Do I really need a sofetner and what size?

[MEP001]

Another thing to consider is that even with a hardness of 7 you will get calcium buildup on the bay walls and equipment. Between the increased effectiveness of the chemicals and not having to clean with dangerous acids, I'd definitely have a softener.

 

[bigleo48]

Another thing to consider is that even with a hardness of 7 you will get calcium buildup on the bay walls and equipment. Between the increased effectiveness of the chemicals and not having to clean with dangerous acids, I'd definitely have a softener.

Mep,

I have seen the calcium buildup on my camera housings in the wash bay.

I do plan on replacing the tanks if needed, but I want to better understand the effect on 'low' level or hardness and the effects on washing.

At the very least, it has been a good conversation and I have learned some.

 

[bigleo48]

Titration is a process used to measure the unknown concentration of a known reagent in a given solution. In this case, it is used to measure the concentration of a specific chemical (soap) in your water. For this reason, you would not necessarily measure a difference in titration level (concentration) between a soft and hard water sample.
The basic reason to use soft water vs hard water is efficiency of the chemical. All things being equal, the soap does not have to "clean" (react with) soft water before reacting with the organics on a vehicle as it does with hard water. Therefore, a given concentration (titration level) will not clean as well in hard water as it will in soft..

Dreese,

Very well explained and I kinda knew this, but not to the level/clarity that you provided.

The softener will be repaired or replace...depending on cost. I guess when I built the place, I knew a softener was required, but didn't really know the details as I should have and relied on my plumber to size and select the unit. Now that the amount of usage has changed...the engineer in me wanted to reevaluated from scratch. So I will do the calculation on usage and hardness to come with a new unit specs for tank sizes an resin amounts.

 

[rph9168]

If you understand how to titrate you can titrate anyone's product.

 

[RykoPro]

Only if you know what concentration the chemical works best at, this would be given to you by the chemical manufacture.

 

[RykoPro]

Ryko actually makes a presoak designed for hard water (Supreme Clean HW). Seems to work very well, we have a site that uses it to clean garbage trucks in a drive through touchless wash

 

[rph9168]

Once you set up a base titration number for a product you can use it to determine the strength of the product being applied.

 

[mjwalsh]

Dreese,

Very well explained and I kinda knew this, but not to the level/clarity that you provided.

The softener will be repaired or replace...depending on cost. I guess when I built the place, I knew a softener was required, but didn't really know the details as I should have and relied on my plumber to size and select the unit. Now that the amount of usage has changed...the engineer in me wanted to reevaluated from scratch. So I will do the calculation on usage and hardness to come with a new unit specs for tank sizes an resin amounts.

BigLeo,

One thing to pay attention to is the pressure drop that will occur --- it usually says in the specs as cV. The softener before the Fleck Twins that we balanced the flows between the two ---- allows much better water pressure than our previous Ecowater twins. Some features can be better addressed mechanically than electronically as we noticed between the 2 brands. I hope this helps. Mep001 had steered us towards the Flecks several years ago. So far the Flecks appear to be pretty good except there is still room for us to tweak the cycling to optimize salt usage for our settings etc.

MJ - Mike