Water Softener

[mgmtoo]

How do I size a new softener system? I have 5 self serve bays and a touchleses auto. So far have 3 different bids, how do I determine which one I need?
I'm concerned about the amount of continuous flow and free flow.

Thanks

 

[OurTown]

Has anyone tested the hardness of your water?

 

[Buckeye Hydro]

Has anyone tested the hardness of your water?

Great place to start.

Some other things to think about, or make sure your vender thinks about:

Your demand - is it around the clock 24/7? If so, you'll want a twin tank alternating softener.
If not, a single tank softener should do just fine.

What is the max reasonable flow (gallons per minute) you're looking to treat? Higher flow = larger softener.

What is the daily volume (gallons) of water you'll want to treat? A softener that is too small will have to regenerate too often.

What is the minimum flow (gpm) you'll treat? Will this be a common situation? Will it persist for more than a few minutes? Slow flow through an over-sized softener can caused channeling and degraded performance.

Does the softened water feed an RO system? Is that the only target for softened water or do you also feed softened water directly to the bays?

What is the diameter of the feedwater pipe that will be supplying the softener?

Consider the brand of valve in the proposals. Fleck is a little cheaper up front (typically, but not always). Clack is much more user friendly when it comes time for maintenance. Or are they proposing an Autotrol valve? Or some off brand? We are a fan of Clack valves. Just put a huge Clack twin alternating softener in a distillery - each tank contains 30 cuft of softening resin.

Russ

 

[soapy]

I would size for maximum use. 5 self service bays if all used on soft water at the same time would be 15 to 20 gpm. A IBA for presoak or other soft water functions could be 11 to 20 gpm. Your spot free rinse system is variable depending on how big you go but lets say 5 gpm. so you would need from 30 to 40 gallon per minute flow rate. this will determine the size of water softner tanks you need and pipe size.
Lets assume you water hardness is 10 and you have a couple of 100,000 grain tanks then you would have to recharge your system every 10,000 gallons. I am not sure what size of pipe size you would need for the flow rate But I would guess a 1 to 1 1/2 inch line. Make sure you go with a metered system that uses actual gallons and not time to activate the recharge. I have about 2200 grains of hard water so a softner is a must.

 

[edredtop]

"How do I size a new softener system? I have 5 self serve bays and a touchleses auto. So far have 3 different bids, how do I determine which one I need?"

Arguably, the most important question would be: 'How have you determined your need?'

fwiw, here in SoCal I ran a water softener for 15 years until they implemented a tiered water pricing system that turned tier 3 prices into gold infused water (expensive.)
Then they made them illegal to run commercially during the drought, so I took it out.
Our average TDS is in the 375 to 400 ppm range.
I would argue the juice isn't worth the squeeze in our area for the reasons of cost, and really didn't notice any drop in quality of washes or an increase with chemical costs.
We use an RO system now for spot free rinse and capture the regen water for the regular rinse cycle in the bays.
The posts above are solid guidance, imo.

 

[WaterTech]

I have about 2200 grains of hard water so a softner is a must.

or to you mean 2200 PPM which equals to 128 Grains of hardness?

 

[STXCW]

We use a twin 210k softener and only use soft water for RO and chemical applications. All HP rinse cycles are hard water.