Plumbing / water softener install question

[MasterSolenoid]

One thing I've been doing this Winter is:
Labeling all the pipes in the basement.
I have been following ANSI standards.

* Sewer
* Radon Vent
* Intake & Exhaust (for furnace)
* Natural Gas
* Plumbing Vent
* Central Vacuum
* Cold Water Supply
* Cold Water
* Hot Water

Pipe Marking Labels from Creative Safety Supply

Creative Safety Supply : We offer custom and pre-printed Pipe Marking Labels. No charge for customization and free samples

www.creativesafetysupply.com

I am not affiliated with this company, but I will say the prices are decent, fast shipping, and good customer service.

And I don't even have a tankless water heater, boiler, or water softener.

 

[alarmguy]

I've found with plumbing, it doesn't matter how much you plan and how many fittings you buy, you're always missing ONE and have to go back to the Home Depot/Lowes/Hardware Store.

Well said! When I do electric or plumbing I buy everything in site, within reason and then return what I don't use

 

[doitmyself]

Pretty sure those elbows are like a compression fitting.

Your pipes are CPVC though. Just be careful that stuff gets brittle when its old.

Is this the only answer to the OP's question, LOL? I've never seen those types of fittings.

I'm more intrigued by the OP's picture showing the pipes dangling loose over water heater exhaust. It just doesn't look right for a water softener install.

The Terry Love plumbing forum is the very best place to ask professionals and competent DIYers for this type of advice.

 

[Pablo]

Is this the only answer to the OP's question, LOL? I've never seen those types of fittings.

I'm more intrigued by the OP's picture showing the pipes dangling loose over water heater exhaust. It just doesn't look right for a water softener install.

The Terry Love plumbing forum is the very best place to ask professionals and competent DIYers for this type of advice.

Oh I was eyeballing that as well. Seemed janky as heck but I don’t earn big plumber crack dollars

 

[KrisZ]

This is a super easy install, that "rough in" is pretty much perfect for plug and play.
All you need to do is remove the middle piece between the elbows. Maybe the elbows if the connections on the softener are pointing up. Usually though they just point horizontally to the back of the unit.

As far as size, bigger ones are better, within reason of course because they will not need to regenerate as often. Most recommend once a week, but to me that is crazy inefficient. Mine regenerates once a month and it is perfect.

I got a 64000 grain unit because we are a family of 6 and it is great. It uses about half a bag of salt per regen and it regenerates about once per month. Smaller units actually use more salt per regen cycle and need to regenerate more often.

Also, I would recommend installing a whole house filter before the water softener. Helps prolong the unit.

Like this one:

 

[Hall]

Is this the only answer to the OP's question, LOL? I've never seen those types of fittings.

No idea why they used those other than making it easy to partially disassemble for a future softener install.

I'm more intrigued by the OP's picture showing the pipes dangling loose over water heater exhaust. It just doesn't look right for a water softener install.

They're not - at all. That's just an illusion from the angle I took the picture. These "dangling" pipes are completely in front of the water heater and the furnace is over to the right (if I stood back and faced that wall where everything is). It does look off from the picture though ! I took that picture from the left side of everything.

 

[SHOZ]

On mine I just used 1" water hose and hose clamps to go over the 3/4" NPT male threads. Been like that for 40 years.

 

[doitmyself]

As far as size, bigger ones are better, within reason of course because they will not need to regenerate as often. Most recommend once a week, but to me that is crazy inefficient. Mine regenerates once a month and it is perfect.

I got a 64000 grain unit because we are a family of 6 and it is great. It uses about half a bag of salt per regen and it regenerates about once per month. Smaller units actually use more salt per regen cycle and need to regenerate more often.

Following generalizations is risky. Just like furnaces need to be sized correctly, so do water softeners. An over-sized softener can be equally inefficient as an under-sized one. Just like with furnaces, there are algorithms to determine the most efficient softener for the specific circumstance. In my instance, where we have about 0.8 ppm iron in our water, a month long regeneration cycle would result in resin fouling, so your example would not be good to follow.

I tweaked my current softener size for maximum salt AND water efficiency.

Here's one resource I start with (there are numerous others): https://www.aquatell.ca/pages/ultimate-water-softener-guide

 

[KrisZ]

Water softeners are nothing like furnaces.
Efficiency has absolutely nothing to do with with softeners. It's just a loaded with salt ion resin that water passes though. There is no efficiency gained or lost by choosing a bigger size. There is however saving in the amount of salt being used. I save four times the salt compared to a unit that regenerates every week.

The name of the game is to figure out how many gallons of water can go though it before the ions are depleted. If minerals or iron fouling is expected, like I said, install a pre-filter. And you can always reduce the regen gallon amount. So instead of four weeks, you can go three. You will still be saving salt over weekly regens.

 

[CDX825]

Use this then, https://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBi...er-Softener-Connector-U3086FLEX24LF/203800359 ? I'm not finding any 3/4" NPT to 1" NPT braided lines which means if I wanted to use a threaded, braided line, I'd need to glue in a 3/4 x 1 bushing, then a 1" threaded adapter and that's just more joints/connections that I want to avoid.

I tried to use those shark bite hoses when I replaced a water heater a couple years ago that was plumbed with cpvc. The pipe was so brittle the shark bite fittings wouldn't work. Ended up having to do it all in cpvc.

 

[Hall]

Ended up having to do it all in cpvc.

What do you mean, "all" ? You hard-piped straight into your water heater ?

How old was your CPVC ?

 

[Rand]

pex is plumbing with legos. I'd rip all that cpvc out and pex it in with a $20 cinch tool and tubing cutter. (or crimp style $40 tool with crimp rings)
maybe its the lighting but that cpvc looks old and brittle better to ditch it now than in 5 years with a leak/crack.

Last time I replaced a well pressure tank

went from this

To this

 

[CDX825]

What do you mean, "all" ? You hard-piped straight into your water heater ?

How old was your CPVC ?

Yeah all the way to the heater. Pipe was probably from the late 90s to early 2000s if I was guessing.

 

[Hall]

pex is plumbing with legos. I'd rip all that cpvc out and pex it in

I did get the softener as well as a whole house filter installed a few weeks ago. I pre-installed/mounted the filter beforehand and a co-worker came over on a Sunday morning with ~25' of PEX and his tools. I had bought all of the necessary fittings beforehand and we got it done in less than 90 minutes (probably closer to an hour). Hardness level went from 356 mg/L to 0. I have no experience with water softeners so I was only thinking it will soften the water, but not reduce it to 0. If it went from 356 to 100, for all I knew, that would be acceptable and normal. After a few days to a week, we removed all of the sink aerators and shower heads and soaked them in some mineral removal solution. I also "cleaned" the dishwasher with the same solution by letting it run, stop it to let it soak, run again, repeat. As for the whole house filter, it's primarily for chlorine as we have city water. It will trap sediment but that should be pretty minimal. I will say this, the tap water is drinkable now.

The "janky" CPVC that was hanging down was reduced to a few inches of stubs with (2) Sharkbite elbows directing (or receiving) the PEX. No issues cutting the CPVC either - not "brittle" at all.

I also had to cut add'l CPVC for the ice maker connection. It was tapped into the incoming supply line, so pre-softener, and got that repaired with an Aqualock Watts (push-to-connect) coupling in place of the saddle valve. Then on the softened side, I added an Aqualock tee with 1/4 shut-off on the 1/4" hose connection.

I could post a picture but someone will critique something....

 

[KrisZ]

I did get the softener as well as a whole house filter installed a few weeks ago. I pre-installed/mounted the filter beforehand and a co-worker came over on a Sunday morning with ~25' of PEX and his tools. I had bought all of the necessary fittings beforehand and we got it done in less than 90 minutes (probably closer to an hour). Hardness level went from 356 mg/L to 0. I have no experience with water softeners so I was only thinking it will soften the water, but not reduce it to 0. If it went from 356 to 100, for all I knew, that would be acceptable and normal. After a few days to a week, we removed all of the sink aerators and shower heads and soaked them in some mineral removal solution. I also "cleaned" the dishwasher with the same solution by letting it run, stop it to let it soak, run again, repeat. As for the whole house filter, it's primarily for chlorine as we have city water. It will trap sediment but that should be pretty minimal. I will say this, the tap water is drinkable now.

The "janky" CPVC that was hanging down was reduced to a few inches of stubs with (2) Sharkbite elbows directing (or receiving) the PEX. No issues cutting the CPVC either - not "brittle" at all.

I also had to cut add'l CPVC for the ice maker connection. It was tapped into the incoming supply line, so pre-softener, and got that repaired with an Aqualock Watts (push-to-connect) coupling in place of the saddle valve. Then on the softened side, I added an Aqualock tee with 1/4 shut-off on the 1/4" hose connection.

I could post a picture but someone will critique something....

Nice.

Now monitor the water hardness to see if you have the regeneration set correctly. If it's set to too many gallons, the hardness will start to creep up.

 

[Hall]

Now monitor the water hardness to see if you have the regeneration set correctly. If it's set to too many gallons, the hardness will start to creep up.

I called the city before buying/installing the softener just to ask them what hardness levels they measure at the plant. Funny enough, when I asked for "the water department" I got transferred to a lady in the billing group. I jokingly told her why I was calling and it's so common, they have the values on a bulletin board or something, which she provided me. It was within the range I measured (well, a co-worker did using a Merck hardness tester). The softener has you input the hardness value in during initial setup and from there, it seems to do the work. It monitors water flow, i.e. usage, and regenerates as needed. It's a Rheem and is supposed to "learn".

 

[KrisZ]

I called the city before buying/installing the softener just to ask them what hardness levels they measure at the plant. Funny enough, when I asked for "the water department" I got transferred to a lady in the billing group. I jokingly told her why I was calling and it's so common, they have the values on a bulletin board or something, which she provided me. It was within the range I measured (well, a co-worker did using a Merck hardness tester). The softener has you input the hardness value in during initial setup and from there, it seems to do the work. It monitors water flow, i.e. usage, and regenerates as needed. It's a Rheem and is supposed to "learn".

Looks like your unit is more sophisticated than mine and will actually get the number of gallons for each regen correctly.

In my case, I had to do the calculation manually and it gave me the number of gallons to enter into the unit when first programming it. However in my case that number seemed too high, because we could actually feel the water being hard again when taking a shower towards the end of the cycle. I had to lower that number. I'd rather waste some salt than have the water feeling odd and hear my wife complain

So just keep am eye on it just before the regeneration is about to happen. You or your wife will likely feel the water being different if the resin is fully depleted from salt.

Edit:
Also, if your water has a lot of iron and other minerals, get Iron Out and use it on an annual basis to clean up the resin. The instructions for use in water softeners are on the bottle.