A water softener’s primary operation is to remove hard water minerals. The following is details how typical water softener gets rid of hard water.

The hard water enters the top the water softener and passes down through the resin media. This is where Ion exchange occurs.

Ion exchange: Removes the hard minerals (calcium and magnesium) to produce soft water. As water flows through the resin bed the resin attracts the hard water ions and exchanges them with a very small amount of sodium.

The treated water, which is now soft water, then flows up through the center distributor tube and into the home.

Regarding the sodium that is added to water, there is very little salt added into soft water.

For every 10 GPG of hard water, only 0.075 grams/L of sodium is added for every quart of water.

As a reference, soft water contains a lot less sodium than 8 ounces of milk, and the daily food and condiments that we use daily.

The KDF-85 (for downflow designs) Filter comes pre-installed at the bottom of the distribution tube.

The KDF filter provides enhanced water filtration to remove chlorine and heavy meals from the water giving you soft, chlorine-free water. throughout the home



This softener operates the same as without the filter.

A water softener’s primary operation is to remove hard water minerals. The following is details how typical water softener gets rid of hard water.

The hard water enters the top the water softener and passes down through the resin media. This is where Ion exchange occurs.

Ion exchange: Removes the hard minerals (calcium and magnesium) to produce soft water. As water flows through the resin bed the resin attracts the hard water ions and exchanges them with a very small amount of sodium.

The treated water, which is now soft water, then flows up through the center distributor tube and into the home.

Regarding the sodium that is added to water, there is very little salt added into soft water.

For every 10 GPG of hard water, only 0.075 grams/L of sodium is added for every quart of water.

As a reference, soft water contains a lot less sodium than 8 ounces of milk, and the daily food and condiments that we use daily.

Well water treatment may require one or multiple filter systems. 

Additional filter may include iron filter, pH neutralizer and UV filters.

This is an example of a typical setup with the additional filters.

The backwash is needed to lift the resin bed and flush out the old hardness minerals that the brine rinse has stripped off the resin bed. This removes any excess salt that was not used to recharge the resin bed.

Then it flushes out through the drain line that is connected the softener control valve and into the designated area to drain.

How it works: The water flows down the center distribution tube and then pushes up on the resin bed lifting it up and cleaning and flushing old minerals and sodium from the system.

The average preset backwash time is 10 minutes.

Brine rinse is needed to:
- strip the hardness minerals off the resin bed,
- rinse excess sodium and old minerals, and to
- recharge resin with sodium ions.

The new sodium ions are required to remove hardness minerals to produce new soft water.

Downflow Brining:
The brine solution in the brine tank gets sucked out through the tubing that is connected from the side of the softener control valve.

The brine solution then travels down through the resin media bed. The new sodium ions in the brine solution stick to the resin to recharging the resin.

The water then travels up the center distribution tube and slowly drains out to the drain. 

This is called downflow brining, which is about 5% less efficient than upflow brining water softeners.

Rapid Rinse is needed to rinse and settle the resin down after backwashing. This also slowly removes more excess minerals and salt from system. 

How it works:
New water flows through control valve into tank and flows through resin bed.

It then flows up the distribution tube and out the drain.

The average rapid rinse time is set for 10 minutes.

Brine refill is replenishes the water back into the brine tank (or "salt tank") so salt can dissolve to create the brine solution for the next softener regeneration cycle.

How it works:
New water flows into the softener control valve and into the brine tank.

The control valve calculates amount of new water required set in programming. The amount of time this is dictated by how much salt is required to dissolve for proper operation.