In order to set it as efficiently as possible, a few questions:

1) Do you have iron in your water?
2) What size is the BLFC on your softener? To locate it, see the red circle in the picture below. The blue sticker (or it could be black or red) has the necessary information. Please provide everything written on it.
3) What resin is installed in your softener?
4) Are you on city or well water?

This post was edited by aliceinwonderland_id on Sat, Feb 9, 13 at 14:07

I'm on city water, according to county water analysis pH 7.8, water hardness 18, iron 0.1 mpL

sticker on the head unit = 1gpm 3lbs (salt/min).

resin = 2cu.ft of Aldex C800

what should my settings be for this particular setup? Again any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your softener is really not oversized much, not if we set it up to operate efficiently. With the resin you have, the lowest we can set the regen is at 6 lb salt per cuft of resin. The following instructions assume you have the manual for your softener.

First, place your softener in Master Programming Mode
1. DF - GAL
2. VT - St1b
3. CT - Fd
4. NT - 1
5. only available if # of tanks in step 4 is 2
6. C - 34
7. H - 20
8. RS - FS
9. SF - 20

10. RC - 0
11. DO - 7
12. 2:00 (or whatever time you believe will be best to regen, at time when you don't expect to be using water for a couple of hours)
13. BD - 60
    BF - 4
    RR - 12
14. Ensure each day of the week is set to ON
15. doesn't matter, unless you have a specific day of the week when you wish the softener to NOT regen.
16. t0.7 [If you have the 3/4" valve - if yours is 1", then t1.0]
17. no change

Exit Master Programming Mode
Reset clock to the correct time.

If, I'm understanding this correctly, base on these settings the softener capacity is now setup as a 34 instead of 64 to be more efficient, correct (step 6. C - 34)?

BD - 60
BF - 4 (I'm guessing this equates to 4min/12lbs salt
RR - 12
BW - ?? didn't menttion this setting but it defaulted to 10 so I left it at 10, do I need to change this?

step 14 and 15 were not available so I skipped them and proceeded to finish the setup.

I average 4,000 gallons per month/1,000 gallons per week "if I'm reading my water bill correctly", but because the softener is setup to regenerate at 1,700 gallons or every 7th day, my softener would only regenerate 4 times a month unless I exceed 1,700 gallon within 7 days, the softener would be consuming 48lbs of salt every 4 weeks/month, correct?

I'm also assuming because the softener will regenerate at 1,700 gallons or every 7th day this would prevent my resin from channeling?

The softener is now set for 34,000 grain capacity because that is what you can expect to get when you regenerate your resin with 6 lb salt/cubic ft. As you decrease salt, resin capacity decreases. In order to achieve a capacity of 64,000 your resin would have to be regenerated with 16 lb salt/cubic ft - higher capacity, very inefficient salt usage.

Sorry about not including BW time. 10 is fine.

You are correct in your assessment of regen frequency and salt usage.

Channeling is a function of many variables. Keeping time between regens to no more than seven days is one thing that prevents channeling. Other things that prevent channeling include: top basket distributor, gravel underbed, ensuring sediment is removed prior to the softener, preventing pressure and temperature shocks, and ensuring adequate flow rate during backwash.

I'm just curious, because I have 2cu.ft of resin in my media tank but I'm only utilizing 1.5cu.ft, how does this effect my unit or the quality of the water in long term? Does this just more or less ensure that I won't have hard water leakage? Any recommendation I should do in the near future?

I appreciate your time in helping me reconfigure and reprogram my softener to be as efficient as possible even though I made the mistake of purchasing the wrong size unit, however believe me when I say this "I now know more than what I wanted to about water softener" but knowledge is power and I guess it's better to know than not, much thanks to you.

Once the softener has run for a week or two I'll monitor the water quality and salt usage and respond back with my updates.

Again, thanks for all your help and if you were in town, dinner at any fine dinning would be on me, by the way it's 8pm on a Saturday night shouldn't you be out enjoying your weekend instead of dealing with clueless homeowner's like myself who have no idea what they're doing? hehehehe

You actually stumbled into sizing your softener pretty close to optimal. 6 lb salt/cubic ft of resin is the sweet spot between salt efficiency and water efficiency. It is a little large for your specific water usage, but is perfect for average water use. You did well.

Your softener should operate correctly for many years.

Can you provide me your professional opinion if a whole house filtration system is worth the money? Annually we receive a notice of water quality report entailing whats in the water. When showering my eyes sting and are usually red, is this caused by the chlorine level in the water?

The Annual report gives two different data:
county - chlorine level detected 3.7 ppm (1.5 - 5.8 ppm)
city - chlorine level detected 1.92 ppm (1.0 - 2.4 ppm)

If a whole house filtration system is recommended, what's your opinion on the Fleck 5600 SXT backwashing carbon filter 1.5cu.ft. ?

system spec.
service flow rate - 5gpm @ 15psi drop
required backwash rate - 6gpm
regeneration type - timer initiated

Before investing in a whole-house carbon filter, you may want to try a point-of-use filter on your shower. It would be an inexpensive way to determine whether it is, in fact, the chlorine irritating your eyes.

The carbon filter you have listed has a low service flow rate. You will notice if you ever use more than one water fixture at a time.