Water Softener installation problem

[ndes79]

Hi.

I recently bought a Kinetico 2020c HF with drinking water system and was due for installation yesterday.

Plumber came round, shifted a few appliances about and turned the mains stopcock (situated at hallway/kitchen boundary) to stop supply of water. No water supplied upstairs but lo and behold, water still being supplied to kitchen!

Finds further stopcock under breakfast bar, shuts it off and this stops water being supplied to the kitchen.

He concluded that we have a split mains pipe and installing the softener under the kitchen sink would not soften water to the whole property. Bugger!

I suggested installing the softener before the mains splits in to two and he said that would work except that the softener needs a waste and overflow and there is nothing in the vicinity ie. in the hallway, under the stairs, to allow for this.

Apart from ripping up my kitchen floor and having the pipework renewed, can anyone think of a solution?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Dannypipe]

Are you saying that you have unsoftened water to the kitchen cold tap? If that is the case, I would say so much the better. Softened water isn't very pleasant for drinking.

 

[steadyon]

If the drinking water system is part of the water softener then I think you have a problem. However, if they are separate, which is the most likely case, then install the softener on the "upstairs" branch, and install the water filter on the kitchen sink branch. You are generally not advised to drink softened water.

If you have a combination boiler, you might also want to check that the manufacturer approves it for heating domestic hot water from a softened water source. Softened water usually contains minute traces of salt from the regeneration process.

Best of luck

 

[AlexGas]

From www.water.org.uk

The natural salts which cause hard water also give the water a crisp, pleasant and fresh taste, which is lost when water is softened. In addition, calcium and magnesium are essential minerals in our diet. So, if you have a water softener installed, we recommended that you have a separate unsoftened mains fed tap for drinking water.
Most softeners replace the calcium and magnesium that causes hardness with sodium. It is particularly important therefore that all water mixed with powdered milk for babies’ feed is drawn from an unsoftened mains supplied tap. This is because powdered milk already contains sufficient sodium, and very young babies have a limited tolerance to sodium. Anyone on a sodium-restricted diet should follow their doctor’s instructions.
The water supply to any softener must be via a single check valve to prevent backflow into the mains supply. Further information can be obtained from the Information and Guidance Note "Installation of Ion Exchange Water Softeners" on the Water Regulations Advisory Scheme
(WRAS) website, see: www.wras.co.uk

 

[ndes79]

Hello and thanks for your replies, which ae both informative and helpful.

The problem with installing the softener on the "upstairs" branch is that there is nowhere for the softener to be connected to a waste and overflow.

I bought the Kinetico 9000 series drinking water system so that would have been installed under the kitchen sink to supply a separate mini tap for drinking water. Even if I had a suitable waste and overflow for installing to the upstairs branch, that would still mean I have unsoftened HOT water to the kitchen sink, wouldn't it? Or would it be better to use the 9000 series to filter both hot and cold taps (is this even possible?) at the kitchen sink?

 

[Joncpi]

If the "upstairs branch" goes straight up to tanks and taps, can the water softener be positioned upstairs so the a bathroom waste sytem be used? Also I am pretty sure most water softeners do not "add sodium" to the water in order to soften it. Only the hand held jug types do this. The salt in ion exchange tower softeners is there to clean the resin beads in the tower. The brine removes the ions from the impurities in the water that are attracted to the positively and negativley charged resin beads during normal operation. The tower is then flushed with clean water down to drain for a couple of hours to wash the strong salt solution (brine) from the resin beads before it is switched back onto the house system. Normally this is timed to happen at about 2 in the morning when most people are tucked up in bed. I don't want to try to teach you to suck eggs, but another thing to check is that any outside taps are not after the water softener. It is not necessary to soften water for plants!

 

[ndes79]

If the "upstairs branch" goes straight up to tanks and taps, can the water softener be positioned upstairs so the a bathroom waste sytem be used? Also I am pretty sure most water softeners do not "add sodium" to the water in order to soften it. Only the hand held jug types do this. The salt in ion exchange tower softeners is there to clean the resin beads in the tower. The brine removes the ions from the impurities in the water that are attracted to the positively and negativley charged resin beads during normal operation. The tower is then flushed with clean water down to drain for a couple of hours to wash the strong salt solution (brine) from the resin beads before it is switched back onto the house system. Normally this is timed to happen at about 2 in the morning when most people are tucked up in bed. I don't want to try to teach you to suck eggs, but another thing to check is that any outside taps are not after the water softener. It is not necessary to soften water for plants!

Hi. Great advice.

I'm pretty sure they do add sodium as the salesman did tell me that babies and people on a low sodium diet should not drink softened water and that's is why they advise customers to have the drinking water system fitted too. I was told that the sodium that is added is very little in quantity though.

Any way, I was told by the installer that if he fits the softener under the kitchen sink as intended, I woul get cold and hot softened downstairs but only hot softened upstairs. I suppose that is because the hot water passes through the boiler first (downstairs) then is routed upstairs, whereas the cold upstairs branch goes straight up.

I'm starting to think my only option to have softened water everywhere is to have two softeners installed, one downstairs and one upstairs for the cold.

Have any of you ever installed them like this?

 

[gpbeck]

Ion exchange resin preferentially binds calcium ions, releasing sodium into the softened water. When the system regenerates strong saline is passed through and sodium reattaches to the resin releasing the calcium. Resin is then rinsed and only a small amount of sodium remains bound to the resin. So softeners do add sodium ions, but the saltiness is very slight.