Water Softener: hot water soft; cold water hard?

[Nikster]

Dear all,

First time poster so please go easy on me!

We recently moved into a two bedroom flat and were told that there was a water softener fitted in out loft. We had it serviced and I think it's working fine. However, when we tested the hardness of the water in the house, we discovered that all the cold water taps (kitchen and bathroom/en-suite sinks) had hard water and the hot water taps had soft water. Furthermore, our showers when hot seemed to have soft water but hard water when turned to cold.

I've had a look at the lines coming into and out of the water softener but to be honest I can't work our what's going on. (photo attached)

I just wanted to check that it was normal to have this set up? I know it's good to have hard water coming out of the drinking cold water tap in the kitchen but should other cold water taps also have hard water? Is the softened water only going through the boiler?

Your advice would be really appreciated.

Many thanks

Nik

 

[plumberdarren]

You are correct usually its only the 1 tap in the kithchen that is hard water, the other hot and cold outlets are usually plumbed in to come from the softener.

 

[Nikster]

Darren, if that's the case, what can I do to rectify it?

 

[Kimou]

There is talk of the actual efficacy of these. Though I'm pretty sure that base softeners, which it looks like you have because you have those blue hoses, are agreed to work. But it looks to be joined together on the same pipe I can't see where the seperation is. where is that actual softener unit? It doesn't look like it's set up correctly.

 

[Nikster]

Darren, if that's the case, what can I do to rectify it?

 

[Nikster]

Sorry for the repeated message. Still trying to work this out...

I've attached a few more photos to give you a better idea. The weird thing is that the cold tap in the kitchen gives a strong hard water reading whereas the other cold water taps have slightly hard water. Do you think that this could be as a result of the water needing to be regenerated?

I don't think the two blue hoses are on the same pipe. The water seems to come in from the mains, into the softener and then back out to another pipe which goes up to my tank but splits into two pipes going down. There is also a by-pass, which is closed, so that water is forced into the softener (I think). Should this be open?

Your help is really appreciated so thanks again.

 

[Kimou]

They are connected. Look at the pipe. The only possible way the connection is broken is if the isolation valve is off. But it may be letting by so basically mixing with softened water.

 

[Kimou]

Ok, I see the spherical valve is on the off position, but may still be letting by if; A) faulty or B) not closed properly. They should really be completely disconnected/seperate as it contravenes regulations for contamination

 

[Nikster]

Is there anything I can do to easily check this? Should I try turning the valve to tighten it? Also if the water is mixing, why are the hot water taps in the flat producing only soft water? For example, when I turn the shower to cold, the water is hard but when it's hot, the water's soft.

Also, Once the water has been softened, the water is pushed up to the tank but there are two pipes going down. What are they likely to be for?

 

[Kimou]

Hard to say. Don't know your system. Here's a speculative guess:

The shower's a mixer. The cold is probably main supply(should have single check valve on supply to shower due to mixing-if the cold is main supply) hot from storage which is being softened. The 2 pipes, down service, are storage supply that are supplied with water via the softener.

 

[steadyon]

If your cold taps are all mains pressure, it may be that they are fed from the incoming mains before the water softener.

The softener appears to be connected correctly. In normal operation the two blue valves are open and the one between the inlet and outlet to the softener is closed. This forces the water through the softener. If the softener is to be taken out of circuit, e.g. for servicing, then the two blue valves are closed and the other one opened to allow the incoming water to bypass the softener.

 

[Nikster]

Steadyon, many thanks for your post. Is this a normal set up in a flat - i.e. to have the cold water to all taps fed from the mains and the hot water to come from softened water? Also, does that mean that our dishwasher and washing machine will be fed with hard water?

Any thoughts on how I could confirm this set up?

 

[PlumbBobBob]

test the cold taps by putting your thumb over the end and turn on to try and stop the flow. if the flow is too hard to stop it will be mains if you can stop it it will be tank fed. you will get wet if mains fed by the way.

 

[Nikster]

Thanks Steve - just tried that. The cold water tap in the kitchen is definitely mains-fed; the others appear to be tank fed. The mains water is definitely hard.

But what I can't understand is why the water from the other taps is slightly hard (20-60 ppm) rather than soft (although the hot water tap in the bath is soft)? Could it be because the water is at the end of the regeneration cycle? Just went up into the loft to look at the water softener but it doesn't seem to making any noise. Should the water softener constantly be making a sound or only when regenerating?

Apologies for the slightly daft questions. Trying to get this sorted myself especially with a baby in the house. Your advice would be much appreciated.

 

[capitanpugwash]

Apologies for the slightly daft questions. Trying to get this sorted myself especially with a baby in the house. Your advice would be much appreciated.

We live in a hardwater area and have had a baby. He is growing well into a boy and does well on it. Why are you worried about the baby? As long as you are not drinking softened water then you will be fine....

 

[Kimou]

The only risk is to your appliances. Health risks are attached to soft water where there are reports of a higher percentage of cardio vascular symptoms. Which is why you don't install softeners on kitchen cold taps. Your hard water may be permanent hard or temporary hard. Permanent poses no problems to your appliances. No hard water is any threat at all otherwise it wouldn't be supplied.

 

[steadyon]

I think you may be on the right lines. The water softener works by passing the incoming cold through a bed of resin (I think they are called rheolites) which takes the calcium / magnesium compounds onto the resin beads. After a while the beads can't take any more. At this point the bed is flushed through with salt water, which dissolves the calcium off the beads and flushes it to waste. While this is happening no cold water passes through the bed (its bypassed) to avoid getting all but traces of salt in the domestic old water. When the flushing process is finished (two to three hours) the incoming water is once again passed through the resin bed.

The regeneration should take place at night (3:00 am for example). It is not a continuous process, and the frequency of regeneration depends on the usage of sofened water. When our two children were at home (teenagers), a regeneration every two days was needed. Now they've gone we are down to about every four days. This is with a 240litre cold water cistern and a mdeium sized hot water cylinder.

If the regeneration is not done often enough, the softened stored water (hot and cold) will gradually be diluted with unsoftened water. As the water is stored first in the cold water cistern, this will tend to become harder before the hot water. This sounds like the symptoms you have.

Doing a manual regeneration won't make an immediate difference. You will have to draw off the currently stored cold, and possibly hot, before you notice the change. Then the trick is to get the regeneration frequency set correctly to balance continously softened water with minimal salt usage. Bit trial and error, but well worth it. No limescale on taps, baths, shower walls - spoiling the domestic godess.

 

[Kimou]

I think you may be on the right lines. The water softener works by passing the incoming cold through a bed of resin (I think they are called rheolites).

Zeolites.

 

[gpbeck]

sounds to me like the softener is working fine and softening all water to the cold header tank. so all hot water and tank fed colds are soft which sounds good to me. Fresh from mains fed cold in kitchen.

 

[gpbeck]

you're stuck with lugging salt upstairs to keep the softener working though.

 

[gpbeck]

you're stuck with lugging salt upstairs to keep the softener working though.

 

[plumberdarren]

Sorry i havent replied, if you want to be 100% sure ask a plumber to take a look or think about moving it into the kitchen and plumbing into the incoming mains, it will also give easier access for maintenance.

 

[Nikster]

Thank you so much for all the comments on my problem. I've had another look at the water coming out of the taps and it's clear that the kitchen cold water tap has mains water which is hard but the other taps have slightly hard water (40ppm) rather than soft.

The re-generation process was set up by an engineer when the system was serviced on 10 June. At that point, the engineer also added about 17kg of salt pellets. As far as we (and the engineer) could tell, the softener hadn't been serviced for a number of years. I think he set the re-generation process for every three days (we are two adults and a baby in a two-bed, two-bath flat). Do you think one of the problems could be more salt required? Or should I increase the re-generation rate? Forgive my ignorance but how do we change the rate - we have an Autotrol series 255/440 control water softener?

Also, would the dishwasher and the washing machine be supplied with tank water or mains water?

I'm not sure why the water softener was put in the loft (it was previously owned by an elderly lady!) but presumably it couldn't be placed in the kitchen?

 

[Nikster]

I've worked out how to change the re-generation rate and have changed it to every two days. Hopefully that will help...

 

[gpbeck]

You need to keep the softener topped up with salt pellets - probably monthly. So it being in the loft is a bit of a pain. Possibly the cold water header tank has some old hard water content from before 10th June. It will be slowly replaced from the softener as you use water.

 

[gpbeck]

Two days is I would guess way too frequent for the size of your house unless the mains water is extremely hard. This will cost you a lot in salt and water if you've got a meter (regeneration might use 80 litres+) . Try weekly.

 

[Nikster]

It was set for every three days but I thought that might have been the reason for mixed water coming out of the taps. Do you think that I should set it back to every three days (as the engineer had suggested) and add more salt. I'm a bit surprised that more salt would be need as 17kg was added 17 days ago but I guess it has been several years since any salt had been added to the unit.

Aaargh...I can't work this out

 

[gpbeck]

test the softness just before a regeneration. if still soft, regeneration not needed yet, so lengthen cycle. set it to weekly, test on day six i would.

 

[gpbeck]

regeneration uses a fixed amount of salt whether necessary or not. costs money

 

[Nikster]

Hi all,

No progress yet. Regeneration took place yesterday but when I tested the water flowing from the bathroom taps, the water was still slightly hard (although not as hard as the mains water). I also checked the water softener and noticed that the water level was quite high and there was no salt at the bottom. Does anyone have thoughts on what I could do next?

Is it normal for 17kg of salt to be used in less than three weeks with a bi-wekly regeneration cycle? Also, can anyone tell me whether the water going into our dishwasher and washing machine should be tank fed or mains?

Any help or suggestions would be really appreciated.