General Water softener Information
The following information will give you a overview of a water softener and how it works. I will describe what makes one softener more efficient then another. I have also included a guide to size softeners and a breakdown of valve function.

GPG that's grains per US gallon, that is the industry standard for measuring hardness in water.

When a softener is set properly there will be a twenty five percent reserve left when the valve decides to regenerate.

We like to have between three and four days between regeneration.

The type of salt should be refined clean salt.

I gal of water dissolves three lbs. of salt. To much water in the brine tank will dilute the solution and the cleaning will not be effective.

There and 4 stage valves and 5 stage valves. All valves are 5 stages except the Novatec metermatic se. The normal process is this,

Service

The 4 cycle valve combines the backwash and the Brine draw saving time and water. All Novatec softeners clean the bed with soft water. This adds to the efficiency.

Other factors contributing to efficiency are the brine method. There are two types of brine delivery, up flow brine and down flow brine. In a down flow brine system the brine solution (salt and water) is delivered to the top of the resin tank and down through the media. Considerations effecting the efficiency of this method are, 1; when brine is added to the resin tank at the top the salt solution hits a body of water first. This will slightly dilute the brine solution and requires a higher concentration of salt to compensate for the dilution. Secondly the brine is now being forced down through the resin bed. Using this method is less effective then up flow brine and I can best illustrate why by using an example. Say you have a pail of sand and would like to distribute a salt water solution through out. The salt water is poured on the top and when the water has run through the sand to a small drain at the bottom which the brine can drain through. The sand is fairly compact, mixing the salt water solution is fairly slow and hard to distribute evenly. Now imagine that you can add the brine solution from the bottom of the pail and up through the bed. The salt water solution will fluff and start to raise the sand as it is pushed through. The up flow delivery system allows less salt to be distributed more efficiently and evenly and therefore is able to soften using less salt and water then a down flow system.

Softener Sizing
Number of people X hardness in gpg X 75 = The total grains of hardness per day.

Grains per day / days in a year = The number of regeneration periods in a year.

E.g.

4 people in a house

25 grains of hardness

75 gallons per person

4*75*25=7500 grains per day the softener has to remove.

7500*3=22500 or a NT32se softener

7500* 365 days in a year = 2 737 500 grains of hardness per year.

2 737 500 / 23500 = regeneration 116 times

This softener has one cubic foot of resin which takes six pounds of salt to clean. Therefore you will use 116 X 6 =696 pounds of salt in a year.

696 / 88 pounds in a bag = 8 bags of salt a year.

Softener Pricing
Econoflow - 1200 + GST
Novatek SE - 1700 + GST

Basic installation included. The econoflow is the softener I sell most frequently. It is a down flow brine softener with a great track record of reliability. There are thousands of units installed across Canada, the valve is easily repairable and parts are readily available. Both softeners are made by US filter which is the parent company of WaterGroup. US filter is the second largest water treatment company in the world.