water softener choice

[pat]

I am fed up with trying to keep my house clean of limescale and my showers keep getting scaled up. I have read the faq and lots of postings about softeners. My inclination is to go for a non-electric twin-tank water softener such as the Crown or the Kinetico. I like the look of the electric Pallas Duo, but I really would rather have non-electric.

don't have a combi boiler but I might like to fit one in future. Somebody told me that the Crown suits either without adjustment but the Kinetco needs some adjustment. I think both will fit in the small space available.

I am not sure what questions I should consider but here are some that I imagine are important:

• price

• the amount of pressure loss

• the efficiency of salt use i.e. (salt weight)/(softened water volume output)

• ease of installation

• softened water volume output per salt refill

I also wondered whether the Crown and the Kinetico have technical differences that matter. I think that they have some links in their history. It looks like Crown is a UK company and Kinetico is a US company.

I really feel a bit confused as to how to choose. Does anybody else have experience of suggestions? Supplier recommendations would be useful too.

[Andy Hall]

I've had one of the twin tank Kinetico softeners for 20 years and it continues to behave perfectly. The only thing that I have had to do is to replace a little turbine in the metering control at a cost of £5.

I like the idea of a metered rather than a timed operation. Some of the simpler timed units have very basic control or none at all.

There are several parameters that affect behaviour for any ion exchange softener:

- Water hardness.

- Usage rate

- Size of cylinder(s)

- Regeneration rate per volume used

- Amount of brine used in a regeneration

If there isn't some account taken of most of these then there will be salt wastage, insufficient regeneration or too frequent or infrequent regeneration.

On the Kinetico, there is a little cam which is swapped according to the water hardness. In effect, it controls how frequently per volume used a regeneration cycle occurs. The volume of brine per regeneration is fixed because the cylinder sizes are known.

Many softeners are made from generic components such as the resin cylinders and control valve. Control valves are made to be suitable for a variety of situations and if they are metering types will usually have adjustments for rate of regeneration as well as how much brine is used (typically by timing this phase of the regeneration).

The Crown is something of a copy of the Kinetico and comes (I believe) from their former UK distributor. You could ask who makes the valve and the model and then Google for that in terms of reviews. Some are better than others.

Also ask about salt. At one point, Kinetico were pushing a block salt system which is more expensive than sacks of salt pebbles. This is no longer the case and I've always used pebbles in mine. Some softeners use granular salt which is about the same price as pebbles.

To give a rough idea, in a household of 2 people and 2 teenagers, consumption worked out to about a 25kg bag every three weeks at around £5. So it more than paid for savings in detergents and shampoos.

Installation is very similar for all softeners and most vendors supply a kit of fittings and hoses. It is certainly worth getting a high flow product and also making sure that the hoses are wide bore as well.

Fitting is a simple DIY plumbing job. From the mains side, a double check non-return valve is needed to comply with water bylaws. There is then a valve leading to the softener and one leading from it to the rest of the installation. Between the two goes a bypass valve so that the softener can be isolated and hard water passed from mains to installation.

You then need a waste arrangement. Generally this can be run to a washing machine trap or similar or to a gully via a trap. Some manufacturers also suggest arranging an overflow near the top of the container. I think that this is prudent whether they do or not. I have never had an overflow issue, but there is no point in tempting fate.

If I were buying a softener today, I would look at Kinetico again, and then also at some softeners using generic valves from companies like Autotrol. I would ask for make and model of the valve and the make and model of resin tanks. The rest is a plastic box.

[pat]

Thanks for the reply. That was useful. I think I will get it fitted rather than doing it myself.

Kinetico does two versions:

41 L/min 51 L/min only does one version claiming 50 L/min. will choose the high flow rate and have the softener fitted with 22 mm pipes rather than 15 mm.

Apparently the Kinetico uses only one cylinder to provide flow. The other cylinder is regenerating or idle. It seems inefficient to have a cylinder that is idle. The Crown uses one cylinder during regeneration but both otherwise. A disadvantage of using both cylinders is that the flow rate can drop dramatically if one cylinder stops to regenerate. A sheet says it takes 9 minutes to regenerate but somebody said it can take 20 minutes.

Other differences include resin tank volume: 5.7 L each for Kinetico and 4.3 L each for Crown. There are minor differences in regeneration water volume and regeneration time.

My first quote was an astonishingly high 1200 pounds fitted for the Kinetico high flow. Anyone got any thoughts on the Crown?

[Andy Hall]

It's not inefficient to have one cylinder which is idle for most of the time.

The choice is between one product which always maintains (it says) the same flow rate, vs. the other which takes one cylinder off line periodically and reduces overall flow rate.

[pat]

Good point. Thanks. Best prices I can find are: =A3657 Crown =A3799 Kinetico Including VAT and delivery

There is also a Twin Tec S2 which is a slightly better version of the Crown. But it is limited to franchisees who charge a lot more for it.

I am also looking to fit something at the same time to improve drinking water taste. Unless somebody can recommend a reverse osmosis for a decent price, I will go for a simple carbon filter. Can anyone recommend any?

I would like to fit a 3 way tap to keep it neat. I saw a Pallas for =A3136.50. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

[pawanyadav629]

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