water softner help in chosing and is this true

Spikey101

Hi everyone!

This thread has been an interesting read and I reckon mostly there's not much between most softeners by the looks.

I'm a plumber although obviously have no experience in this field YET!! My local merchant recommend Calmag Calsoft softeners which can be found by googling Calsoft (I can't post links yet sorry!)

I believe the price is around £400 for the mini version (up to 8 people). It's metered but my only worry is it uses 85 litres per regen and 2kg of salt. Is this salt amount about correct? Seems a lot. Also doesn't show a bin size but filling it up a lot is no biggy for me. I do like the high flow rate and good adjustable programmer on it.

Other than that I'm stumped. Don't want to pay much more than 450 but there's so many that seem so similar it's a minefield.

In the spirit of this past xmas... Help me mse you're my only hope!

malc_b

The calsoft seems pretty primitive for the money. Looking at it I would say it is just a timer driven softener. It regens every night with a fixed amount of salt. The salt amount is controlled by moving a bung! The timing is controlled by an external time clock. I guess at least there is not much to go wrong and should the time clock fail you'd just buy another. Efficiency will be pretty poor though, same for all timer controlled softeners. Cheapest to run are the metered types which measure the water used and only regen when needed and some also adjust the salt used to match the water used.

The regen water is on the high side too. For example, the figures for one I've looked are 59 l + 1.1kg for 1650 l and in that water cost is 29% of the total cost (based on £3.79 /m3 water + sewage cost, and salt at 50.3p/kg). The other thing I would suggest putting in is a PRV to control the mains water pressure. The regen water usage is usually just timed and based on 2bar. High water pressure will mean more water usage in regen so it makes sense to control that.

SteveH2

Hi all - after much research, and in particular the outstanding help on this thread I decided to try and repay the debt of all those people who have posted on here by adding my own experience. We are a family of 2 adults. Our house is a small cottage, we have 2 bathrooms but the two of us do not get through all that much (metered) water in a day (showers rather than baths).
Our kitchen was replaced 6 months ago. Unfortunately we didn't think of fitting a softener at the same time so space is limited under our kitchen sink and in particular the height under the underslung sink has been a serious limiting factor. I was convinced by all the arguments in this forum that we didn't need all the fancy twin tank stuff and was aiming to spend around £400. The favoured machines on this forum (Tapworks etc) were too tall and I didn't fancy cutting chunks out of our new kitchen cabinet. In the end I found a small single tank machine at EMWC for £279. It uses the favoured Autotrol valve and it just squeezes under our sink. The tank is very slim so that it fills only half of our (standard size) cupboard and there is plenty of space at the back of the machine for making the valve connections etc. It was delivered quickly and the instructions are well written and relatively comprehensive. I installed it myself (we have just finished a major 18 month house renovation and have had enough of plumbers and the like !). I also added a Pressure Reducing Valve (PRV) as our water pressure is quite high. The softener has been working 2 days so early days both in respect to longevity and effectiveness but so far we are very happy with both this machine and the purchasing experience.

Spikey101

The calsoft units are all metered, at least the ones I was looking at... But I digress, you are still correct. I've been phoning around a load of the big manufacturers this morning getting all the resin amounts and regeneration stats and it seems the Calsoft is quite low efficiency.

Atlantis have just released the AT350 which holds 2500 litres on one regeneration, uses 1.44KG of salt and only 30 litres of water. I did ask how they lowered that so much but he just said using some new valve and I didn't pry as I was writing down numbers. Possibly by fitting a PRV inside so as to only wash at the lowest possible correct pressure?

Unfortunately it comes at a higher than average price at about £550 although I haven't shopped about yet. The Atlantis 210 is £450 but uses double the wash down water. They also have a 20KG bin which is quite a good size.

Onwards to the Tap works technical help line!

csgohan4

Spikey101 wrote: »

The calsoft units are all metered, at least the ones I was looking at... But I digress, you are still correct. I've been phoning around a load of the big manufacturers this morning getting all the resin amounts and regeneration stats and it seems the Calsoft is quite low efficiency.

Atlantis have just released the AT350 which holds 2500 litres on one regeneration, uses 1.44KG of salt and only 30 litres of water. I did ask how they lowered that so much but he just said using some new valve and I didn't pry as I was writing down numbers. Possibly by fitting a PRV inside so as to only wash at the lowest possible correct pressure?

Unfortunately it comes at a higher than average price at about £550 although I haven't shopped about yet. The Atlantis 210 is £450 but uses double the wash down water. They also have a 20KG bin which is quite a good size.

Onwards to the Tap works technical help line!

20kg, thats massive, thats as big as the salt bags I get

malc_b

Spikey101 wrote: »

The calsoft units are all metered, at least the ones I was looking at...

You didn't post a link and the calsoft one google came up with was this one. I assume that isn't the one then?

ex_directory

SteveH2 wrote: »

In the end I found a small single tank machine at EMWC for £279. It uses the favoured Autotrol valve and it just squeezes under our sink. The tank is very slim so that it fills only half of our (standard size) cupboard and there is plenty of space at the back of the machine for making the valve connections etc. It was delivered quickly and the instructions are well written and relatively comprehensive. I installed it myself (we have just finished a major 18 month house renovation and have had enough of plumbers and the like !). I also added a Pressure Reducing Valve (PRV) as our water pressure is quite high. The softener has been working 2 days so early days both in respect to longevity and effectiveness but so far we are very happy with both this machine and the purchasing experience.

Steve, 2 weeks in how is it looking??

I think this unit is the TCS 100 right? It is now up to 339 delivered but still very reasonable if it does the job!?

SteveH2

Hi - sorry, I meant £379, not £279. Its the AQ8 model. I got this from EMWC but I noticed that EasyH20 do what appears to be the same model (same size, valve capacity etc but different name). We have had this softener now for almost a month. There are two of us in the house and as well as normal showers etc its also supplying soft water to our washing machine. It takes 33 minutes to regenerate and does so every 3-4 days which is probably a bit more often than some but, for us, no problem and its compact size is a real bonus. I haven't paid much attention to how much salt or water it uses but it has not made much of a dent on the 25kg bag of salt I bought. So far, very happy with it and already noticing the soft water benefits around the house.

Watersafe

Combi boilers should always be installed with some type of scale reducer.

There are two sides to your combi boiler heating system; heating and hot water (DHW, domestic hot water).

Your heating circuit is heated via the Primary Heat Exchanger.

Your DHW is heated in-line via a Secondary Heat Exchanger (the primary water is diverted to the secondary heat exchanger to heat the DHW indirectly).

It is the DHW that should be softened (or at least have an in-line scale reducer installed on to the cold feed), as it is the secondary heat exchangers that can get blocked up with scale.

The heating circuit should be filled with unsoftened water as softened water would accelerate corrosion. This is done by isolating your softener temporarily via the valves supplied (bypassing softener) to fill your heating circuit. Once the heating is full or water, it is full. Re-instate softener once heating is full. If a scale reducer is fitted to the cold water feed to the combi boiler instead, it is a good idea to have an external R24 filling loop fitted BEFORE the scale reducer.

Your drinking water should always be unsoftened and should be the first tee BEFORE the water softener. Softened drinking water is bad for your health!

Hope this helps. DHW should be softened, heating circuit and drinking water should be unsoftened.

wealdroam

Watersafe wrote: »

Softened drinking water is bad for your health!

Hi Watersafe. Welcome to the forums.

Are you sure that statement is correct?
Is softened drinking water really bad for you?

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, as we all are, but can you point us to concrete evidence that softened drinking water is bad for your health?

Just to add:
Are you representing WaterSafe Installers' Scheme Limited?