Feb
23
Salt Usage
February 23, 2007 |
We’ve been getting asked quite frequently lately about the amount of salt that is used by our water softeners. The answer to this question can be made quite complicated as I’ve witnessed on some of our competitor’s web sites, but it’s really pretty simple. The amount of salt or brine (salt saturated water) used by a water softener’s regeneration process is directly related to the amount hardness in your water. Because the process of removing hardness from water is called ion exchange, you can safely assume that there will be equal amounts of salt (or potassium chloride) ions exchanged with the hardness (calcium, lime, etc.) ions. If your water test results indicated 20 grains per gallon of hardness then your softener will require at least 20 grains of salt per gallon. But to ensure peak efficiency, an additional amount of brine should be used during regeneration to guarantee that all hardness ions are removed. A good rule of thumb is 10%. The amount of salt/potassium used by your softener can be adjusted; check your owner’s manual, but the factory default settings for the Autotrol and Fleck brands we carry are sufficient.
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