"philkryder" wrote in message
ups.com...
I also use the "is the clear glass coming out of the dishwasher spotted
or not?" test.

To test your hardness, you should get a sample from a faucet BEFORE it
is softened.
That will tell you the hardness grains.



My understanding of the softnening process is something like this:
1) by changing the hardness setting you affect TWO things
a) how often your softner thinks it needs to soften
b) how much salt it uses when it does soften

It takes your hardness setting and multiplies it by the number of
gallons of water used to determine total grains.
It makes a "guess" as to whether or not you can make it through another
day without softening.
If not, it sets the softner to recharge that night.

When it is time to recharge, if the hardness is "high" it adds more
water to the tank, which disolves more salt, which puts more ions into
the recharge media.
Some areas, like here in California, limit the amount of salt in order
to reduce the salt in the outflow.
THis will cause the softener to recharge more often to compensate.


Note that:
If it guesses wrong (because you set the hardness too low or because
the water changed) then, it will run out of softening ions and draw
hard water into your system - if it is hot water, like a shower or
dishwasher, then you will have residual hard water in the water heater
the next day.

So, your choices a
Save water and Salt by setting the hardness lower
Have cleaner glassware and be more resilient to "anomalous high use
days" by setting the hardness higher.

My GE softener, which uses a control mechanism used by most home softeners,
injects the same amount of saturated brine containing about 4# of salt each
cycle. This is not user adjustable. When you enter the hardness number,
the softener's computer calculates the number of gallons the recharge will
soften. Then, when the water meter within the softener shows that amount is
nearly exhausted, the unit will be set to recharge again the next night. If
I go away for a week or two, the softener will not recharge because there
has been no water use.

Older softeners used a simple clock mechanism. My previous unit recharged
every six days based on my estimates of average use. There was no response
to varying use and, obviously, much wasted salt.

SJF