"Simon Stroud" wrote in message
...

"Ian_m" wrote in message
...

[[[big snip]]]
http://www.atlantis-uk.com/

Here're a few more manufacturer's sites:
http://www.colemanwater.co.uk/
http://www.culligan.co.uk/
http://www.ecowater.co.uk/
http://www.ensign-water.co.uk/
http://www.tapworks.net/
http://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/
http://www.waterways.ltd.uk/
...and the one that at least one regular on here really likes:
http://www.kinetico.co.uk/

Here's a supplier of salt:
http://www.directsalt.com/

One thing to watch which caught my friend out is the capacity rating. He
bought a timed one (regenerates at 2 in the morning) with 1200l capacity
suitable to a family of 4. But this 1200l capacity assumes a water
hardness
of 200ppm but is his nearer 400ppm thus only gets about 600l before it
runs
out, which it often does. He changed the timing to regenerate every 12
hours
but then it uses a lot of salt. His uses about 2 25kg bags a month where
as
my metered (only recharges when necessary) uses about 1/2 - 3/4 a month.

I got mine from http://www.ezsoftener.com/, took a in total a day to fit,
but I had to re-arrange kitchen sink waste pipe-work to make room for it.


Oh yeah I forgot that little trick.

Mine is a Aquadial Prismertec (part of or a brand of or taken over by, not
sure which) Culligan.

I chose this because it is intended for high flowrate systems with minimal
pressure drop. I have plumbed it in with hard 22mm pipework all the way
from
the stopcock to the (large Eco-Hometec) combi and onwards, and to all
showers etc "star fed" to minimise the effects of turning various things
on
and off. For minimum restriction you need to throw away the piddly
"washing
machine hoses" that come with it and do it in 22mm copper, only beneficial
if the softener has big bore internal pipework and resin vessel. This has
worked really well, although we are a bit limited by our crappy old 1/2"
water main but upgrading that to modern blue 25mm was a project too far.

The Prismertec is also rated for a large family (8-10 "people-days"
capacity) and measures usage and adjusts salt dosing appropriately.
However
their figures for capacity of softened water per day are VERY optimistic.
When I first installed it I used to watch the display and its "capacity"
indication always seemed to start off at something like "0.98" after
regeneration and I assumed that meant about 98% of possible capacity.
Generally, if it drops below about "0.50" then it regenerates that night,
and it always seems to do this with our usage. It's not THAT bad because
it
does seem to adjust the salt dosing time so it approximately picks up only
the amount of salt needed to regenerate the capacity that has been used
rather than the whole resin capacity.

BUT I later discovered that it's a bit of a con. The claimed capacity at
preset hardness is 1360 litres. BUT when it went wrong one time I did a
lot
of Googling and discovered lots of technical data on the valve and
controller used in it - the same valve is used in lots of American
softeners. As well as revealing how to repair it, it also revealed all the
factory settings for use on softeners of many sizes, and it became clear
that the "0.98" is actually the capacity in cubic metres which sounds a
lot
like 980, nowhere 1360, so a bit of a con.

Apart from this, I'm very pleased with it.

... and the way it went wrong was that one of the valve springs broke.
Very
easy to get a replacement from Culligan to fix it. Interestingly, a
colleague has a Prismertec and his went wrong in EXACTLY the same way -
same
spring, same valve, so may be a bit of a weakness there.

ISTR I paid around £600 for it when they were on promotion at the local
plumbers merchant.

Yes you have to watch the capacity thing, luckily my Wizard has two resin
containers and re-generates as necessary, just switches resin whilst other
one regenerates. You just programme the number of litres before it
regenerates. Was supplied set at 600l per tank, but mine is currently set at
320l before regeneration, you can by a 99p water hardness test kit from B&Q
to check the output of your softener. Mine was supplying hard water at 340l
per tank and soft water when supplying 300l per tank so set at 320l. Mine
was £530.