"Most contractors have been telling me to go with a 4 upstairs / 4 downairs or a 5 / 4. I also work from home and hate being hot and also humid." Step one is to have the contractor you choose do a load calculation to determine what size equipment you need. Even for your size home, 9 tons sounds like a lot. Oversized equipment costs more to operate, is more prone to fail earlier (more starting/stopping), and certainly will not improve your humidity.

Some clarification on how various types of softeners work. 1. Big box brands are two tank type softeners with the resin tank inside the salt tank called a cabinet model. They can have a day timer or a metered/demand regenerated control valve. Day timer use is very rare. Meters can be mechanical or electronic. 2. Two tank models with separated resin and salt tanks are the 'norm'. 3. Twin tank alternating immediate regenerated, normally with water flow through only one resin tank at a time although their are twin tank softeners that allow water to the house through both tanks at the same time until a tank has to be regenerated. Clack and Kinetico make them but there is a large difference. The Clack has either upflow or downflow regeneration and a control valve on each tank where Kinetico has only one. Clack does not leave full main line water pressure on the brine line and float in the brine tank as Kinetico does. You can change all the settings on an Autotrol, Clack or Fleck where Kinetico does not allow the owner to do that without getting different parts and taking the control valve apart. 4. The vast majority of softeners today regenerate automatically but there are manual type control valves and they can be used on any style of two tank type softener but not on twin tank types. Since they are not automatic, the control valve has no metered or day timer and they do not need electric power. 5. The vast majority of NSF and WQA testing is done for marketing purposes by those companies submitting their products for testing. Rarely is equipment used in commercial installations certified and... that is the same (Autotrol, Clack, Erie and Fleck control valve) equipment most independent dealers sell their residential customers. 6. All types of softeners have advantages and disadvantages but mostly they are unimportant and used mostly in marketing and sales hype. 7. All softeners can use various types of cation resins and either sodium chloride softener salt or potassium chloride salt substitute. 8. Many two tank type softeners can be upflow/countercurrent brined and regenerated with softened water brine refill. 9. Many softeners have variable reserve and some have variable brining. Variable usually uses more total salt and water than regular brined softeners. 10. The capacity of ALL types of softeners is dictated by a salt dose setting in a given volume and type of resin. The volume of resin dictates the size of the softener in cubic feet and the size of the resin tank. The size of the resin tank dictates the model of control valve that can be used to service that size tank when used for a softener or backwashed only or regenerated filter. 11. The salt efficiency of a softener is found by dividing the pounds of salt per regeneration into the capacity in K grains. The capacity is established by the number of days or gallons of water used between regenerations and then the salt dose required to create that capacity in that volume and type of resin. I.E. the Fleck 5600 can not be used for a softener on larger than a 12" diameter tank (see the Fleck 5600 spec sheet). Ten inch for a filter. 12. Upflow counter-current regenerated types are not more efficient than downflow co-current types if the same type and volume of resin is used. Counter-current can resist hardness breakthrough longer than co-current regeneration but, normally you would not run a residential softener close enough to bed exhaustion to make a difference; except in twin tank types softeners due to them having little to no reserve capacity when they regenerate but... They use softened water to regenerate each tank and that uses salt to create the capacity used for each regeneration. Unless packed bed design (no free board) upflow counter current regeneration uses the same amount of water and takes the same length of time to regenerate the same type and volume of resin in the other types of softeners regardless if day timer, metered, variable reserve or variable brined OR NOT. 13. The vast majority of people needing a softener do not need a twin tank type softener. Those that do, have water being used 24/7 when once a week or so another type softener would regenerate, usually at 2:00 AM for an hour and 15-30 minutes. When all twin tank type softeners regenerate, the household shares water flow and pressure with the tank that is being regenerated. That reduces the service flow rating (SFR) gpm of the softener by at least half. That increases the probably of hardness getting through the softener to the fixtures and water heater etc.. 14. The number of gallons used to size and program a two tank type softener varies from 50-125 gals/person/day based on how the company or dealer determines the reserve capacity figure. Variable reserve type control valves allow the computer to do the calculation. In ALL instances the figure is the result of a math calculation. Twin tank types calculate the total water in gallons between regenerations AND ADD the number of gallons (the capacity) used to regenerate each tank AND they must prevent the resin from allowing hardness through before regeneration so they don't use all the capacity (as some salespeople claim) before a regeneration. Math will prove that. 15. A reserve capacity is used so that if more water is used than 'normal' the softener won't run out of capacity before the next regeneration. It's like stopping for gas before the engine starts to sputter or actually stops. You don't waste or throw away the gas left in the tank when you buy more before the gauge gets too low... 16. It is vary rare to run a two tank type softener out of capacity, even when overnight guests drop in. 17. Variable brining causes the softener to regenerate more often, that uses more water (and sewer) than the same softener would if not using variable brining. Using less salt and water per regeneration sounds great, until you add up the total number of regenerations and see that the softener is using more salt and water than the same two tank type would use with just one regeneration every 7-9 days. And math doesn't lie. 18. Many times a softener using 1.8 lbs of salt but regenerating like 2-3 times a day, will use more total salt and water than a softener sized for one regeneration on an average of every 8 days. I.E 1.8 lbs and 35 gallons each regeneration, how many regenerations per 7-9 days times those figures is the only true comparison. 19. A two tank type softener does not run out of capacity because Xxx gallons were run thought it while 400 gallons per day was used in the calculations. Demand/metered softener control valves measure the 'extra' water use and then regenerate when needed regardless of how many people are there. If the meter runs down to zero gals remaining, you run on the reserve capacity until the next regeneration. Dont let the actions of a few discourage you from seeking more help or advice. I hope this helps. A Google search shows that in the last ten years plus I have roughly 15000 posts like this between Google Groups and on web site forums. You'll have to decide if I'm over the top as Aliceinwonderland says. BTW Aliceinwonderland, in your opinion with you having little to no sales experience but obviously an ox having been gored somewhere, presumingly by me, would you care to compare what you think is the best control valve to a Clack WS-1? If so I'd be glad to join you in a new thread.

Estellecm, If I have my math right, your DH was probably 20-21 years old when his oldest son was born. I am assuming that his deceased wife was that boy's mother, along with the younger two boys. One could assume that he met his first wife when he was maybe 18 or 19 years old --- not much older than his oldest son is now. His wife died VERY suddenly, during an event that should have been full of nothing but joy, the birth of his third child. He was unexpectedly left a widower with three children...a newborn and another child, not yet a toddler. His oldest son could not have been much older than the middle son is now. This is a lot for one person to handle. I suspect your DH was so busy trying to care for his boys, he may not have had the time or opportunity to grieve for the loss of his wife. He is telling you as much when he says "You don't know what I went through." What time of year did she die? When is the youngest son's birthday? I cannot imagine what that must be like for him...on the one hand, you would want to celebrate the birth of your baby; on the other hand, it would also mark the anniversary of the death of your wife. This cannot be easy for him. He may feel some responsibility for her death, irrational as that may be...if he hadn't gotten her pregnant, she wouldn't have gone through labor, she wouldn't have hemorrhaged, and she'd still be alive. Posttraumatic Stress is called "post" for a reason; someone can be symptom free for a very long time before something in the environment triggers recall of the trauma; you wrote you will try to talk to him like civilized adults and then "the tears appear." The first criteria in considering a diagnosis of PTSD is "the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others." Another symptom of PTSD is "irritability or outbursts of anger." Another symptom of PTSD is a "sense of a foreshortened future." Why discipline your kids if life is short? What is the harm in letting your kids watch movies rated for 16 year olds? None of us is going to live forever, afterall. His wife bled to death during childbirth. I do not know if your husband ever sought out professional help (or even a support group) following his wife's death. He was probably in shock, functioning just enough to provide minimal care for himself and his children; he may have been too busy just trying to survive. Now may be the time for him to explore what the impact of the death of his wife has been. At some level, he has to re-live the trauma of her death every year at his baby boy's birthday. For the sake of his children, his marriage and his own, I hope he will put his big boy panties on and go get help in learning more healthy ways to regulate his emotions. I hope you can help him in this healing process.

I really like it, especially with your very 'airy' plant. All 3 objects give one the feeling of 'floating'. Like magic! It makes the oversized electronic, look like it's in a home setting. Very nicely done. Couldn't be any nicer. Now, look for all those with the giant 'entertainment with a bridge' armoires or wall shelving be putting them up on resale websites, so they can lighten the load in their tv rooms... LOL