water softner help in chosing and is this true

Fred_Bear_2

After following this thread for the last few years I have decided to replace an aged Aquadial Prismertec with a small Tapworks softener which uses tablet salt. I have about 50kg of granular salt left over so I emailed Tapworks to ask if it would be ok to use this up but they said no (reason not given). Can anyone here explain why this is please?

Matt_Filterman

Hi Fred Bear.
Granular salt is always seen as the less desirable form of softener salt due to the fact that it can compress at the bottom of the brine tank. Certain water softeners have a brine well ( a 4"-5" tube in which the brine pick up tube sits) that has a screen at the base through which the brine passes to get to the brine pick up tube during a regeneration. In extreme cases the compacting of the salt can impede the flow of brine through the lower brine tube screen and cause regeneration problems. That said I've never seen it happen on a domestic water softener and only once in 15 years on a commercial softener.
My advice to you would be to contact Tapworks again and ask them for a reason why you can't use granular salt.. I can't imagine it's a secret. If you don't get a sensible response from them it might be worth considering using predominantly tablet salt as recommended and occasionally adding some of the granular salt until it is all used up.
Hope this helps.
Matt

Doc_N

Fred_Bear wrote: »

After following this thread for the last few years I have decided to replace an aged Aquadial Prismertec with a small Tapworks softener which uses tablet salt. I have about 50kg of granular salt left over so I emailed Tapworks to ask if it would be ok to use this up but they said no (reason not given). Can anyone here explain why this is please?

I wonder if there's some confusion over the word 'granular'?

The Tapworks website links to one of their manuals (http://www.tapworks.co.uk/downloads/Tapworks_Water_Softener_Owner_Manual.pdf) containing the clear warning:

DO NOT use granular salt
ONLY USE TABLET SALT OR PELLET SALT

So pellet salt is OK, but not granular. Do they perhaps see 'granular' as meaning like table salt?

moonrakerz

Having used a softener for many, many years and having used granular salt most of the time, I really don't see why a warning not to use granular is appropriate.

I would hazard a guess at this:-

Tapworks is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, an American Company - perhaps the manual referred to is a direct copy of a US document and "pellet" is the American word for "granular" ?

dfarry

Hi all..I've not read all this thread but I am as a new owner of a house that has a Waterside MC250 softener a bit confused.

According to the previous owner they were paying about £70 a year to Culligans for a maintenance contract that included delivery of 25kg of salt as we required them... I thought that sounds OK and for the past week we've been very happy with our new soft water system. We currently have one 25kg bag of Care Cube salt but have no idea how soon that will all be used.

I called Culligans to ask them about the service contract and salt and they said... "sorry we don't do that now" a service contract is £196 or you can pay £90 per call out and that covers up to one hour labour... But you'd have to get your salt elsewhere.

I've read lots on the type of salt to put in the softener.... as long as it is cheap and does the job I'll be happy but I am not sure where to get it from (I'm in Kent by the way).

Also I was thinking a service contract might be a safe option if it wasn't too much but I am not going to pay £200 per year, plus I've read here that softeners are quite reliable. The concern I have about that is that Culligans did some work on our softener before we bought the house because of overflowing, they replaced:
Valve Internals
Valve Cover
Clamp ??
Drive Gear
and two.... (unreadable)
So perhaps the machine isn't so reliable.... it's now 7 years old by the way.

So to summarise... where should I get my salt and should I bother with a service contract and if so how much would I generally have to pay?

moonrakerz

dfarry wrote: »

So to summarise... where should I get my salt and should I bother with a service contract and if so how much would I generally have to pay?

Don't bother with a service contract, £200 is just ludicrous, you can get a new machine for £400 ! Apart from which, it sounds as though they have replaced most of it anyway !

Get your salt at the cheapest place, try your local agricultural dealer.

Matt_Filterman

Hi dfarry.
I read your post with interest.
Unfortunately the softener you have fitted is in my opinion, and as recently stated in one of my posts, an absolutely dreadful piece of machinery. If you are in any doubt just go to a review site and read the reports.
My advice to you would be to let the softener run until it breaks down again (you might not need to wait too long!) and then replace it with a new one. Spending any money on servicing this unit would not, in my view, be well spent.
Good water softeners start at around £400 as moonrakerz has said. Spending more money doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a better softener..
Once again as moonrakerz has mentioned buy your salt as cheap and locally as possible and keep an eye out for good deals. Often buying a number of bags at the same time will can you a discount and/or free delivery but you need a clean, dry place to store the bags.
A quick word of warning.. make sure the overflow pipe on your present softener is connected, in good condition with no kinks, has a constant drop (i.e. doesn't try to flow uphill!) and is correctly routed out of the house.
Hope this helps.
Matt

Matt_Filterman

Where's peshi gone?????

dfarry

Thanks for your advice Matt, I will do as you've suggested.

Matt_Filterman

Hi again dfarry.
Another idea would be to get a local independent water softener company to just replace the control valve on your softener with a Fleck 5600 valve either in its timed or volume controlled versions. The resin vessel, resin and cabinet on your present water softener are perfectly good.. it's just the Culligan valve that is just so awful!
I can imagine it would cost around £250 to have the valve replaced (including parts and labour) and you'd end up with something that would probably last 10-15 years without any problems.
Thought I'd better add this note considering we're on a money saving web site!
Matt