The Empty

Not long after we moved into our current house, I started suspecting that the water softener was not doing its job. There was scale on the fixtures and showering didn't give that slick clean feel. I finally brought some water into a home improvement store for a free hardness test: 22 grains. Gack! We're on the municipal water supply here, but they get it from a series of wells. So, I put the old POS softener on bypass and started doing research.

I was very happy with my experience with CostLess back in Arizona. They didn't try to sell me soap, they weren't crazy expensive, and they sold me what I needed. The install was a deal, too, because they had a flat fee for install and I didn't even have a loop for the softener. They had to lay a lot pf pipe :). They don't do me a whole lot of good here in Illinois, though.

I started reading websites of purveyors of water equipment and DIY and home improvement forums. A lot of this reading told me what I already knew - the big guys like Kinetico and RainSoft ream you. That was why I was so happy to find someone who wasn't high pressure and trying to sell me a frickin' water softener for $3000!

I started to consider buying a Sears or GE softener. Then I started to realize that I could higher quality components that met my real softening needs and I could install it myself. I ended up deciding on Gary Slusser and his company, Quality Water Associates. Basically, Gary is an installer with a lot of years of experience that can show you what you need and set you up with the water equipment that will meet that need at a nice price. He also provides a great set of instructions and plenty of help over the phone.

The install was super easy and here is the basic summary of what I did. First, I my stuff by a very nice lady from UPS.

I already opened the box with the brine tank in it before the picture. The other boxes boxes are the brine tank, the valve, some gravel, and two boxes of resin. So next I started filling up the resin tank with first the gravel and then the resin. That stuff is like wet sand and it was a bit tedious, but easy.

Then I installed the Clack WS-1 Valve onto the tank.

Aside from the plastic cup to scoop resin, I have not needed any tools yet. For the rest of the install, this is all I needed: channel lock pliers, adjustable wrench, and a copper tubing cutter.

Now comes the point where I need to get that old POS out of there. First, I turned off the water and opened all the faucets. Then, I cut that bad boy out.

That tube cutter sure beats a hacksaw. So now is where it could have gotten more difficult. I could have done some pipe sweating to keep everything copper. That would have meant buying more equipment and materials and learning how to do it. I could have also joined PVC to the copper. That would be a bit eaiser, but you have the fumes and the cutting and the measuring. Instead, I picked up some flexible stainless steel tubing from Falcon Stainless that are awesome. Pop a couple of connectors onto the copper piping and screw on the SS tubing. Done. I should also note at this point is where I had to make a run to the store during the install. I hadn't realized that I only had a couple inches of teflon tape left. Oops.

After that connection, it was just connecting the brine tank, the discharge line, and getting the brine tank filled and flushed. Here she is:

If anyone is interested, you can write me for greater detail (as if this post wasn't long enough).