water softening

[kannot]

Time to introduce a  water softener to my system, where to put? and what to use? .

I have a deep water well, the waters  good  but very hard tds1200 hardness 640mg/l ..........HARD

Heres the sytem photo, from this well house it runs underground (1 metre  deep) in hdpe pipe (40mm) with no joints  over 100metres until it gets to the house where it goes down eventually  to half  inch.

House has 1  hot water heater and 1  washing machine, only 2 people generally live there but sometimes 4 in two SMALL separate  houses  all fed by the  well.

Suggestions? as to "how big" a  salt system needed and "where" to put it? ie in the incoming  pipe  of each house or better at well head? where theres plenty of room especially  for cleaning out etc

WELLHOUSE photo attached ............as usual  Ill be doing this  all myself

Well pump pumps into this 300 litre  pressure  tank.

[kannot]

was considering attaching it here where the black arrow is as pretty easy to fit in here and room to clean out  replace salt etc, its going to have to be quite large I guess

[grollies]

Same here, well water. I use a settling tank to remove sand, and filter through a carbon filter and then a resin filter.

 

Drinking water is via a kitchen-top eSpring UV filter which also has a secondary set of filters, changed annually.

 

I recharge the resin filter with brine every two weeks and backwash both weekly.

 

I only realised I had to recharge the resin filter around two months ago when a friend bought me some salt round - my bad.

 

I also sterilize every month with sodium hypochlorite to 20ppm tank through to all outlets as a precaution against legionnella - one of the showers doesn't get used for weeks on end.

 

I'll post my recent water test results and filter spec.

 

Been a noticeable improvement in scale build-up on bathroom tiles since resin regen.

Edited June 13, 2017 by grollies

[kannot]

33 minutes ago, Arjen said:

I use also well water, and it is also very, very hard. I use the DH scale. The raw water has a hardness from about 37. After passing one time my softener it has a hardness from 12. Much better, but still very hard. So I let the water softener take water from my holding tank, and put it back in the holding tank. I run a pump so long, that the water hardness in the tank is around 6-8DH. First I had to measure daily. Now I do not need to measure. Running the pump short after regenerating gives very fast the desired value. Till I am 6 weeks after regenerating, and then the softener does not work anymore. 

 

Then follows a regenrating cyclus, and I am back on the right track again.

 

The softener can work under pressure. So it should be no problem to do the same with your pressure tank. The most ideal situation should be to measure water hardness digital, and make the results switch on/off the circulation pump.....

 

 

 

Arjen.

 

 

Thanks I think this is the GERMAN measurement? if  so mine works  out to 89!!!! as my mg/l is 640, according to one installation manual ive read it says to install AFTER the pressure  tank?

[kannot]

19 minutes ago, grollies said:

Same here, well water. I use a settling tank to remove sand, and filter through a carbon filter and then a resin filter.

 

Drinking water is via a kitchen-top eSpring UV filter which also has a secondary set of filters, changed annually.

 

I recharge the resin filter with brine every two weeks and backwash both weekly.

 

I only realised I had to recharge the resin filter around two months ago when a friend bought me some salt round - my bad.

 

I also sterilize every month with sodium hypochlorite to 20ppm tank through to all outlets as a precaution against legionnella - one of the showers doesn't get used for weeks on end.

 

I'll post my recent water test results and filter spec.

 

Been a noticeable improvement in scale build-up on bathroom tiles since resin regen.

The waters  very clear the only problem is the hardness, no iron, cadmium , chromium or sediment at all, dont need a settlement tank it goes straight into the pressure  tank, had it tested in BKK

Edited June 13, 2017 by kannot

[kannot]

had  possible change of plan............ read up a  bit on hard  water and im not sure its  going to do the "awful" damage some folk say.

Washing machine is  cold water only so no element to get fouled up, only hot  water is bathroom wall mount heater and easily replaced, all pipework is hdpe and pvc and it wont build up  much on that, this  just leaves cleaning of shower heads and  tap strainers.

They are  banning soft water machines in california I see as the amount of salt they give out in the flushing.

The electromagnetic  ones are  just a con apparently.

I have a stainless steel manifold at my wellhead dont know if it  will affect that?

Myths about hard water abound it seems inc makes skin and hair dry

[Gary A]

My mother in the US (RIP) had a state of the art water softening system. It was totally automatic.Once a month it used a 40 pound bag of salt. I came to the conclusion that if everyone had a similar system, the groundwater would be salt contaminated in a relatively short time.

 

Here in Thailand, if you live in a house you don't need a water softener. It is relatively easy to collect rain water. That naturally soft water doesn't need to be used throughout the house. The washing machine and your shower are the two main usage points. The shower can use hard water if you don't have enough rain water. My wife has a special outlet for rainwater to wash her hair.

 

I simply don't like the idea of flushing salt water down the drain. Our drinking water also comes from the rainwater tank. It does go through a number of filters before we drink it. The main filter is an 18 liter activated charcoal tank and the final filter is ceramic. The rest of the rainwater is not filtered other than a pair of sediment filters, one before the pump and another after the pump.

[gmac]

Had a softener installed about a year ago that requires flushing with salt every 2/3 weeks to keep up its performance (better but not perfect as others have said) now I'm running out of my initial salt supply and am at a loss as to wear to get more. Can anyone tell me where find it locally? Sattahip/Ban Chang/Pattaya the number on the picture is in Bangkok and not interested in delivering a single bag.

[grollies]

1 hour ago, gmac said:

Had a softener installed about a year ago that requires flushing with salt every 2/3 weeks to keep up its performance (better but not perfect as others have said) now I'm running out of my initial salt supply and am at a loss as to wear to get more. Can anyone tell me where find it locally? Sattahip/Ban Chang/Pattaya the number on the picture is in Bangkok and not interested in delivering a single bag.

You can get it from Poolworld Thailand, Pattaya call Piya 080-545-4199

 

She'll do single bags but bit pricy.

 

[grollies]

1 hour ago, Gary A said:

My mother in the US (RIP) had a state of the art water softening system. It was totally automatic.Once a month it used a 40 pound bag of salt. I came to the conclusion that if everyone had a similar system, the groundwater would be salt contaminated in a relatively short time.

 

Here in Thailand, if you live in a house you don't need a water softener. It is relatively easy to collect rain water. That naturally soft water doesn't need to be used throughout the house. The washing machine and your shower are the two main usage points. The shower can use hard water if you don't have enough rain water. My wife has a special outlet for rainwater to wash her hair.

 

I simply don't like the idea of flushing salt water down the drain. Our drinking water also comes from the rainwater tank. It does go through a number of filters before we drink it. The main filter is an 18 liter activated charcoal tank and the final filter is ceramic. The rest of the rainwater is not filtered other than a pair of sediment filters, one before the pump and another after the pump.

Good points and worth considering. OK now as there is plenty of rain but in the dry times we'd have to revert back to normal b/hole water.

 

Where I flush salt water to also doesn't turn the surrounding area brown and the shrubs seem to do well around the pipe discharge.

 

I've got drainage and irrigation to put in year end. Rainwater harvesting and grey water discharges we may include, worth thinking about.

 

The wife's planted a lot of yafak round the pond and edge of the road in to improve stability and slow down run-off. She's now planting some reed filter beds to try to reduce the eutrification on the pond caused by all the excess fertilizer washing off neighbours land.

[Crossy]

We're not in Pattaya, but http://www.trs.co.th/pd/pool-salt/  has details of the local distributors.

 

They won't deliver small amounts but our local office is quite happy to sell a few bags for cash (receipt, what receipt?) if we collect.

 

IIRC we pay 100baht for a 25kg bag.

 

[kannot]

I  live in the driest part of Thailand, Prachuap, rainwater  collection would  not suffice here at all.

As my water is SO hard  im just wondering how  much salt Im going to have to put in to get it to a reasonable level, also got  to work out the sizing of the the  thing, found this  place mentioned in another thread https://www.duan-daw.com/

 

[gmac]

20 hours ago, Crossy said:

We're not in Pattaya, but http://www.trs.co.th/pd/pool-salt/  has details of the local distributors.

 

They won't deliver small amounts but our local office is quite happy to sell a few bags for cash (receipt, what receipt?) if we collect.

 

IIRC we pay 100baht for a 25kg bag.

 

Thanks, just had a look at their website, the one I asked about is listed as resin regenerating which I assume I need for my water softening filter, others have suggested salt is available at Makro but this all seems to be 'Iodized' does that make a difference?.

[Crossy]

Don't use iodised salt.

 

The pool salt is (almost) pure sodium chloride, same as the resin regeneration stuff, exactly what you want.

 

Find your local distributor and give them a call or go and talk to them, obviously you'll need a Thai speaker.

 

Our branch does have the softener salt too, I asked if it was cheaper than the pool salt (which is what we wanted) but the nice lady says it's just a different bag (and more expensive).

[gmac]

Don't use iodised salt.
 
The pool salt is (almost) pure sodium chloride, same as the resin regeneration stuff, exactly what you want.
 
Find your local distributor and give them a call or go and talk to them, obviously you'll need a Thai speaker.
 
Our branch does have the softener salt too, I asked if it was cheaper than the pool salt (which is what we wanted) but the nice lady says it's just a different bag (and more expensive).

Thanks a lot, google hasn't been my friend on this one!

So it sounds like pool salt is going to be the easiest to get my hands on and should do the job. I can always ask about the other stuff in the pool supply shops but take the pool salt if they haven't got it.


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[gmac]

Thanks a lot, google hasn't been my friend on this one!

So it sounds like pool salt is going to be the easiest to get my hands on and should do the job. I can always ask about the other stuff in the pool supply shops but take the pool salt if they haven't got it.


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Oops, just re-read the first line of my post, sounds like I'm being ungrateful for your excellent reply Crossy. I meant thanks very much, my efforts researching on google had come to nought, not the responses received here. Sorry.


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[Crossy]

4 hours ago, gmac said:

Oops, just re-read the first line of my post, sounds like I'm being ungrateful for your excellent reply Crossy.

 

No, no, no. I never read it like that, you are more than welcome 

 

Minor update, apparently the softener salt has a larger grain size so it doesn't dissolve so fast. I doubt you'll see a significant change in performance.

 

[Pdaz]

On 6/14/2017 at 11:28 AM, grollies said:

You can get it from Poolworld Thailand, Pattaya call Piya 080-545-4199

 

She'll do single bags but bit pricy.

 

Along the 36 highway on the lefthand  side a few Km before Sukhumvit is a wholesalers ( Big Sign saying "Salt" in Thai ) think it is 110 - 120 baht for a sack of TRS salt.  I use around 3 a Month between my pool and softener.  Seems to be the cheapest place around

[grollies]

1 hour ago, Pdaz said:

Along the 36 highway on the lefthand  side a few Km before Sukhumvit is a wholesalers ( Big Sign saying "Salt" in Thai ) think it is 110 - 120 baht for a sack of TRS salt.  I use around 3 a Month between my pool and softener.  Seems to be the cheapest place around

I got my first lot from Piyalak.

 

Since found out my mate's wife sells the same TRS salt at B100 per bag so you about right.

[gmac]

10 hours ago, Pdaz said:

Along the 36 highway on the lefthand  side a few Km before Sukhumvit is a wholesalers ( Big Sign saying "Salt" in Thai ) think it is 110 - 120 baht for a sack of TRS salt.  I use around 3 a Month between my pool and softener.  Seems to be the cheapest place around

Thanks, that sounds like an ideal place for me as I use that road a lot, any chance of a Goggle map location?  Not sure my recognition of Thai script will be good enough to spot it as I pass.

Edited June 16, 2017 by gmac
Spell check

[kannot]

On 6/16/2017 at 7:32 AM, gmac said:

Thanks, that sounds like an ideal place for me as I use that road a lot, any chance of a Goggle map location?  Not sure my recognition of Thai script will be good enough to spot it as I pass.

seem to have gotten  sidetracked here but  good  to know where you can get salt, meantime for my water hardness as  stated i think this is  going to use considerable amounts of salt,  what say TV members 640mg/l hardness?

There  is  only usually me there to be honest but at some point that may change to 2 people

[bazza73]

Water softeners simply exchange sodium ions for calcium and magnesium, they do nothing to reduce the ionic load in a hot water service.

A much less expensive way to deal with the problem of hardness for a washing machine is to buy detergents or liquids that have chelants such as EDTA or nitriloacetic acid. Avoid anything with a soap content, as the fatty acids present in soap react with calcium ions to form the typical slime.

[kannot]

On 6/22/2017 at 7:27 AM, bazza73 said:

Water softeners simply exchange sodium ions for calcium and magnesium, they do nothing to reduce the ionic load in a hot water service.

A much less expensive way to deal with the problem of hardness for a washing machine is to buy detergents or liquids that have chelants such as EDTA or nitriloacetic acid. Avoid anything with a soap content, as the fatty acids present in soap react with calcium ions to form the typical slime.

What I really could do with knowing is  this, 95% of water usage will be COLD water the washing machine I use is also cold water, seems most of  the pipes i see clogged up are caused by the hot water side of the plumbing...............my question then ............I have 100 metres of underground 40mm hdpe  pipe from well to house with no joints, it then goes down to 25mm hdpe into the house for another 30 metres and  finally half  inch as it enters the house ( which in pvc is actually about18mm internal bore) house  is  only  small 100m2 (two houses)

The water is very hard 640mg/l but.......................is this really going to clog my  pipes that fast???

There are at  best only 2 people using that  supply occasionally once  a  year  maybe 4 and if I can just clean shower heads and  tap heads occasionally Id  rather do that than install a softener.

My only reason for softening is PIPE BLOCKAGE, I dont care  about taste or using  more detergent etc.

The only hot water use is 1 water heater for the shower which would be easy to replace every 3-4-5 years however long it lives etc.

I see VERY  little mention of  PVC pipes getting blocked up on Google, 90% are relating to iron or galvanised pipes, I can only find 1 photo of a slightly furred up pvc pipe anywhere and with my bore diameters it seems  less likely.

Isnt it the case that only when the water evaporates or gets heated it only  then starts  to deposit the limescale in abundance and that I may be  just worrying about this too much?

All thoughts appreciated but remember blockage is my only concern

 

 

[kannot]

Found this info on cpvc which is  just a higher temp pvc , states "limescale and corrosion  free" and im finding it extremely hard to find any photo pvc thats furred up by "limescale" can find a few furred up with barium sulphate but not limescale

https://storage.googleapis.com/specifi-uploads/uploads/documents/79/girpi-hta/hta-technical-brochure-feb-2013.pdf

[sghkt]

Just curious, those of you currently using a softening system, what is the brand and where did you buy it? I ask because I recently installed a Masterpure water softener that I purchased through BK water. It automatically regenerates every 7 days. The problem I am having is that it uses a 40 bag of salt every 14 days or less. The system I had back home used that amount once a month. But with this system, I add the salt, and it all dissolves and is gone sometimes within a week. So something seems very wrong. Anybody have any ideas? 

 

The local shop manager here in Phuket is a very nice guy but although he sold it to me he doesn't seem to really know much about the system.  He is telling me I only need to add salt once every couple of months but the manual says not to let the salt level drop to less than about 1/4 of the brine tank, and as noted I am ending up with no salt in a week or two.

 

By the way, the salt I buy from the BK Water shop and the bag is branded as Masterpure. It looks to be evaporated sea salt, whereas what I used back home were pellets, which seemed to dissolve more slowly.

 

 

[kannot]

On 7/21/2017 at 5:28 PM, sghkt said:

Just curious, those of you currently using a softening system, what is the brand and where did you buy it? I ask because I recently installed a Masterpure water softener that I purchased through BK water. It automatically regenerates every 7 days. The problem I am having is that it uses a 40 bag of salt every 14 days or less. The system I had back home used that amount once a month. But with this system, I add the salt, and it all dissolves and is gone sometimes within a week. So something seems very wrong. Anybody have any ideas? 

 

The local shop manager here in Phuket is a very nice guy but although he sold it to me he doesn't seem to really know much about the system.  He is telling me I only need to add salt once every couple of months but the manual says not to let the salt level drop to less than about 1/4 of the brine tank, and as noted I am ending up with no salt in a week or two.

 

By the way, the salt I buy from the BK Water shop and the bag is branded as Masterpure. It looks to be evaporated sea salt, whereas what I used back home were pellets, which seemed to dissolve more slowly.

 

 

Come to  the the  conclusion that unless you are heating the water then calcification wont be a problem with plastic pipes,  my  only concern was  that, not the quality of the water.

All my  pipes  are  plastic except  the stainless manifold although the  water pressure  switch for the cold  pressure  tank "may"  get  blocked in time?

Nowhere can i find that pvc has a  problem with calcification only in metal  pipes with some companies claiming limescale free, the electric descalers are B.S from what i read and the salt ones use tons  of the stuff at the  high level my limescale is 640mg I think it was.

Shower  heads and  taps ( faucets) can be removed if necessary, ditto hot  water heater when /if  it expires due to lime  build  up, only  real concern was pipes  getting  blocked which seems from what i read "unlikely" in pvc.

Seems to be a  lot of B.S and scaremongering in the "water treatment" trade....worldwide

[Crossy]

9 hours ago, kannot said:

By the way, the salt I buy from the BK Water shop and the bag is branded as Masterpure. It looks to be evaporated sea salt, whereas what I used back home were pellets, which seemed to dissolve more slowly.

 

Find your local Thai Refined Salt (TRS) outlet. We get pool salt (same stuff) from our local place at 100 Baht per 25kg bag. We pick it up as he won't deliver less than a ton at a time.

[sghkt]

Perfect thanks. If I may, what brand is your softener and how often do yo have to add the refined - or pool - salt to the brine tank?

[songthang]

Only when you flush a very long  time with salt. I can imagine that you wash away salt....

 

But you are correct about usage from rainwater....

[Pdaz]

On 16/06/2017 at 7:32 AM, gmac said:

Thanks, that sounds like an ideal place for me as I use that road a lot, any chance of a Goggle map location?  Not sure my recognition of Thai script will be good enough to spot it as I pass.

It is a group of tin roofed buildings set back from the road. A huge sign outside says

"เกลือ" 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Pdaz