They come from a local supplier who also sells LPG (there are a lot of mobile home parks where they are) and runs a fishing lake. Talk about business diversity.
My machine uses pebble salt which is about the same price as granules (perhaps a touch more).
Other than that, garden centres often have it. It's a case of some phoning around.
I only get it from the LPG supplier because I buy a couple of cylinder refills at the same time for the barbecue and he delivers the lot.
Actually, it does. The reason why block salt is prefered in many designs is that the brine metering is done by water level in a tank. In your design, if you use granular salt, that metered level will include solid salt granules (that have fallen through the holes) as well as brine, so leading to underdosing of brine.
Christian.
Errm .... AIUI, the 'brine metering' consists of allowing the water to come into contact with the salt ... the resultant fluid then becomes a _saturated_ solution salt and water (aka brine). The fluid never becomes _supersaturated_ and provided it's in contact with salt cannot be 'underdosed'. Are you stating that 'salt' is 'dosed'? How does such a mechanism operate? Please describe, preferably by a system description ... part A measures saturation part B and dispenses/doses part C ... you know the type?
In my naiveity I thought it was all down to the solute/sovent unsaturated / saturated / supersaturated graphs that we had to draw in Chemistry lessons in the fifties; You obviusly know more - please enlighten me.
The problem with using granular salt is not that it affects the level of saturation, just that the lumps of salt sitting at the bottom of the tank, rather than on the perforated tray means that there is less water in the tank, as the lumps of salt are displacing some water. The water is metered by level, not by flow.
It is no different to reducing the amount of water in a flush by sticking in a hippo. Except in this case, the hippo task is performed by granular salt that gets past the holes.
Christian.
Right; so you've modified your original posting ... there isn't an underdosing of salt... and there is no mechanism for 'dosing' (your term) the brine (Salt/Water) fluid: but in your opinion there is a reduction in the potential quantity of brine that is flushed through the cylinders due to a displacement of fluid caused by undissolved granules of salt. What mechanism, do you think, causes the water to preferentially dissolve the solute (salt granules) _above_ the perforated tray rather than dissolve those granules which are totally immersed in and surrounded by the solvent (water -> brine)? Enquiring minds etc ... ? BTW; I see that a Builders' Merchant offers granulated and tabletised Salt at the same price per 25Kg bag. If you state that granular salt is to be deprecated - but Block Salt is OK.... and what point on the continuum grain-tablet-block , in your experience, is the minimum price/flush to be found ?
I haven't operated my water-softener for long and am anxious to determine both the cheapest and most effective form of salt and retailer. I'll value your contribution?
I said underdosing of "brine", not salt.
There's no need for there to be preferential disolving. Indeed, depending on how the valve fills the tank, if it fills it for a couple of minutes (to ensure the float valve operates) and then shuts off the water supply, it has already introduced too little water and it doesn't matter which salt gets dissolved at all. Indeed, it could dissolve all the salt in the chamber, but the underdosing of water has already occurred.
Tablet is probably best, then, as it is unlikley to fall through the holes, although it may take longer to dissolve, possibly having low surface area dipping in. Personally, I just use granular, as it is easily and cheaply available for me. I don't really care about a bit of potential underdosing.
I suspect that there are just too many variables to guess accurately. I just use cheap granular and it seems to work, despite the potential problems.
Christian.
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