Is your water softener set correctly? How do you know? What determines the correct settings for a water softener anyway? It must make some difference whether your water source is well or city water, and different cities have different hardness levels, so that must make some difference.
Maybe the current settings that you're using in your water softener are causing you to waste salt and water. Wait a second, water softeners come pre-programmed from the factory. Aren't the default settings correct?
Relax, I'm going to explain it all to you starting right now. Hi I'm Gary the Water Guy and I simplify water filtration to help you conquer crappy water for your family. Whether you're a homeowner or a plumber this video is for you. By the end of this video you'll know what the correct settings for your water softener should be and how to set them.
Modern water softners are far more efficient and easier to program than ever before but unless you're programming the correct information into those water softners you're throwing away that efficiency and you're throwing away money on the wasted salt and water. Or your water softener just won't be softening your water properly at all. And by the way, it would be easier to understand water softener programming if you know how a water softener works. If you're not 100% sure, click the link in the description down below and check out my video.
So the first step, you need to know the hardness of your family's water. So if you're on a municipal water system, you can call up the waterworks and ask them how hard your water is. Now if they give it to you in grains per gallon, that's the number you're going to be using.
but if they give it to you in parts per million, all you do is divide that number by 17, and that'll convert it into grains per gallon. If for some reason you can't get that information from the municipality, or your water source is well water, I've got a great YouTube video, and again, I'll put a link in the description down below, and you can check that out. Different ways to find out, to test your own water, to see, to find out the hardness of the water, or you can always mail us a sample. We'll test the water for free and let you know. In addition to softening your water, your water softener is also going to remove iron and manganese from your water.
But we have to compensate for that iron and manganese. So this is how we calculate that. So in this example, the hardness is 12, so we're going to use that.
And iron, we've got 1.5 parts per million. So you multiply that by 4, which equals 6. So 6 is the compensation factor for the iron in the water. Manganese, in this example, we've got 0.5 parts per million. We're going to multiply that 0.5 by 6. which equals 3. So 3 is the compensation factor for the manganese in the water.
And we're going to add 2 grains per gallon to compensate for any inefficiencies. That's just kind of a rule of thumb that we use in the water filtration industry. So then we total these up.
We add the 12 plus the 6 plus the 3 plus the 2 equals 23. So the compensated hardness settings, the setting you're going to put into program into your water softener is going to be 23. If you have a modern electronic water softener like this Hume water softener, it's super easy. All you need to do is press the next and the up button at the same time until the screen changes and that's where the hardness settings go. So you just use the up arrow two three so now it's set to 23 grains per gallon.
Press next, press next, press next, press next, and you're done. And by the way if you're thinking about investing in a new water softener I definitely encourage you to check out our Hume water softeners which feature the great KLAK WS-1 valve. We offer free shipping and discount pricing.
Just go to waterestore.com in the US and waterestore.ca in Canada. Click here for your next video on water softeners and I'll see you there. Any questions or comments add them down below. I read them all.
I'd love to answer yours.