time ago that I used it. The resin never kicked but the timer died after 19 -20 years.

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:If I recall correctly, the cleaner that was sold by Sears is actually Sodium Hypochlorite (Hypochloride salts). I used it once many years ago on my first Sears softener with good results. This is the concentrated form that is diluted down for household use as chlorine bleach. The difference must be - guessing here - that when using it as an iron treatment, the resin is in constant contact with the chlorine in solution. When use in concentrated Sodium Hypochlorite form prescribed to clean the resin, the instructions state to run it through several rinses. It was a long time ago that I used it. The resin never kicked but the timer died after 19 -20 years.

A common cleaner used for softeners is "Super Iron Out" the major ingredient is Sodium hydrosulfite. Citric acid is another common resin cleaner.

I almost forget, between my layers of salt, I add a thing called "Culligan - Iron Eater." It states it removes rust and iron for softners and fixtures. It contains sodium hydrosulfite and sodium bisulfite. The Culligan guy recommended it. I just sprinkle a layer down before I add another bag of salt.

Dan

Here's something else to be aware of if you have soft water or use a water softener. I just found this information because my wife was complaining about our clear glass items become etched. Etching is not water stains but discoloration/clouding caused by chemical changes in the glass. I found this on the Water Quality Association's web site.

http://www.wqa.org/sitelogic.cfm?id=352

Dishwasher etching is the deterioration by chemical change on the surface of glassware caused by the action of high temperatures and excessive dishwasher detergents. Etching is caused by the strong phosphate sequesterants (e.g., trisodium phosphate) in dishwashing detergent. But it may be triggered by the combination of extremely hot water, soft water, and too much detergent. The high water temperature can cause the detergent phosphate compounds to break down into an even more aggressive form. If hardness is available, it will consume the most aggressive of these sequestering chemicals. Otherwise, however, the detergent agents can actually extract elements directly from the glassware composition. The solution to etching is to use less detergent and water temperatures less than 140o F when you have soft water. Water softening is such an enhancement that the dishes will get cleaned just as well with less detergent and 120o – 140o F water in softened water.