Lies, damn lies and water softeners

[Packard V8]

A family member lives in the mountains and has very hard water. It kills lifetime guarantee Kohler ceramic washer faucets every few years.

Their water softener is a standard homeowner unit and has lasted ten years. It was obviously wearing down, using less salt and treated water gradually getting harder.

They called two local companies and both flat-out lied to them, said the homeowner unit would never work with their hard water supply and that it wasn't repairable; "one-use-and-done."

One company wanted $5,000 to install a commercial unit and the other quoted $7,000. When asked my opinion, I said we could recondition the existing tank for a couple of hundred dollars and a couple of hours of labor.

If I'd been home, I'd have sourced the gravel and resin locally, but they have Amazon Prime; the insanity of shipping a sack of pea gravel, but hey, it's free. The gravel, resin and a plastic funnel were less than $200, delivered to the door.

We turned off the water supply, unscrewed the controls, siphoned out the water to make it less messy to get outside, rinsed out the old fill, poured in the new and had it back on line and regenerating in less than an hour.

I recommended now they know how, repeat the procedure every five years.

The bad news is I realized my home unit is overdue for a flush and refill.

jack vines

 

[housewolf]

It’s not just the softener business, it’s the water treatment business. Worse than used car salesmen.

 

[quadrcr87]

I ran into the same issue dealing with Culligan and other companies. I ended up ordering a whole system online and installing it myself for $1,300. I didn't want lease payments or monthly service fees.

 

[BTL-A4]

@Packard V8 Do you have any detailed info to share about how you reconditioned your water softener? What is the resin, what else is needed, etc. I have one of these tanks that is supposedly "one and done", but it would be nice to be able to recondition it every 10 years. We just had it replaced recently, so it will be awhile. We had a LifeSource unit put in by the previous owner and it was due to be replaced. I forget what we got, but it was another brand that uses charcoal and resin, I think.

 

[Innovate1]

Moderately hard water where I live. I did the research and put in my own 20 years ago - bought it on line. It's a Fleck control - I am told they are high quality and last a long time. Still going strong with no issues. Think it was about $800 but prices are likely quite a bit more now. What control do you have? Do you have other issues besides hard water? Killing faucets after a few years seems pretty extreme - I have replaced a couple but many are still original.

 

[P0234]

Its sad how many companies just want to replace stuff instead of service/repair. I get it, its expensive, and they don't want to do returns, but just charge accordingly instead of lying.

 

[gregs]

Have you tried to clean the resin? It doesnt always work but sometimes it does. Basically you add citric acid to the brine tank. I think it was like 2 cups, then cycle it a couple of times in a row. Its supposed to help clean the scale off, and if you do the regen a couple times in a row it helps to loosen up all the media. I did it to mine when I was running out of soft water a few hundred gallons before it was set to regenerate.

 

[bb29510]

i dont know what going on but could you use a swimming pool sand flter and back flush every once in a while

 

[DGersic]

@Packard V8 Do you have any detailed info to share about how you reconditioned your water softener? What is the resin, what else is needed, etc. I have one of these tanks that is supposedly "one and done", but it would be nice to be able to recondition it every 10 years. We just had it replaced recently, so it will be awhile. We had a LifeSource unit put in by the previous owner and it was due to be replaced. I forget what we got, but it was another brand that uses charcoal and resin, I think.

It’s pretty straightforward. You remove the “valve” top from the tank. Drain the water. Dump out the old resin. Clean out any remaining resin (it’s kinda like sand in consistency). Dump in new resin. Reinstall the valve, and put it back in to service. If all goes well, it’s an easy afternoon project.

Parts, advice, supplies, and stuff you may need:

Softenerparts.com - Repair Parts and How To Guides

With one exception, the tanks are universal, and the valves are interchangeable. Naturally, I had the other brand (can’t recall the name right now), so when my old valve failed, I had to buy a new tank too.

 

[pcmeiners]

Many water treatment companies lie like hell. The stupidity..... if they were knowledgeable and were not trying to swindle people they would get more and repeated business..... but NO.

Anyway I purchased a home with a Culligan salt softener. I decided I would design/install my own system. Removing the Culigan system, the resin was never change, the salt container had a ton of insects in, and there was a great deal of iron oxide under a layer of salt, that container was never cleaned out. The amount of insects was disgusting.
If you have a salt softener, it only takes a couple hours to cleanup the salt tank and clean and replace the resin. Bit messy as the resin tank is heavy, best to do outside. The salt tank may have quit a bit of iron, and may need to be rinsed repeatedly, if you do not replace the salt

Anyway I have 2 large Manganese catalyst tank54", 2 activated charcoal tanks 54", super large pre-filter, 2 UV lamps, 1 aeration tank, and a couple 20" cartridge after filters at the water output. (4) Fleck valves, 2 on the Manganese catalyst tanks, 2 on the charcoal tanks. All in 1" copper pipe, ......as to the copper's cost when I started the project copper pipe/fitting were affordable, 1/2 through it became ridiculously priced.

Interesting ....
In PA as in many other areas we have Radon and other radionnuclides in our wells. So a large aeration tank and large charcoal filter can be used to removes them. Now if you have a small charcoal filter (like a scuba tank size), with years of use, in a Radon area, they become radioactive, so much so, your not suppose to be around the tank(s). Do not believe the Radon is the major concern as it has a short half life, it is the other long lived radioactive particles which are the issue.
Anyway, if you wait too long to replace the charcoal, >5 years, if you have high concentrations of Radon/radionuclides, your house becomes a radioactive waste site. If reported the government will seals your home, you never get it back.

 

[kj_mustang]

Decent info on how to keep your water softener working well. https://www.premierh2o.com/blogs/news/3-easy-ways-to-keep-your-water-softener-clean
I use Iron Out powder mixed with water and poured into my brine tank every couple months

 

[dcg9381]

High margin business. Can the "big names" ship inexperienced commission sales people to your door who don't know jack about water.
Get a real water test done. You can't determine what you need until you know what's in your water. And that includes "how hard" is it.
The "commercial" equipment to do this is available online and at a fraction of the cost of what it'd cost to have it installed. And most of these online companies will help you out. But to get the right system, you need to know what's in the water so you can have someone spec capacity.

I've been rolling my own system for more than 15 years now. Hard water is a bit of a *****, no matter what you do.. Which is partly why we switched to collecting rain.

Buy either Clack or Fleck valves, both are rebuild-able. And the tanks are just tanks, you can empty them and replace the media.

 

[930dreamer]

How long do the resin beads last, going on 15 years.

 

[CapriMikeC]

I had similar experiences with two salesmen quoting in excess of $5K to install a water softener. One guy had all kinds of parlor tricks and had to run his play book just like he'd been trained. Impossible to get a straight answer from either guy.

I wound up doing everything myself with a simple Rheem unit from Home Depot and a basic "whole house" filter. Works fine for my needs, especially since I only use less than 2000 gallons/month. My cheapy Amazon TDS meter went from around 470ppm to less than 10ppm.

 

[dcg9381]

How long do the resin beads last, going on 15 years.

Not 15 years. Time for a re-fresh. Typical 5-10 years.
How long they last depends on the TDS in your water, how often you're having to run the softener cycle, how much salt you're using, etc.

 

[930dreamer]

Not 15 years. Time for a re-fresh. Typical 5-10 years.
How long they last depends on the TDS in your water, how often you're having to run the softener cycle, how much salt you're using, etc.

Ok, time to change. What resin and any idea how much?

 

[BigMike782]

I have had wonderful success with water treatment. It is a locally owned company, they sold and serviced the equipment just as they said the would.....and at a fair price.
The real scam artist to me are the gutter guard people. Sales guy shows up......"is your wife here" yup. "She needs to come out so we can talk together" Nope, she trusts me.
84 feet of covered gutter was over 7,000.00.......GTFO!

 

[dcg9381]

Ok, time to change. What resin and any idea how much?

Ask these guys, I've bought hardware from them before. Just tell 'em what you have and let them know capacity of your tank:

Water Softeners & Whole Home Water Filters | Discount Water Softeners

Shop the best water softeners and whole home water filters at Discount Water Softeners to keep your water pure, soft, and free from impurities.

www.discountwatersofteners.com

 

[Copymutt]

Name me a trade that is not in the same business of bilking home owners? I dread the latter part of life where you can’t do it yourself.

 

[kbuhagiar]

The real scam artist to me are the gutter guard people. Sales guy shows up......"is your wife here" yup. "She needs to come out so we can talk together" Nope, she trusts me.
84 feet of covered gutter was over 7,000.00.......GTFO!

It's a well known fact that the gutter guard industry has recently changed their tactics...instead of showing the (questionable) benefits of their product, they now emphasize the fact that their products keep old men from having to clean their gutters, thus keeping them off of their shaky, unsafe ladders (which is why they want the wife involved in the discussion).

Pathetic. Anything for a buck.

 

[BombShelter]

I'm seeing more "national" type contractors come out and it's kind of the same sell. They bog you down for a few hours, get out the flip book and want you to decide that night. The price is always much higher then seems normal but don't worry, they have financing. Forget getting 2-3 other opinions, those guys don't have the pull of our national company.

 

[Sumboodie]

How long do the resin beads last, going on 15 years.

Mine is about that old, works fine.

 

[BrandonV]

Mine is about that old, works fine.

Same. I buy a test kit from Hach and test the hardness at various points during the month before regeneration.

When the water starts to get hard I'll replace the media. No reason to do it prematurely while its still working.

 

[RivennHewn]

Do you have any statistics on this?

 

[pcmeiners]

"The real scam artist to me are the gutter guard people."

and they learned from Jewelers/diamond dealers.

 

[4x4Pete]

"The real scam artist to me are the gutter guard people."

and they learned from Jewelers/diamond dealers.

Who learned from the biggest scammers of all- HVAC? Lol!

 

[pcmeiners]

The HVAC industry is not even in the ball park of Jewelers. My friend is a gem wholesaler, was with him quite a bit years back. On 47th street Manhattan, he purchased a diamond for $5000.00, walked across 47th street (200 feet) and sold it to another dealer 5 minutes later for $10,000.00; mind you this was in early 1980s money. Markups in the Jewelry trade are absurd.

 

[930dreamer]

And then there's furniture!