|
What to consider-
There are four things to consider when buying a softener.
1. The qualifications, reputation, experience and the service of the
company that will care for you and your new purchase.
2. The type of softener you want to purchase.
3. The type of regeneration co-current or counter current.
4. The softener's certification.
Qualifications, reputation, experience, and service -
We encourage you to view the About AWQ
section of this web site to see our qualifications and to view our latest Better Business Bureau report. We encourage
you to ask some of our customers about us. Our customers are our best advocates. We even encourage you to talk
to those who had problems and see how they feel about how we handled their situation.
Types-
There are three basic types of water softeners.
1.Single tank time initiated
2.Single tank demand initiated
3.Twin tank demand initiated
All of these systems consist of at least one tank where the actual treatment
takes place (media tank) and a salt storage container. The difference between a single tank system and a twin tank
system is the twin tank system has two media tanks and one salt tank. You may want to take a look at how a softener works.
Single Tank Time Initiated
Time initiated system perform their regeneration
at fixed time intervals. An estimate of water consumption is used to calculate how often the system needs to perform
a regeneration. This regeneration occurs in the early morning hours when there is
not likely to be any water use in the house.
Disadvantages-
1. Because the systems regenerate based on a time interval
and not on actual water consumption-
- they waste
salt regenerating to often.
- or provide untreated
water because they did not regenerate often enough.
2. They pass raw water to the house during regeneration
3. There clocks must be reset after power outages to prevent regeneration
from occurring during water use.
|
|
Single Tank Demand-Initiated Regeneration (DIR) Water
Conditioners
These systems measure water usage with a water meter and regenerate only when the meter counts down to zero. These
systems do a better job of providing treated water than time initiated systems because they regenerate more closely
to the time they need to.
Disadvantages-
1.Because these systems still have to wait to regenerate
during the early morning hours, they must maintain a reserve capacity that will allow them to wait to the end of
the day for regeneration. This means as much as one days capacity is wasted each regeneration cycle.
2. They pass raw water to the house during regeneration.
3. Their clocks must be reset after power outages to prevent
regeneration from occurring during water use.
Twin Tank Demand-Initiated Regeneration (DIR) Water Conditioners
Twin tank systems consist of two softening tanks. Two softening
tanks provide conditioned water, 24 hours a day, even during regeneration. When one tank is exhausted, the other
is activated to continue softening your water. The exhausted tank is cleaned with the conditioned water produced
by the on-line tank for optimum results This means there is never an interruption of treated water and there is
never any wasted capacity because regeneration does not occur until there is complete exhaustion of the capacity.
Advantages-
1. Never allows untreated water into the plumbing
2. No clocks to set
3. Provides highest possible efficiency of water and salt
use
4. Clean water regeneration provides for extended resin life
5 Lower maintenance because valve control surfaces only see
treated water.
6. Simpler because they do not have to use electronic control
circuits or in some cases no electricity at all.
Type of regeneration-
The regeneration of a softener is done by placing sodium
on the media. This is done by drawing brine (salt solution) from a salt container. The brine is introduced either
in the same direction (co-current) as normal flow or the reverse direction (countercurrent).
Countercurrent regeneration improves the system's effectiveness
and efficiency. This type of regeneration is recommended by most resin manufacturers and is found on high quality
modern softeners.
System certification-
To be assured that the softener you purchase will perform
as advertised we recommend that you consider whether or not it is certified by both NSF
and the WQA. These are third party organizations that confirm the performance
of the softener. Be sure to ask if the softener has these certifications.
|
