I’ve read that the two can sometimes be used interchangeably, but have not been able to find how to determine when they are not.  We have always used Potassium with our current system, but it is becoming increasingly harder to find locally and much more expensive ($24 for a 40lb bag at the only place I know of that still has it).  How do I determine if I can substitute Sodium Chloride in our system.  The control valves say “Water Guard” on them, but the tanks don’t have any labels or writing that I can see.

Answer: Potassium chloride and sodium chloride can be substituted as desired – no problem.  They can also be mixed together, so if you make the change to sodium chloride, you will not have to wait for the potassium chloride in your brine tank to completely dissolve.  As you may know, using potassium chloride vs. sodium chloride as a regenerate in your water softener reduces your overall system capacity slightly.  But generally, at typical water hardness levels, it is not really necessary to adjust your system size to account for this.

Unfortunately, potassium chloride (sometimes referred to as potash) is commonly used as a fertilizer.  With greater demand due to biofuel production, and increasing scarcity because of higher freight costs, this material is getting more expensive, and fewer retailers as carrying it for use in water softeners.  However, look around – many of the larger chains are still offering it at more reasonable prices (within the $15-$18 range).

That is great.  Thanks for your help

I just installed a new whirlpool large softner ,and my question is does it make any noise, mine does not, only when it cleans.  Is that normal, or does it run every time water is turned on.  I put this in yesterday and have not noticed any difference in my water being soft.  I put 6 bags of salt in it, ran clean once, and there is 2 inches of water in the little tank.  I have it set at 40 on meter, how do i know it is working?  It shows water going through on meter, but I can’t see any change in the water yet on the cold side.

Answer: The softener should only make noise during the regeneration cycle – normally it will be silent.  We are not really familiar with the internal workings of the Whirlpool softener (actually manufactured by EcoWater), but water softener resin is normally fully regenerated and ready for use when the water softener is installed. This would mean that as soon as you introduce water into the softener, the cold water side will almost right away start to provide softened water (the hot water side will require time for the hard water in the hot water tank to be replaced with soft water). About two inches of water in the brine tank is normal.

If your outlet water does not measure as soft, but the control valve is indicating that water is being metered, then it would seem as if water is not passing through the resin bed.  The other possibility is that there is some partial bypass that is diluting the softened water with untreated hard water.  It is possible that this is a problem with a faulty by-pass valve, or internal valve defect causing partial by-pass, or maybe an incomplete seal in the riser tube contained within the resin tank – there are really quite a few possibilities.  The first place to start is to measure the inlet and outlet water hardness, and see if there is any performance at all.  If you would like to let us know what you find out regarding your water hardness, perhaps we can help you further.

We have a small home, with very limited access to the well pump and inlet water supply piping.  We need a ultraviolet sterilization system, but may not be able to install it to treat the whole house.  Are there any other options we can think about?

Answer: If you cannot install a system to treat your home’s entire water supply, you can consider the Sterilight Drinking Water System for a “point-of-use” application – it combines an ultraviolet sterilization unit with a cartridge filter system for great tasting sterile water. The UV portion of the system is constructed with a stainless steel housing with a easily replaceable high intensity UV sterilization lamp that delivers 30,000 mw/cm2 at 254 nm wavelength and a pure quartz lamp tube for peak UV dosage. The unit has an onboard visible on/off lamp failure alarm. The S2Q-DWS system is available on our site for $425.00 delivered, and designed for a 2 gallon per minute flow rate.  The system includes a 5 micron sediment filter cartridge and activated carbon cartridge. 

Unit is complete with a installation kit including tubing, saddle valve and chrome faucet (picture also attached). Covered by a 7-year warranty on reaction chamber and 1 year warranty on components other than cartridge filters. We recommend replacing filter cartridges annually.

However for about the same price, you can install a whole house system.  Although this may not be possible for you, it is preferred, and it will also provide additional sterilization of the water used for bathing and water dispensed at other locations throughout the home.  A typical sized unit would be the Sterilight system available in its standard configuration, the S12Q-PA, for $440.00 delivered.  The unit is supplied with an on-board audible and visible lamp failure alarm and digital lamp life count-down timer. UV lamps do not just “burn-out” like a normal light bulb – they lose intensity over time – and will reach a level where the intensity is not sufficient to provide complete sterilization. We recommend that you replace the UV lamp on an annual basis.

Your should always size a ultraviolet unit so the maximum specified flow rate for the specific UV unit is not exceeded.  Although you will need to know your maximum flow rate, a general rule of thumb is that in most standard households with 3/4″ piping (1 1/2 baths, 4 residents) an 8 gallon per minute unit is acceptable. With more residents or with 1″ diameter piping you should consider a larger 12 gallon per minute unit.  In very large households (or applications with 1 1/4″ or 1 1/2″ diameter water supply piping, you may want to consider a larger flow 24 gallon per minute unit.

You may need to install a water softener of other pre-treatment device if your water conditions exceed the following:

Total iron – 0.3 ppm
H2S – 0.05 ppm
Suspended solids – 10 ppm
Manganese – 0.05 ppm
Hardness – 7 Grains per gallon (120 ppm)

We also recommend that you install a 5 micron sediment cartridge filter upstream of a UV system to remove any sediment that may be in your water.  Some commercial quality (low pressure drop) units can be found at online as well.  Please let us know if you have any other questions.

We recently rented a house that has a water softener using a Fleck 2510 Econominder control. Unfortunately, there are no manuals around, to properly operate this unit. It seems to work. How can I obtain a manual of operation with instructions how to operate this unit? Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Answer: We have the manual for this water softener control posted for download on our site.  The link to manual for the Fleck 2510EC http://www.caitechnologies.com/images/PDFs/Fleck_2510.pdf.  Please let us know if you have any questions!