Water Testing

[GaryM]

What's a reliable place to have water tested for hardness? Someplace without a vested interest in the results.

I'm in Eastern Missouri. My water comes from a well run by a water district, Montgomery County Water District. They claim 9 grains of hardness, but my plumber claims it's a lot higher than that.

I have a WaterBoss softener that I use Potassium Chloride in and have it set as if the hardness were 20 grains or so, based on my plumbers claims. If I know the true hardness, I might be able to lengthen the regen time and save on consumables.

[GaryQWA]

You can have anyone in water treatment do a hardness test without concern. There's no sense in them lying about how hard the water is; you already know it's hard. Or you can take a sample (8oz) to a lab or buy a test kit at most any big box or hardware store and test it your self but... that won't give you the highest hardness the city water will get to at any time.

City water usually varies from time to time and you have to set up a softener for the highest hardness or the softener will not work right. Once you know the hardness, do a Google search for "softener sizing chart" with the "" and find a site that gets into calculating the salt dose and capacity you should program the control valve for.

Using potassium chloride requires an increased salt dose than if you were using sodium chloride. If you used 6 lb/cuft, you need 6% more potassium. Below 6/cuft you need up to 30% more. The reason is that there is no resin made in the potassium form, they are all sodium form resins and thereby potassium is not as 'efficient'; or I should say good. And if you are using PC due to health concerns of added sodium, the formula is 7.85 mg/l added sodium per grain per gallon of hardness. in your case 9*7.78=70.65 mg added per roughly a quart. A slice of white bread has 140-160 mg of sodium, so drink a quart of your sodium softened water and one less slice of bread and you'll REDUCE your sodium intake...

Check this out:
http://www.awqinc.com/sodium_softening.html

You don't want to go more than 7-9 days between regenerations. It shortens the life of the resin if you do.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[GaryM]

GaryQWA,

I was going to PM you about this, then considered that others may be interested in the answers.

The WaterBoss softener has only one setting. The user enters the hardness and the electronic controls do the rest. They do give instructions on increasing the setting if there's iron in the water, but I don't remember any adjustments with regard to potassium vs. sodium. Guess I'll get out the book and /or check their website.

I chose the WaterBoss for several reasons, none of which my plumber agrees with.

Compact size (probably shouldn't be a consideration)
18 Gallons per regeneration (a plus on a septic system)
Persuasive "information" on their website

I can always change it out, right?

It's given no problems for two years. Which I admit is not a guarentee it won't fail tonight while I'm asleep. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

I've been using potassium because I was under the impression that potassium was better for the septic system. There was a thread not long ago, and I think you were a contributor, that pointed out that the calcium trapped by the resin bed was what went down the drain, not the sodium used in the regen process. Makes sense when you think about it, but I'd guess that many of us never gave it the thought it deserved. OK, maybe you and Pat.

[egon]

Gary;

If you use salt for regeneration rest assured there will be some go down the drain to the septic tank.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

Egon,

Yes, I know that some of it goes down the drain, but it's not the case that if 25 gallons are used to regen, that it's 25 gallons of brine going down the drain.

Does anyone plumb the softener outflow to a dry well? I might have done so if I'd thought of it.

[GaryQWA]

Yes I too don't like PMs because others can't learn from them.

All control valves have a means to change the salt dose but... Most if not all softener control valve manufacturer consumer manuals and/or dealers do not tell the consumer how to change the salt dose. IIRC, your control valve is based on a heavily modified Fleck 5600.

You get 3 lbs of salt dissolved into a gallon of water. The amount of water sent to the brine tank during brine refill establishes the salt dose. That flow of water is flow controlled, usually at .5 gpm and then timed. OR... cheaper softeners use a float in the brine tank to shut off the water. They do not have a safety brine system, which is a float controlled vale that shuts of the water flow if the water level gets too high and then overflows salt water onto the floor. Maximum salt dose per cuft is 15 lbs.

Compact size and very few gallons of water used per regeneration says it must regenerate more frequently than a 'regular' size softener. Their marketing is great but WaterBoss is highly proprietary and thereby there's few if any dealers that will or can work on it. that makes them a throw away softener. So I agree with the plumber. See here for info on correctly sizing a softener:
http://www.qualitywaterassociates.co...izingchart.htm

As to the septic system, a softener uses some of the sodium part of the sodium chloride (salt) and the rest all goes to drain. Whatever the salt dose lbs are, goes to drain. A dry well has a large risk of polluting the groundwater, and any well within 'reach'. The US EPA has twice done research on septic systems and softener discharge. In both cases they say no problem and if there is any measurable change, it's a slight improvement in the operation of the septic system due to the 'extra' water. For more info on septic systems and softener discharge water...
http://www.epa.gov/ord/NRMRL/pubs/62...8/html/fs3.htm
http://tinyurl.com/63bq7
http://wqa.org/sitelogic.cfm?ID=212

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[GaryM]

Thanks for the additional information, I guess when I run out of PCl I'll switch to SCl and save a few bucks.

I see some SCl advertised, marked on the bag, as "solar salt". Would there be any advantage to using same? Off hand I'd think not, but then I'm no expert. Reading Country by Net and Tractor by Net for a few years has helped me realize that there are lots of things I'm no expert on. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

My wife and I actually did visit a salt mine in Austria back in 1986. Quite interesting. Much of the salt there is now extracted using a water extraction system, but some is still mined just like many other minerals.

[GaryQWA]

I suggest solar salt. It causes the fewest if any salt related problems, and it is always the cheapest.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[GaryM]

Ok Gary , thanks for the suggestion. I'm down to one bag of potassium chloride, so I'll pick up some "solar salt" this weekend.

[Pat]

I used to see several solar salt lagoons in San Diego in various stages of drying. I was not impressed with the purity of the product as scraped up from the bottom of a repetitively filled and dried lagoon. Think seaguls and other contaminates. Do they "post process" this stuff after scraping it out of the drying lagoons? I have also been on board a kelp cutter (giant mowing machine afloat.) They use kelp to make toothpaste, icecream, cosmetics, wiener skins, and on and on. I have been on several fishing boats and down wind once of a Korean shark fishing boat and the smell was pretty bad but the kelp boat was way worse. Thousands of dead and dying kelp crabs in the load with seagulls picking though the mess to ewat crabs. Oh well, I'm sure they process the crabs and gull droppiingss out of it.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]