Water softener

[RiverRat1]

In the settings you're supposed to set the hardness of your water. Does this change how the softener works at all? I thought the time between regens (or gallons) was the only thing that actually changed anything.

Our water is way too soft now. Hoping there's a way to get it less soft. Or will we just have to wait until the resin is used more? Or just get use to super soft water?

[dosrobles]

Plumb in a by-pass and let some unsoftened water in.

[bowhntrmatt]

Most likely, it changes how often it will regen. Like if you set your regen time to every 2 weeks, that is the max time between regens, but it will regen more often if usage exceeds its capacity. What do you mean by "too soft?" Like what is the sypmtom? salty tasting? or feels slimy?

[RiverRat1]

Most likely, it changes how often it will regen. Like if you set your regen time to every 2 weeks, that is the max time between regens, but it will regen more often if usage exceeds its capacity. What do you mean by "too soft?" Like what is the sypmtom? salty tasting? or feels slimy?

Makes sense. It's set to regen every 14 days but I see the gallon # counting down also.

Too soft - very hard to get soap rinsed off. I give up and just dry off after a while.

Since I have the 14 days set..and I see gallons counting down. Are you thinking the water hardness level I enter in changes the # of gallons between regens?

[TexasBob]

Makes sense. It's set to regen every 14 days but I see the gallon # counting down also.

Too soft - very hard to get soap rinsed off. I give up and just dry off after a while.

Since I have the 14 days set..and I see gallons counting down. Are you thinking the water hardness level I enter in changes the # of gallons between regens?

How long have you had it? Super weird for a week or two then you get used to it.

[BertramBass]

Pretty sure the soap gets washed off and that is just what it feels like using soft water...

[Bisch]

Yeah, after a while the soft water feels normal, and hard water feels weird.

Bisch

[Das71198]

Pretty sure the soap gets washed off and that is just what it feels like using soft water...

From the interwebs:


Understanding how your water softener works can clarify why this slimy feeling occurs. The ion exchange process swaps the calcium and magnesium ions in hard water with sodium or potassium ions, resulting in what we recognize as soft water. This change allows soaps and detergents to form suds more readily and rinse away cleanly, which is why water conditioned by water softeners might be slippery to the touch. While this might be perplexing, it signals that your filtration system is functioning as intended, softening the water by removing those hard minerals that cause buildup and scale. Key Takeaways

• Soft water can create a slippery feeling due to better soap lather and lack of mineral residue.
• The ion exchange process in water softeners is responsible for the soft and silky quality of your water.

[bowhntrmatt]

I was also going to ask how long you have had it. After a short time you will get used to that feeling and hate it when you don't have it. It's because you aren't scrubbing your body down with rocks anymore lol.

I would say to make sure that counter is set accurately. You could fudge it and have it regen less frequently, but that would likely make the water slowly get hard again and then bam! soft again after a regen so it would be even more noticeable and hard to get used to.

Just give it some time and get used to it and you will never want to live without a softener again.

[RiverRat1]

How long have you had it? Super weird for a week or two then you get used to it.

6 weeks or so.
I've stayed in places that use a water softener before. My wife had one growing up. Maybe we just forgot how soft the water was.

I was just trying to figure out exactly how these things work to be sure it's not working too good (I guess). Or that there's not a setting where it's leaving too much salt in resin tank or something.

But it's all good. Would rather it be like this than clogging plumbing fixtures.

[Huntindad]

use less soap...serious. if it is counting down gallons, it'll regen after so many gallons...not days. the day it regens, look at the gallon scale and see how many gallons it is. think mine is set at 1300 gallons.

[Txhunter3000]

6 weeks or so.
I've stayed in places that use a water softener before. My wife had one growing up. Maybe we just forgot how soft the water was.

I was just trying to figure out exactly how these things work to be sure it's not working too good (I guess). Or that there's not a setting where it's leaving too much salt in resin tank or something.

But it's all good. Would rather it be like this than clogging plumbing fixtures.

What unit did you buy?

[mavrick]

You should be able to set the”hardness” that will add gallons to the regen.

[60 Deluxe]

The hardness of your water is very important. The resin bed capacity determines how many gallons can be softened prior to the resin being washed and recharged. I'll give you an example. Our water out here in the country tests at 99 grains hardness. I purchased a softener with 30,000 grains capacity. Standard practice is to recharge the bed at 80% of capacity. That leaves me with 24,000 grain capacity. Divide that by the grains hardness to arrive at the number of gallons of water usage. In our case it comes out to about 300 gallons. Our friends living in town have water coming in that is roughly 20 grains hardness. They get five times as many gallons out of each recharge as we do. You will get better life out of your resin bed by following that rule of thumb of recharging when the bed is 80% exhausted. Our softener was recharging daily. It didn't take long to realize that I couldn't be putting that much salt into our septic tank, so the water softener was removed and we learned how to deal with hard water in other ways.