water softner help in chosing and is this true

Windlepoons

To be honest, it really is a simple job to do, it's as easy as taking a lid off a bottle.

1) Unscrew top (might be hard to turn, but it does turn)

2) Empty vessel into an old pillow case or cloth bag (this is to stop the resin from going
everywhere as it has a constancy of sand)

3) Fill vessel and swish around before pouring into pillow case (repeat until all the resin is out)

4) Pour new resin in using a funnel

5) Screw top back on and away you go.

In other news, I got an email from ecowater telling me my tapworks softener had been dispatched and sure enough I received it this morning. It seems solid and of a good build quality (much better than the permutit one i took back), iIhad a look at the easily accessible parts, not many have any labels on but the few that do have ecowater systems written on them.

Wont get to use it until Tuesday as that’s when the plumber is coming, as I havent had a softner installed before my pipe work needs to be moved around (due to a tight space) installation is nearly as much as the softener itself

Windlepoons

Used the softener for the first time today, but am not sure if it is working properly. It could be that I am expecting too much as I have never had one before.

The water does feel softer, but water marks are still appearing on the washing up and the shower screen.

Before the softener was fitted I measured the hardness using a TDS electonic meter. The before reading was 370ppm, the reading atfter fitting is 380ppm

I have read of people getting close to 0ppm, is my experiance common, or should i be getting beter quality water.

As far the the tapworks unit goes, it does seem well built and does have a few useful features such as

1) current water flow
2) Litres used today
3) Average litres per day

Doc_N

That's a little odd. You should notice a pretty dramatic change more or less straight away, but only, of course, from taps directly connected to the softener.

Any taps supplied from a hot water cylinder will take rather longer, naturally, because it takes a while for the soft water to replace the hard water in the cylinder.

It's not something as simple as that, is it?

Windlepoons

unfortunatly I tried all the taps connected to the softener and they al showed the same.

I boiled the kettle a few times this morning using softened water and it isn't showing any sign of limescale buildup although the tea did taste salty.

However, the washing up i left out to dry last night had dried on spots, and the spoons had white tide marks. wondering if its something to do with the salt.

I sent tapworks an email at about 3am this morning and was suprised to have a reply at 9am, hopefully they can decide if it is acting as expected or something is up.

iankw

Windlepoons wrote: »

unfortunatly I tried all the taps connected to the softener and they al showed the same.

I boiled the kettle a few times this morning using softened water and it isn't showing any sign of limescale buildup although the tea did taste salty.

However, the washing up i left out to dry last night had dried on spots, and the spoons had white tide marks. wondering if its something to do with the salt.

I sent tapworks an email at about 3am this morning and was suprised to have a reply at 9am, hopefully they can decide if it is acting as expected or something is up.

TDS meter measures Total Dissolved Solids and would not indicate hardness of water. If you want to reduce TDS then you need to filter your water not soften it.

When your softener was plumbed in the installer should have either left the cold side of your Kitchen sink tap Hard or supplied a drinking water touch tap (prefferably filtered) for your Drinking and cooking needs. Drinking softened water is not recommended and although harmless to most of the population it is not recommended for babies and pregnant women or people on a low sodium diet. If want to check water hardness then you need either a hardness meter or water hardness checking tablets.

When you have a softener installed you will get a lot of benefits immediately but due to existing scale in your system the benefits will only maximise when the softened water has dissolved the existing scale.

Re preference of unit to buy my choice for my home and my customers is the Atlantis AT210 which uses less salt and regen water than lots of other softeners on the market. Has reliable technology is fully automatic and has the ability to do mini regens when unexpected demand arises. Two models available one for normal tank fed systems and one for combi's. Simples.
Hope this helps someone.

Doc_N

How are you getting on with the Tapworks softener, Windlepoons? Does it live up to expectations?

Wondering whether to get one instead of replacing the resin in my rather old Ecowater.

Windlepoons

Doc_N wrote: »

How are you getting on with the Tapworks softener, Windlepoons? Does it live up to expectations?

Wondering whether to get one instead of replacing the resin in my rather old Ecowater.

I have had no problems and am more than happy with it, water is certainly a lot better now it is installed. My only complaint is that it shows you in real time how much water you have used, I went through a stage of checking how much water everything was using lol.

Their after sales support has been excellent, when I thought it wasnt performing properly they were really quick with the support, I sent them an email and recieved a reply within a few hours and even had a follow up call the next day to confirm I was happy.

Although it is branded as tapworks all emails I have had from them have been branded ecowater, and the 2 year warranty came in an ecowater branded envelope.

This is my first softener so I am unable to compare it to anything, but I am more than happy i got it and would recommend them.

Doc_N

Windlepoons wrote: »

I have had no problems and am more than happy with it...........

................................This is my first softener so I am unable to compare it to anything, but I am more than happy i got it and would recommend them.

Thanks for that. As I thought, you're getting something very similar to an Ecowater for less than half the price.

I need one for a relative, and you've made my mind up for me. Did you get the AD15 or the AD11?

Windlepoons

I went for the Ultra 9 in the end, lucky I did as it was a tight fit under the sink.

MoneyMate

As per Quote 636 ,Drinking softened water is not recommended and although harmless to most of the population it is not recommended, also soft water can be corrosive to some item in household use, eg/ some combi boilers when the softened water flows directly through some metals used within boilers.
In my previous house I had a Tapworks Softener great bit of kit softening all water apart from a drinking water tap in Kitchen, our boiler was a more conventional one heating a tank of hot water.
We found that it cost the same to soften ALL the house water than we were paying for just the Dishwasher granular salt. :beer: