Water softener, pump, tank - installation order?

[Strange Phenomenon]

Hi!

 

When the house was built, we installed a 1500 liter water storage tank standing on a 2.5 meter high steel rack together with a pressure booster pump.

The poor water quality resulted in that EVERYTHING got destroyed from the extreme limescale buildup. After one year we had to change all taps and shower set.

 

We decided to install a water softener which made a huge improvement of the water quality.

A contractor came and installed the softener unit and he mounted everything in this flow direction:

 

Inlet water -> softener -> storage tank -> booster pump -> house.

 

This was also the order of installation the instruction booklet suggested.

Now afterwards I think this is a bit strange. It happens quite often, especially as we are not here most of the year and during the rest of the year my wife's father that is more inexperienced have to take care of the filter backwash procedure, which is surely a guarantee for it to not be performed as regularly as ideal.

If the tank is mounted after the softener and the water quality (salt content) start to degrade, go through the backwash/brine regeneration process. But then we have 1500L water that has to be consumed and diluted with clean water every time which last time took about one week of normal water consumption.

 

I know in the best of worlds it is to be done every week, but I think it will sometimes be forgotten since it has to be done manually. Our budget did not allow for the automatic backwash filter system unfortunately.

 

So my question is, are there any disadvantages of re-plumbing it in a different order?

Inlet water -> storage tank -> booster pump -> water softener -> house.

This way if we notice that the water quality start to diminish, we just run through the regeneration process and we have clean water immediatley.

The shop recommended that we go through the regeneration once a week, but when we are not here, the water consumption is much lower so if he see salt buildup on glassware, he can just flush the filter and get clean water again. As it is now if he forget to regenerate regularly , he will have 1500 L corrosive water to consume that will degrade the hardware. It´s actually even more than 1500L since the water gets diluted gradually, and I think this way we will never have really clean water, just a varying grade of quality that increase and decreases gradually as time goes.

 

And if possible to improve the quality even more also I have a filter set since before with sediment and carbon filter at hand:

Inlet water -> sediment filter -> storage tank -> booster pump -> carbon filter -> house.

The sediment pre-filter is to keep tank and water softener clean from particles, and carbon post-filter is to improve smell.

The water is of course not supposed to be consumed without additional under-sink reverse osmosis filter system.

 

The only thing I can think about is the water flows more steadily and slower through the softener since the pressure in the water supply line from the street is lower than out from the pump, and the pump works more intermittently than the tank filling float valve.

And perhaps the tank itself is somewhat protected from limescale buildup with the original method, but what does it matter if the water out from the tank is softened anyway.

 

Let me hear your thoughts!

[Encid]

Ideally you would arrange your filtration system as follows:

 

PWA mains inlet water -> storage tank -> activated carbon filter -> ion exchange resin filter -> booster pump -> 5 micron sediment filter -> house

 

The activated carbon filter absorbs chemicals, odours, colours, residual chlorine including toxic substances such as pesticides, detergents, and hydrocarbons.

The ion exchange resin filter removes magnesium and calcium and "softens" the water.

 

You could add a bypass line and block valve from the PWA supply line around the tank to the resin filter just for the backwash/brine regeneration process if the pressure from the 2.5m high tank wasn't strong enough by itself, and possibly make the regeneration process easier for your FIL to understand.

 

You could also get your wife to set an appointment/reminder in his phone calendar to regen every 7 days.