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geraldtorres

Water softener on tankless intake only?

Gerald Torres
9 years ago

New construction, but we're just about done. Unfortunately, we had installed a tanked heater, but now the city is saying we must have a heater with EF 91+ and SCAQMD cert, which pretty much limits us to a condensing tankless. Thanks (city, architect, GC, and plumber) for not telling us earlier, #@!$! (The tanked heater has been on our initial plans since the beginning)

We've selected the Noritz NRC1111DVNG. Our SoCal water is hard (~18gpg): http://www.ci.manhattan-beach.ca.us/home/showdocument?id=11916

Looks like all the recommended anti-scale devices are questionable, so I've ruled them out. Heater will have isolator valves for flushing, but I'd really prefer to avoid that maintenance in favor of adding salt to a softener. The primary driver for soft water is protecting the heater, so I was thinking of just adding a "smaller" softener to just the heater intake vs a whole house solution. we won't have to worry about bib bypasses. If we set the heater at shower temp, then showers will effectively use only softened water, helping with glass enclosures and fixtures. Scale buildup at the washer hot water input was pretty bad when we disconnected it, but the cold side didn't have much at all. We already have an RO for drinking water, so I don't see much benefit in softening other cold sources.

Plumber will be adding a standpipe for the heaters condensate (~2gph max). He was planning just 1.5", but said he could upsize to 2", maybe more. I want to reuse it for the softener waste, but haven't scope the rates for particular units yet.
I thought it wouldn't be so hard to select a softener, but it seems one has to sift through a lot of the saltless junk to find good info. Since we just want to move in, we'll probably have the plumber stub the bypass loop on the intake, and I'll try to install it later, giving us time for due diligence. I am concerned about sizing the standpipe properly though.

3 showers, 2 tubs, 1 dishwasher, 1 clothes washer. Family of 4. Parents will move in when the time comes, probably when the kids hit the teens, although they already love 1hr+ showers when we're not paying attention. So guessing 5 showers x 1hr x 60min x 2.5gpm x 18gpg = 13.5k

Not sure about iron in water, but we do get brown deposits at the toilet outputs.

Any other things I need to research? Any particular brand recommendations, particularly local to Los Angeles? Or is it easy enough to DIY everything where I can just assemble the parts from any source? I'm not in any trades, but handy.

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