How to adjust water softener hardness

[Dairylander]

I have a WaterSoft by Amtrol water softener.
It has a button that digitally adjusts the "hardness setting" on a scale from 1 to 99.
It's currently set at 40.
If I want harder water, do I go to a higher or lower number? Or does the hardness setting not control that?
We seem to burn through a lot of salt and I hate that slippery feeling when the soap won't rinse off.
An adjustment to slightly harder water won't put my appliances at risk, will it?
Thanks.

[Pipestone Kid]

The hardness setting is a number that is determined by the "grains" of hardness in your water and the iron content. You cannot set how hard or soft you want the water. It is either hard or soft--no adjustment for in between.

[cutnail]

Did you get your waters hardness tested? The test results (ex. 20) is what you set the hardness for.

[wookie]

We're assuming someone did a hardness test ( grains of hardness) when the unit was installed. That number can change and softner can be adjusted to the new info. Hardness setting just determines capacity of your softner, lower the hardness number the longer between regenerations ( assuming this is a on demand system), when regenerating you use a brine solution (salt). No matter the number you will get that slimey feeling as long as the softner is doing its job, looks as though it is, you have HARD water.

This has been a quick explanation.

The slime is not residual soap, thats how your skin really feels without hard water deposits on it


wookie

[Dairylander]

Thanks guys.
Our appliances are technical these days, I'm surprised no one has invented a way to have sorta-soft water.
I never tested the hardness myself. Hopefully the previous owner did.
I guess if I want a good shower I'll have to use the hose.

Originally Posted by wookie

... the lower the hardness number the longer between regenerations ( assuming this is a on demand system)

So why wouldn't less frequent regenerations mean harder water?

[lmpg]

Originally Posted by Dairylander

So why wouldn't less frequent regenerations mean harder water?

It will- sorta.

You'll basically run the thing out of softening capacity before regeneration, so the water will start to "harden up." After regeneration, it will be 100% soft again.

The only way to get semi soft water is to somehow blend a small amount of hard water back into the softened water.

That's real tough to do and be consistent, IMO.

[1pfieffer1]

Some good answers here.

water softeners can only remove so much hardness, which is measured in "grains". If memory serves me it is around 44,000 grains per cubic foot of resin prior to it's first use, and around 33,000 grains once backwashed, or "cleaned". The setting on the softener is to tell the unit how long to go before it "cleans" it self, because once it is exhausted there is no filtering effect until it is backwashed, it is either working or not working.

if you are using an excessive amount of salt it may be a result of the float in the brine tank not being set correctly, if it is too high and allows too much water to enter into the tank then it will disolve too much salt and be wasting it. Based on the 40 grains that your unit is set at, and assuming that you have a 1 cubic foot softner which is the most common size, you should be able to use around 825 gallons of water in your house before the softener regenerates itself. Do you use a lot of water through the outside faucets? Are they segregated from the softener and plummed in prior to the water inlet to the softner? Other than for car washing, outside water has no need to be softened.


Do you have a bypass valve on the softener? it will be where the inlet/outlet lines attach if you have one. If you want "just a little" hard water you can crack open the bypass to allow some of the hard water to mix back into the softened water. You will have to experiment with the positioning.

Better idea is to get used to the slimmy feeling on your skin, the feeling like you just can't dry off. What this means is that you are actually cleaner than usual and that is what your skim is supposed to feel like. You will use less soap with soft water to do the same cleaning job. What a softener does is make water wetter.......ya, wetter. Water is the universal solvent and disolves a little bit of everything. It is real good at picking up dirt when used for cleaning, except when it is hard, or in other words, already has dirt in it. Softeners remove the "dirt" and allow it to grab more dirt off your body.....!!!

I know it's one of my first posts but the topic fits my expertise.......20+ years in the water quality field.

[speedbump]

If you actually did want semi soft water, you could do like some restaurants do. They soften only the hot water. (Naturally the softener would be in front of the heater) I don't like this scenario for a home. Once you get used to the soft water and the "silkie" feeling of hardness free skin, you will probably never want hard water in the shower again.

If you in fact had 40 grain hard water, you would probably have a twin tank softener. One that switches tanks when the other tank is exhausted. That way you don't run out of soft water in mid day. In other words, a single tank one cubic foot softener doesn't have enough capacity to get you through the day on a single backwash. Softener timers don't have the ability to backwash the unit more than once a day on the single tank units.

I would have the water tested so you know where to set the softness dial so your not wasting salt.