Kinetico water softener not softening unless manually regenerated
Lily Munster
4 years ago
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Brad Smith
4 years agoLily Munster
4 years agoRelated Discussions
Water softener/conditioner selection culligan vs. kinetico vs eco
Comments (3)Living with well water is more comlpicated than living on a water system and requires some routine maintenance. I would accept the highest tested levels as average and use them. In general an ion exchange water softener will successfully treat about 3ppm of iron, no more. Kinetico does offer models that are designed to treat higher iron levels and, of course, they cost more. Kinetico has been around a long time and has an extensive dealer/service network and a large and loyal customer base. One rarely sees anyone posting about problems with their Kinetico softeners. Culligan has been around a long time also but are complained about more often on these forums. ECO has also been around a long time. ECO, Culligan, and Kinetico are all proprietary desihns and parts and service are only available from their respective dealers. If you have a good dealer that doesn't matter but if you have a bad dealer... with real estateit's location, location, location, and with water treatment its' DEALER, DEALER, DEALER. Ask lots of questions. Softening the entire house or just the water heater (bad idea)? Warranty, parts & labor or just parts, how long and on exactly what? Install, permits required, licensed plumber? Routine maintenance and costs? Do they stock parts? Response time for emergency (water leak) calls? If they don't explain things to your satisfaction that is a good indicator of how you'll be treated after the sale. Ask your neighbors if they have any water treatment experience. They might tell you who's good or who to avoid....See MoreHelp installing Kinetico water softener
Comments (3)FIRST: one bag to start will be enough and add 3 gallons of water to the dry brine tank. After a regeneration add salt to cover water and check it at least once a week. I like the Diamond Crystal Bright & Soft (yellow bags) @ Home Depot. SECOND: 7.5 feet up is not problem but is has to be air gapped. THIRD: drain line is 1/2" ID and the brine line should be 3/8" OD. Both are PE (polyethylene) milky white semi rigid tubing. FOURTH: If your K60 is a packed bed using fine mesh resin then you need a pre-filter. If it is uses standard hi-capacity resin with freeboard design then you don't. Make sure you get service and return CORRECT. Did your K60 come with a Kinetico bypass valve? If it did note that some designs can be REVERSED. If it didn't, and even if it did, plumb in a three ball valve bypass in case you need to service the softener. You may need to change the # disk and salt (float) setting for correct setup for your water conditions and water usage....See MoreKinetico vs Fleck water softener - am I comparing this correctly?
Comments (1)In a word, no. A Fleck 2510 based softener is electrically driven and has only one resin tank. Kinetico softeners are non-electric and have twin resin tanks. The cost difference between the two gets you Kinetico technology with a second resin tank and resin. Watered down, the Fleck will regenerate based on arithmetic @ 2AM in the morning. That technology is not as efficient as the Kinetico which will regenerate exactly when necessary and switch over to the other resin tank to provide uninterrupted soft water 24/7. The pluses and minuses of electric versus non-electric should also be considered....See MoreKinetico water softeners again
Comments (9)ok yes I remember now the thing about iron, and that kinetico uses a packed resin bed and smaller amounts of brine to perform the recharge -- its an attempt to reduce waste in the recharge cycle and give a certain small advantage in salt consumption, even as they adhere to the same laws of physics as all they others. My resin beds have never been changed in 25 years so iron must not be a problem where I'm at. I do have a sediment filter that turns dark brown quickly, so it gets changed monthly. I'll have to check that out on the new place re: iron thanks for the catch. I'm afraid the comparison of water softener controllers to mars rovers and other electronics designed for harsh environments, such as automotive computers especially, is not accurate. These components are manufactured under different standards, and intended to withstand environmental extremes and to resist oil/gas corrosion, etc. The cost of doing this is much higher and produces a much reliable product. When a residential water softener circuit board is manufactured under the same standards as the ECM in my car, then I'll agree, but until then: no they are inexpensively manufactured offshore and subject to higher failure rates and will require more service over a 25 year period of time than small mechanical components washed in soft water. One look at a $100 controller board, and anyone with a lick of electronics repair experience will recognize that these boards are no where near as reliable as an automotive ECM, and that this level of quality is not found on the mars rover. Put that same $100 board with exposed tinned circuit traces and wire harness connections close to a brine tank and you have a micro-climate marginally corrosive condition... that's why my sprinkler controller is on the other side of the garage. The analogy of carburetors and port fuel injectors doesn't apply here either. Both are mechanical devices with their own failure modes and vastly different motivations for their respective design changes, compared to water softener controllers. Fuel injector design has undergone an evolution in reliability, especially for common rail diesels where injection pressures are very high and the switching mechanism has to be very well designed. There are good designs and bad designs, but generally speaking -- warranties, laws, and consumer demand have driven reliability rates up very high. the same cannot be said for the $100 controller board. now, then, one important factor to consider is the cost of reliability! One can buy a lot of those $100 boards for the increased cost of a non-electric softener. So a case can be made, especially for those who want to maintain their own, that the availability of relatively low-cost replacement parts is preferable to the reliability one might obtain by paying more for a mechanically controlled softener. And, as long as the supply is large and costs are low, this remains an attractive option. similarly, stepper motors are reliable electro-mechanical devices in their own right. Thus, as long as the valve failure modes are designed well, and one is amenable to the model of "more, less expensive service events" , then a case can be made for the electronically controlled softener. I would have to factor in the impact to my downstream RO unit who's reliability would also be affected by a downed softener. For those who want nothing to do with service, and prefer to hire a local shop to perform these tasks -- I suppose its worth crunching a few numbers to evaluate the costs of hiring a shop to come out for these service events....See MoreJake The Wonderdog
4 years agoLily Munster
4 years agoLily Munster
4 years agoJake The Wonderdog
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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