On Jun 6, 8:37*am, Gary Slusser wrote:
On Jun 5, 7:26 pm, rradliff wrote:





Thanks to one and all for the suggestions, advice, and
recommendations.

To clarify things a little, we have no basement so thesofteneris
located in a hall closet. *Within the back wall of the closet is a
plumbing manifold that provides for turn-offs for every faucet and tap
in the house. *That's where the vent pipe is also located. *No floor
drain. *On the opposite side of the wall is the laundry room with the
usual drain that connects (properly) to the vent pipe. *Since the
drain is behind the manifold and it's many connections, I'd have to
cut out the drywall in the laundry room to make any connections to the
laundry drain. *Since that is still higher than the overflow tube on
thesoftener, I'd still be confronted with that little problem.

My wife and I discussed the matter last night and have decided to call
a plumber (to get the job done right) and just remove thesoftener
completely and reconnect the water line in a straight through manner
like it was before I started playing handy man. *He'd also have to
plug/repair the spots where I've entered the hoses into the vent pipe.

The next owner can fend for himself as I don't want to butcher up any
more walls with trap doors and access panels. *As it is, I'll have a
bit of a drywall job on my hands.

Thanks again,

Ron

IMO that is a big mistake. Especially if you have a signed sales
contract and the prospective buyer has seen the softener in place and
now you remove the softener but if not...

Selling a house with hard water and no softener is harder than if
there was a softener, and you have one! And all you have to do is
drill a 5/8" hole through the wall into the laundry room and run the
drain line through it. Any hardware or big box stores or a softener
dealer sells the drain line. You don't have to cut holes and do access
doors etc.. And you do not have to connect a drain to the salt tank;
especially if there is a float in the salt tank. I'm telling you this
after spending 21 years selling, installing and servicing softeners
and other water treatment equipment. if the new owner doesn't like
your drain line installation, s/he can change it easily, if there is
no softener, they will have the same problems you see now but, there
will be no evidence of a previous install and they will not be happy.
You can also ask any real estate agent about what I'm telling you and
see if they don't agree.

Normally a washing machine drain does not connect to a vent line, it
goes to a regular sewer drain line.

Gary Slusser
Quality Water Associates- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Gary,

Thanks for the advice. I hadn't really considered just running the
hose straight through the wall and dumping into laundry drain. I was
thinking I'd have to add a "Y" to the existing laundry drain PVC and
entering that way. Maybe I need to rethink this a bit more.

As far as the overflow, there is no float or anything of that nature.
The softener unit is a fairly cheap one. I believe it's called a
Water Boss (I'm at work right now and don't have access to it). It
only stands a couple of feet tall at most and is setting on a 6"
platform that I made to get it off the ground. I've never been even
close to having an overflow problem. My main concern in this whole
thing is the overflow drain since it's totally gravity feed and must
dump into drain etc which is lower than itself. If you think I'd be
OK by just plugging the overflow at it's source, I could easily
proceed along those lines.

I haven't sold the house yet, so there's no problem with bait and
switch with a buyer. We won't be selling until early next year when I
retire. I fully agree that that an installed softener, of any size or
quality, would be a definite selling point. I just don't want to end
up where the hastle/expense out weighs the gains.

Ron