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water softner help in chosing and is this true
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All my post are independent, no contracts with any manufacture.
Matt you only seem to promote a few softener valves, the ones that need servicing the most.
Independent - but only recommends the most expensive type of softener !
Softeners do not need servicing ! Just a clean out of the salt tank very occasionally.
If you have been sold a softener that needs servicing you have been conned !
I have had a (single cylinder) softener since the 70s - never had any of them serviced - NEVER had a problem.
Beware of water softener salesmen !!!!0 -
Rubbish ! - how can a machine costing twice as much to buy as a single cylinder type and using salt at up to 3 times the price claim to be more economical to run ?Its false economy and not as good for my skin.
As all Ion exchange softeners work on the same chemical principle your second statement about your skin is just laughable and complete rubbish - again !
Your lucky your machine has been good to you but there are allot of people with not such good look.
The machine you have is not made any more nor is that company still running.
Permutit do not make softeners anymore, its only there name that lives on with Culligan sticking Permutit labels on some of there softeners.
Moonrakerz you say you never had any of them serviced. How many have you had?
It might help if you were to actually read my posts instead of just repeating the same old mantra about twin tank machines. I have said several times that I have had 3 (THREE) softeners.
NONE have ever been serviced and NONE have ever had a problem.
You seem to have a fixation with Permutit ! I corrected you in your PM about the ownership of this company which you were wrong on ! If it says Permutit on it I call it a Permutit ! I also call a Vauxhall a Vauxhall not an Opel or General Motors
Culligan are probably the biggest water softener manufacturers on the planet !
Perhaps you should tell B & Q too !
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9271767&ecamp=trf-005&CAWELAID=266887986
STOP peddling biased half-truths about twin cylinder water softeners. I will happily discuss the true differences but your claims are deliberately misleading people who wish to acquire one of these great little devices - for your financial benefit, dare I say !
PS: If you have a business to run how come you can afford to spend so much time on the Web ? I suppose at the inflated prices of a twin cylinder machine you don't actually have to sell many.0 -
Have done a bit of research to get some more up to date figures from the last time I did this.
Single cylinder softener £398.
Twin cylinder £830. (Found one which claimed to be "the smallest" - a snip at £1262 !!!!)
Cost of Block Salt 65p/kilo (That's more than table salt !!)
Cost of Granular Salt 24p/kilo
Assume salt usage of 100kG a year (pick a figure - any will do)
Block salt = £65 pa
Granular = £24 pa
Summary: You have paid over £400 more for the twin cylinder softener up front, you would lose about £20 pa in interest on this amount if it was still in your building society.
Salt costs are almost 3 times higher for a twin cylinder.
You state categorically that servicing is required on a twin cylinder. (£50 -£100 a time ?). I have had 30 years of never servicing a single cylinder machine without a problem.
I still have £400 to spend because I bought a single cylinder machine.
.................and you claim a single cylinder machine is "false economy" - pull the other one its has b***s on it !0 -
Well I'm still as confused as ever, and at the moment decided to wait until we have a new kitchen before deciding, the hard water is killing out en-suite though!
Presumably a single cylinder will use less water (for cleaning/flushing/regeneration) than a twin?
It's the additional water usage that bothers me more than anything, because effectively you can't see how much it's using, whereas you know the fixed cost of the unit and you know how much you are spending on salt...0 -
In summary.
If you want to buy one softener for the price of two, and pay a salesman's wage for his visit to your house (and the visits he made to other customers that didn't buy from him) then buy a twin tank softener. If you want to save a few hundred quid, go down to B and Q and buy a perfectly good and reliable machine for less than half the price..
Until I happened upon this thread I had no idea water softeners had become the realm of the type of sales techniques used to sell a particularly notorious brand of vacuum cleaner.. i.e. home visit from sales persons spouting scare stories and mistruths and trying to sell overly expensive equipment that suddenly becomes a whole lot cheaper when they phone their manager.
And no peshi.. I don't service many water softeners.. the ones I recommend just don't need anything doing to them.. that's why I would recommend them on a money saving web site.0 -
We had the second water softener company over this week. They carry Kinetico and their own single cylinder softener - Sofflow (as an earlier poster mentioned - based on an autotrol valve). Like the company last week they were professional, didnt knock their competitors (too much) and didnt apply any pressure.
We debated the pros and cons of single versus twin. There was no pressure to upsell to a 2020c or even the lower range Kinetico.
According to this company a single cylinder softener would only draw hardened water into the system when regenerating if the water system was used (say flushing the toilet) at 2:00 in the morning during the regeneration cycle. Otherwise it was continuous softened water.
Does anybody dispute this since this was the only factor I was concerned about that in my mind was weighing against a single cylinder system?
You use tablets in 25kg bags (£8.60/bag). There was additional salt usage of single versus twin but it was not that great a difference. There was a 2yr P+L warranty, 4ys if you bought the salt from them. We haggled a little on the cost of the softener which they took 12.5% off and came to £432+VAT for a CM10 metered Sofflow.
The thing that got me though was the installation fee. They were quoting £304+VAT!!!
Admittedly this including extras like fitting a stopcock (we dont have one) and some 10-15m of copper piping around the kitchen so a more involved install. However this still seemed an awful lot. According to the rep there is about £100 of material (plus supply+fitting a separate non-softened drinking tap).
The previous company was prepared to do all this for £200+VAT although with a much more expensive softener which I am sure was cross-subsidising the fitting charges.
And maintenance they suggested every 5-7 years at a cost of £150. Whilst the duration is fine I think the maintenance charge is outrageous. But the rep said you could get away without maintaining if you wanted to and that although they say the single cylinder softener has a 10-12yr life it should go on for much longer.
I was going to speak to my plumber to get a price from him. The only thing is that the guarantee the supplier offers will only cover the softener if we go down this route. If we take the whole package they will cover the whole install. Although I cant see what could go wrong I guess there is some virtue in this and it will avoid finger pointing...
So now, based on the continued really helpful discussion on this forum :Tand my own experience of speaking to two suppliers I am coming down much more on the side of the single cylinder. It's just the fitting charge is so much!!! Even paying the install we're still looking at £800ish single versus £1300ish twin for the same net effect just a different way of getting there. Seems a no-brainer really.
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Oh dear, I think peshi "doth protest too much"!!!
To answer your question regarding not servicing water softeners.. I base my argument on the fact that I don't service water softeners very often because in general they don't need servicing.. or is that too complicated for you to understand?0 -
Moonrakers you have had 3 softeners, if you bought a Kinetico you would still have it and you would have saved loads of money on salt and if your on a water meter loads on that too and you would have had no hassle swapping the units for new ones.
3 in three different houses !
"you would have saved loads of money on salt" - just totally untrue ! and you know it, judging by your more and more outlandish claims - and by your PMs to me as you cannot support your ludicrous claims on an open forum.
As I said before, if people want to spend well over £1000 on a softener that is up to them - but I am afraid people like you, peddling FALSE information just give the whole water softening industry a very bad name !0 -
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