Water Softener (semi-auto regen)

[EdandShelley]

Had some time on my hands today. Decided to design a way to regen the water softener without having to disconnect hoses and reverse the flow.

Will install and give it a try in the coming weeks.

[toshu]

What model do you have and where do you plan on installing that?

[EdandShelley]

Originally Posted by toshu

What model do you have and where do you plan on installing that?

Dynaquest XL

Water Softener is located in the compartment just behind the wet bay. This will mount to the front wall of that compartment.

[MAC D]

Get yourself three of these. You can then regen from anywhere in the world or put them on timers and make it fully automatic!

https://www.thesmartesthouse.com/pro...ntroller-dmwv1

[johndjmix]

For those of us that don’t have knowledge on this, what exactly do you mean”regen”?

[MAC D]

Originally Posted by johndjmix

For those of us that don’t have knowledge on this, what exactly do you mean”regen”?

For soft water I have a portable tank filled with resin that removes deposits from hard water. The water come out "softened". The resin gets dirty and loses its capacity. I pour in salt to clean the resin and then flush the salt out. That's a "regeneration".

It takes some effort, but soft water prolongs the life of faucets, water lines, sinks, drains, etc. We're sold on it.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by MAC D

For soft water I have a portable tank filled with resin that removes deposits from hard water. The water come out "softened". The resin gets dirty and loses its capacity. I pour in salt to clean the resin and then flush the salt out. That's a "regeneration".

It takes some effort, but soft water prolongs the life of faucets, water lines, sinks, drains, etc. We're sold on it.

That's an oversimplification. "Hard" water has a lot of calcium and magnesium in it. These tend to prevent soap/shampoo from foaming and cleansing, and produce scale in pipes and at the water level in toilet bowls.

A water softener contains a "resin" which is charged with salt (sodium chloride). When water containing calcium and magnesium comes in contact with dissolved salt (sodium ions and chlorine ions), the calcium and magnesium are attracted to the resin and the water then contains sodium. Much better with soap, not so good to drink if you have high blood pressure.

Once all the salt has been depleted from the resin tank, and the resin is full of magnesium and calcium, you have to load the tank with salt (I used to buy 50 lb. bags) and run it backwards, flushing gallons of water+calcium/magnesium down the drain, so its softening function is reactivated.

(Not sure where "dirty" resin enters the process )

Here's a formal description of the process:

Originally Posted by Description

Water softeners have to primary functions; the Softening cycle and the Regeneration cycle. In the Softening cycle, water enters the softener and passes through the ion exchange resin charged with sodium (Na+) ions. As hard water passes through the resin, hardness ions (Ca2+ & Mg2+) are physically exchanged with the sodium ions on the ion exchange resin. This process continues until the resin becomes saturated with hardness ions and depleted of sodium ions. As the resin nears exhaustion, its ability to soften (exchange hardness ions with sodium ions) is limited. For the softener to function properly at this point-in-time, the Regeneration cycle must be initiated.

Source (and more information)

Just wondering what places with water shortage, like California, think about this process...

[EdandShelley]

Yea…. What they said.

We just like all the benefits of a water softener and now just load the filter housing with salt and turn the valves to regen…. Regen until the salt is gone (very slow flow)… increase the regen flow for about twenty minutes then turn valves back to normal.

Do we need this thing to do a regen — no

Was it fun to design, implement and use - yes

[twp5253]

Originally Posted by EdandShelley

Had some time on my hands today. Decided to design a way to regen the water softener without having to disconnect hoses and reverse the flow.

Will install and give it a try in the coming weeks.


Attachment 270943

Oh, so regeneration is a reverse flow kind of operation. Very cool. Is fine granular salt used or the kind we normally throw in the salt tank?

Did you know that with a little electricity, you can greatly extend the life of your softener/resin? https://www.scalewatcher.com/us/for%20your%20home.html
I have also tried the very inexpensive units available but my Scalewatcher in my Oceanside home really works the best. They Scalewatcher, held most of the original patents. Theory is that it makes the calcium/magnesium clump together and one piece of resin, rather than just catching one piece of calcium, actually catches two or three. I did not believe the engineer at Scalewatcher and my Oceanside home is oversized and I run it at full 2100 gallons before regeneration. I wish I had listened as I would have sized the tank much smaller. If memory serves, he said you get about 3 times the life out of your system.

[EdandShelley]

Originally Posted by twp5253

Oh, so regeneration is a reverse flow kind of operation. Very cool. Is fine granular salt used or the kind we normally throw in the salt tank?

Did you know that with a little electricity, you can greatly extend the life of your softener/resin? https://www.scalewatcher.com/us/for%20your%20home.html
I have also tried the very inexpensive units available but my Scalewatcher in my Oceanside home really works the best. The held most of the original patents. Theory is that it makes the calcium/magnesium clump together and one piece of resin, rather than just catching one piece of calcium, actually catches two or three. I did not believe the engineer at Scalewatcher and my Oceanside home is oversized and I run it at full 2100 gallons before regeneration. I wish I had listened as I would have sized the tank much smaller. If memory serves, he said you get about 3 times the life out of your system.

I believe you can use either. We are using the large pellet style from Lowes. Just break the bag up into quart size bags for each regeneration.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by twp5253

Oh, so regeneration is a reverse flow kind of operation. Very cool. Is fine granular salt used or the kind we normally throw in the salt tank?

Usually pellets. They don't clump so you get more surface exposed to the water.

The flow isn't quite reverse.

• Normal operation is water in from well through resin bed to taps.
• Regeneration operation is water in from well through new salt in resin bed to drain.

This can have two undesirable ecological effects:

• It puts a lot of salt into the environment in both normal operation and regeneration.
• It expends a lot of water in regeneration. Not so good where water is scarce.

[EdandShelley]

Originally Posted by twp5253

Oh, so regeneration is a reverse flow kind of operation. Very cool. Is fine granular salt used or the kind we normally throw in the salt tank?

Did you know that with a little electricity, you can greatly extend the life of your softener/resin? https://www.scalewatcher.com/us/for%20your%20home.html
I have also tried the very inexpensive units available but my Scalewatcher in my Oceanside home really works the best. They Scalewatcher, held most of the original patents. Theory is that it makes the calcium/magnesium clump together and one piece of resin, rather than just catching one piece of calcium, actually catches two or three. I did not believe the engineer at Scalewatcher and my Oceanside home is oversized and I run it at full 2100 gallons before regeneration. I wish I had listened as I would have sized the tank much smaller. If memory serves, he said you get about 3 times the life out of your system.

I tried a similar system on our home in Texas. Very hard water. Not sure if I see a difference. White deposits continue to form around the faucets and showers of the house.

Water softener on the Dynamax completely resolved this issue.

[twp5253]

Originally Posted by EdandShelley

I tried a similar system on our home in Texas. Very hard water. Not sure if I see a difference. White deposits continue to form around the faucets and showers of the house.

Water softener on the Dynamax completely resolved this issue.

I think you missed my point and I agree the electronic system alone does not provide the full benefit. One of my homes got the electronic first and I was not impressed. But in talking to the water softener experts, they suggested If used in conjunction, I would only need a salt based unit about 1/2 - 1/3 the size. I did not go that small and on that unit, its turned up to a full/max 2100 gallons before it regenerates and it has never gone hard in 8 years. I wish I had listened more closely or actually believed what they were saying
So to reiterate, the electronic unit works synergistically with the salt based unit and you won't need to regenerate as often. Looks like Scalewatcher makes a small unit called the Nano for $189 on Amazon. I will be going with one of those if my XL ever gets delivered.

[EdandShelley]

Originally Posted by twp5253

I think you missed my point and I agree the electronic system alone does not provide the full benefit. One of my homes got the electronic first and I was not impressed. But in talking to the water softener experts, they suggested If used in conjunction, I would only need a salt based unit about 1/2 - 1/3 the size. I did not go that small and on that unit, its turned up to a full/max 2100 gallons before it regenerates and it has never gone hard in 8 years. I wish I had listened more closely or actually believed what they were saying
So to reiterate, the electronic unit works synergistically with the salt based unit and you won't need to regenerate as often. Looks like Scalewatcher makes a small unit called the Nano for $189 on Amazon. I will be going with one of those if my XL ever gets delivered.

Thank you for clarifying. Am following you now.

[Gumpster808]

Also following and thanks for the write up.

Nice setup for the regen and it probably was fun designing and building [emoji3]

The park we will be back at in Florida has hard water and that is where we will be when our new DX3 RB is delivered so definitely going with a softener.

Do like he discussion on the additional item that makes the time between regen longer as well. Our three stage filter is good for about 2000 gallons so around the same time for regen and filter swap maybe.

Getting a flow meter as well to keep an eye on actual gallons run into the coach.