Water Softener Grains

Knowing your water and usage is vital to purchasing the correct water softener.

Water softener grains. A quick look online and in many stores will reveal an abundance of 24 000 32 000 48 000 and 64 000 grain capacity water softeners. This means that with 8 3 lbs of salt it could be possible to regenerate up to 27 600 grains. The hardness of water is measured in grains per gallon gpg. So a 32 000 grain capacity water softener should be able to remove 32 000 grains of hardness before you need to regenerate it again but this isn t strictly true.

The rated capacity of a softener is the maximum number of grains of water hardness the unit can remove prior to regeneration. High grain water softeners cost more money and on over sized softener means wasted money. What is sold typically as a 32 000 grain system contains 1 cubic foot of water softening resin. In simple words even though a 33 000 grain system can remove 33 000 hardness grains from water in a two regeneration cycle it would require a very.

This is where widespread incorrect information found on the internet and elsewhere can hide the real answer. There are however two aspects of this statement that are misleading. What does the grain capacity of a water softener mean. One grain of hardness is equal to 1 7 000 pound of rock.

How is the hardness of water measured. If one looks at the specification. If tested under lab conditions the softener will indeed remove this amount and that s because things like water pressure flow and temperature are monitored closely. A water softener advertised as a 32 000 grain system should be able to remove 32 000 grains of hardness before it requires regeneration right.

So what size of water softener offers 21 000 grains of total softening capacity.