water softner help in chosing and is this true

spirit

I've just bought one from e-bay. The one I plumped for is a timer controlled 10 litre which was £264.33.

It's by european water care. after doing some research, plumbworld sells them but at a much higher price.

Now, where's the cheapest place to get salt from please?

moonrakerz

spirit wrote: »

Now, where's the cheapest place to get salt from please?

Try your local Agricultural Merchants or ring round Salt Dealers - wouldn't recommend going to a softener dealer or one of the DIY places.

Doc_N

RameshSinha wrote: »

I've recently moved to Herts and am renovating the house to include a much needed water softener.

I've narrowed down my search for a water softener to either a Tapworks AD11 or an Atlantis AT210.

The Atlantis AT210 is recommended by a few separate local plumbing merchants and my plumber has that one installed. Has anyone else heard of it or had any experience of it ? The Tapworks one is well talked about on this forum.

Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated - many thanks

Never heard of the Atlantis, but I have recommended that the Tapworks is worth checking out - that's on the basis of my positive experience with the equivalent Ecowater model.

My guess is that the Tapworks and Ecowater models are more or less the same. They both come from the same manufacturer, and the specifications look very similar. My local dealer tells me that they're mechanically and electrically very different, but I'm not sure whether he's perhaps being economical with the truth.

Ideally, I'd want to find a dealer who can show you both (they often sell both) and check out the functional parts - it may just be a cosmetic difference between the two.

If you do do that, please feed the outcome back to the forum. It's still very much an unanswered question.

freddieg_3

Hi folks, having read the notes here, it prompted me to enquire of Potterton Service Team, as i have just had a new Potterton Gold HE Combi boiler installed. I asked if they have any view on using artificially softened water in the sealed central heating system. They replied very quickly as follows:

"We do not recommend the use of artificially softened water in a heating system. Wherever possible the feed water for the system should be taken from an untreated source, if this is not possible it is essential that the system corrosion inhibitor levels are maintained. Any issues attributed to the use of artificially softened water will not be covered by the boiler warranty.

There are no problems with the use of treated water in the domestic hot water supply ."

In addition to keeping it Fernoxed, I shall therefore be sure to fill the system via the bypass valve to the softener, which I hope to install once I've solved the vexed problem of which softener to buy.

Does anyone have any experience of Monarch softeners? The Midi seems reasonably priced if it's reliable.... Matt, are you aware from your trade experiences whether they use your preferred valves, please?

Thanks for any feedback.

Matt_Filterman

Hi freddieg.
Sorry for taking so long to reply. I don't know much about Monarch so can't really help. As always I would recommend buying from a local company so if anything goes wrong you have someone to go back to. Water softeners are quite complex machines and whilst they are usually very reliable they can be a complete nightmare to put right, particularly if they develop an intermittent fault.
Regards Matt

spirit

I looked at Monarch's but found them to be quite expensive for what they are.

Just had a nice long bath in my now softened water. Whichever one you go for, you won't regret it. :j

carynh

Hi all, we are looking at installing a water softener as we live in a very hard water area and all appliances are rapidly scaling-up. we unfortunately have very low mains pressure. a chap a few doors down put in a softener and had to remove it again as it required higher pressure than was available. my question is: are there any softeners that will cope well with low mains pressure?

spirit

carynh wrote: »

Hi all, we are looking at installing a water softener as we live in a very hard water area and all appliances are rapidly scaling-up. we unfortunately have very low mains pressure. a chap a few doors down put in a softener and had to remove it again as it required higher pressure than was available. my question is: are there any softeners that will cope well with low mains pressure?

can't help you with the technical stuff carynh but I am in a low water pressure area and have no problems.

hope one of the techhies can advise you further.

Matt_Filterman

Hi carynh.
It all depends on how low the pressure is.. Most softeners need at least 1.5 bars of pressure (about 22 psi) for the injector to draw brine. If your neighbour had problems then you probably will too. Having said that if he lives at a higher elevation than you then there might be hope. For every 10 meters of height, the pressure within the water main increases by 1 Bar. If he lives 10 meters in height above you (lets say just up the road a bit for instance) and is connected to the same water system, then you'll have at 1.0 bar of pressure more than him and might be OK.. If he has 0.5 0f a bar pressure, you'll have 1.5 bars.. etc. etc.
It is possible to boost the mains water pressure by fitting a water storage tank and a booster pump. This obviously gets more complicated and costly but may be worth doing if the low pressure is causing other problems like washing machine not working at certain times of the day due to low pressure..
Hope this helps.
Matt

carynh

Matt_Filterman wrote: »

Most softeners need at least 1.5 bars of pressure (about 22 psi) for the injector to draw brine.

Looks like it will have to be the Kinetico 2020c then [sheepish face] as it looks to have a min operating pressure of 0.83 bars... and I had really changed my mind after reading this thread!