Hello all:

I've not posted in a long time (a couple of years??) but find myself
with a new issue and from past experience I know this is the best place
to get the input I need.

We live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and are on a well. Our
current water softener pretty much died. It's a Kinetico and we've
been told by several folks that while Kineticos are great for city
water, they aren't the best choice for well water. We've decided on a
Fleck 5600. What we haven't decided on is do we install it or do we
have it installed? A little background...

We've been given prices for the system installed of about $1000 which
includes pulling out the old system and hauling it away. We can order
a new system and install it ourselves for about half that. Since there
is a system currently on the well, I think we'd be okay installing this
new one but since we've not done this before, perhaps there's something
I'm not aware of. My husband is a former electrician so the electric
hook up isn't an issue. The water "piping" is PVC tubing so there
isn't an issue of sweating copper pipes, etc. Any thoughts on this?

After we jump this hurdle and get this taken care of, we'll be having a
water treatment system added but WON'T be handling that ourselves. Our
well is heavy on iron and sulphur. As of yet, we don't have exact
readings on the water, we've never needed them since we bought the
house with the softner and all was fine... until it died of course.

Thanks for any input on the installation of the softner and or our
future hopes of a treatment system.

Destiny