When you are looking to size your water softener, there are several things that you need to keep in mind. The first thing you should do is determine how many people live at your house on average per day. If it’s just one person, then the amount of salt required will be less than, if five kids living with you. How much space do they have? How long of showers do they take? How often does someone wash their clothes in the machine? These are all things that happen in your house, and you need to know when you size a system.
Many stores do not know how to size salt softeners and sell them to you. They’re usually too big, and they use a lot of salt that is expensive. You can buy a smaller, more efficient one that uses less salt for the same amount of time.
Contents
- Why Should I Care About Efficiency?
- How To Properly Size a Water Softener? water softener sizing
- Now Calculate the Daily Softening Requirement
- Selecting a Softener To Match Your Conditions
- High Salt-Efficiency Water Softener Guide
- Undersized Water Softener Problems
- Water Softener Sizing Chart:
- Oversized Water Softener Problems
- How do you size a water softener?
- Is bigger better for a water softener?
- What does 30 000 grain water softener mean?
- What size water softener for a family of 4?
- What size water softener for families 1, 2 of 5, and 6?
- What size water softener do i need?
Why Should I Care About Efficiency?
The cost of salt is determined by the efficiency of your water softener. How much salt you need to buy, transport, and discharge into the environment. It is important to get a softener that will never run out of water. It’s also good if it uses the least amount of salt.
How To Properly Size a Water Softener? water softener sizing
Sizing a water softener is about matching the hardness of your water and how much you use it. The right-sized system will minimize salt and maximize soft water capacity.
You must figure out how much hardness there is in your water and how much you use each day. That will be the amount of hardness that your softener will take away daily.
Water Hardness
The amount of calcium and magnesium dissolved in your water is expressed in mg/L (milligrams per liter) or GPG (grains per gallon). The industry-standard term for water hardness is grains per gallon. It will be changed to GPG when the diver mg/L is multiplied by 17.1. A grain of water hardness equals 1/7000th of a pound, making it similar to the system used in measuring salt tolerance in animals.
It is very important to know the hardness of your water when you want to buy a water softener. Without knowing this, you might not get an extensive enough system for your home.
If you are on your well, you will need to test for hardness. If you are on city water, the hardness level in your local water utility’s annual report can be found online. You might need to add 3 GPG for every 1.0 ppm or mg/L of iron.
Water Consumption
The second element that determines your daily softening demand is your household’s water use.
The best way to determine how much water your household uses is to look at a water bill. You can use this information to figure out how much water your household uses per day, on average. If you don’t have the information, divide the number of people in your home by 75 gallons per day. This will give an estimate of daily water use for each person.
Now Calculate the Daily Softening Requirement
To figure out how many liters of water you need to soften each day (multiply your daily water usage by the hardness of the water, which is adjusted for iron), divide this number by your current hardness (water hardness) and multiply it by 100:
In this example, the softener will remove 3000 grains per day. The softener is usually sized to regenerate every week.
Selecting a Softener To Match Your Conditions
Water softeners are usually more than one gallon of water per day. They should be regenerated about once per week. Why? If you regenerate more often, it would get too tired, and the valve would wear out. Once-a-week regeneration is a good balance between keeping the resin bed fresh but not wearing out the valve too quickly. When the softener regenerates, it uses about 50 gallons of water which is not very much for a whole week.
If we need a water softener that can soften 3000 grains per day 7 days a week, we need a water softener that can do 21,000 grains of total hardness. If the water softener does 21,000 grains of hardness, then it will regenerate once a week.
High Salt-Efficiency Water Softener Guide
You can save salt if you know how much softening capacity is yielded by different quantities of resin. This capacity is based on the highest efficiency possible.
0.75 Cubic Feet of Softener Resin = 15,000 Grains Capacity
1.0 Cubic Feet of Softener Resin = 20,000 Grains Capacity
1.5 Cubic Feet of Softener Resin = 30,000 Grains Capacity
2.0 Cubic Feet of Softener Resin = 40,000 Grains Capacity
3.0 Cubic Feet of Softener Resin = 60,000 Grains Capacity
4.0 Cubic Feet of Softener Resin = 80,000 Grains Capacity
Undersized Water Softener Problems
If you have a too-small water softener, it will not produce enough water for your family if you use the water too much (or open up faucets at once), then the water will be hard and all of the benefits of having a softener won’t work anymore.
A water softener that is small will make it more frequently need to be regenerated. Water softeners regenerate when they flush their resin beads to get rid of built-up minerals. You can also use a water softener sizing calculator to Know about the exact size.
Water Softener Sizing Chart:
Below is the water softener sizing or say performance chart.
| Hardness in Grains Per Gallon | 1 to 2 people* | 3 to 4 people* | 5 to 6 people* | 7 to 8 people* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5-10 GPG | 32,000 Grain | 32,000 Grain | 32,000 Grain | 40,000 Grain |
| 11-20 GPG | 32,000 Grain | 32,000 Grain | 40,000 Grain | 48,000 Grain |
| 21-30 GPG | 32,000 Grain | 40,000 Grain | 64,000 Grain | 80,000 Grain |
| 31-40 GPG | 40,000 Grain | 64,000 Grain | 64,000 Grain | 96,000 Grain |
| 41-50 GPG | 64,000 Grain | 80,000 Grain | 96,000 Grain | 110,000 Grain |
| 51-75 GPG | 64,000 Grain | 80,000 Grain | 96,000 Grain | 110,000 Grain |
| 76-100 GPG | 80,000 Grain | 96,000 Grain | 96,000 Grain | 110,000 Grain |
Oversized Water Softener Problems
An oversized water softener is not necessarily bad because it will cost more money upfront. The good thing is that the machine will use less salt and water when it regenerates. That means you will pay less money after a long time, but the bad thing is that the machine will use more salt and water when it regenerates.
A water softener can be big. You need to know what the manufacturer-given capacity is for your needs. Otherwise, you will not have enough salt.
How do you size a water softener?
Determine the appropriate water softener size for your home by multiplying the number of people in your house by the gallons of water they consume each day (80 gallons per person is typical). To figure out how many hardness grains must be removed each day, divide that figure by the grains of hardness in your water.
Is bigger better for a water softener?
An oversized water softener is not a problem. You will pay more money for it but you will use the salt in the water softener less often and it will work better.
What does 30 000 grain water softener mean?
A water softener removes 30,000 grains of hardness. It needs to refresh and drain itself before it can take in more hardness.
What size water softener for a family of 4?
A family of 4 needs about 300 gallons of water a day. If the hardness of the water is 10 grams per gallon, then their daily softening requirement is 3000 grains.
What size water softener for families 1, 2 of 5, and 6?
What size water softener do i need?
| Hardness in Grains Per Gallon | 1 to 2 people* | 5 to 6 people* |
|---|---|---|
| 11-20 GPG | 32,000 Grain | 40,000 Grain |
| 21-30 GPG | 32,000 Grain | 64,000 Grain |
| 31-40 GPG | 40,000 Grain | 64,000 Grain |
| 41-50 GPG | 64,000 Grain | 96,000 Grain |