No, this is for the whole house.

I don't have much time right now, so I'll answer your questions very briefly and will get back to you later if you have some specific detailed questions.

Go with the 9100sxt. It will be much easier to program and make changes if necessary.

Flow issues (not pressure issues): likely stem from your well and the line from well to house. Unless you're trying to run really high flow, you softener isn't going to cause a problem. 1" vs 3/4" will really only be noticeable if you run high flow rates, which it doesn't appear you do. However, local code may specify 1" since that is the size of your inlet line. You'll need to investigate that. You can always skip a softener-specific bypass entirely and install a 3-valve bypass using full-port valves, preferably 1/4 turn ball valves.

You want at least 2.0 cubic feet of resin in each tank. That will get you about 3.5 days between regens.

Once you have a softener on site and know the specific resin you have, I can provide programming settings.

Thank you, Alice. I was thinking of going with 2.5 cuft (each tank) of Purolite 100e, unless you think my water warrants fine mesh resin. What do you think?

Also, these will be in 13x54 tanks. I've read that some suppliers under size their tanks to save money, would this tank be appropriate with some gravel base in the bottom?

Thanks again.

Fine mesh resin or SST60 work best with iron, but are also more expensive. There is a tradeoff in resin life - a bit of a wash, in my opionion - pay now or pay later.

13 x 54 is what you want - it will allow plenty of room for gravel (fill the curved bottom with gravel).

Alice,

I just finished hooking up the softener and am looking for the optimal settings for my setup. I ended up going with the 9100SXT with 5.0 cuft total of Purolite C100E with a gravel underbed in each tank.

Thanks for your insight!

You need to locate your BLFC (brine line flow control) sticker and provide me with the numbers on it. It should be a small, 1"x1" sticker either blue, black, white, or red. It should be located on a T-shaped piece where the line from the brine tank is attached to the valve assembly. I don't have a picture of one on a 9100, but on the 5600sxt it looks like this:

Alice,

I found two stickers, one on the front right behind the meter, and another just above the brine tank connection on the valve assembly. I'm hoping one of these are what you're looking for as I don't see a colored sticker anywhere.

As always, thank you so much for your help!

The first one, with the BLFC on is the one I need.

I don't have the meter's manual in front of me at the moment, so I'll just provide the settings you need to change. If you have any trouble figuring out how to make those changes, let me know and I'll locate the manual and be more specific.

Set capacity at 61

Ensure reserve is set at 0 since you have a twin tank

Set backwash to 12 minutes

Set brine injection/slow rinse to 70 minutes

Set fast rinse to 12 minutes

Set brine fill time to 14 minutes

Alice,

I trust your advice and expertise, and will follow your recommendation, but for the sake of learning a little about water treatment, why set capacity at 61 when each tank is 80? I thought a benefit of the twin tank was that the system is able to use all of the capacity.

Also, how much salt do you expect this system to use?

Thank you again.

The benefit of a twin system is two-fold:

1. You can use all of the regenerated capacity of each tank because you don't have to set a reserve. This provides a bit better salt and water efficiency.
2. You backwash, and regen with soft water

Now, why set capacity at 61: Because that will be your actual capacity. Virgin resin has a capacity of around 32,000 grains per cubic foot, give or take a couple of thousand depending upon resin quality. If you want to maintain that capacity, you have to regenerate with an obscene amount of salt - in the neighborhood of 30 lb/cubic ft. You hit a point of diminishing returns, where it takes a lot more salt to eke out those last few grains of capacity.

As you reduce the salt level, capacity goes down. Each resin manufacturer publishes charts of capacity vs regen salt level (well, the reputable ones do anyway), to allow system designers to choose the best regen salt rate vs capacity. There is a bit of a tradeoff. Lower salt rate per regen equals better salt efficiency but a bit worse water efficiency because of more frequent regenerations. Purolite publishes resin specification sheets in case you want a little light reading.

You system should use approximately 137lb salt per month.