Monthly Archives: March 2021

Plumbing & Heating

Kinetico Low Salt Alert

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Jump to Ricks TwinTec Low Salt Alert

Water softener installation blog

Being a new water softener user, (March 2021), I was constantly checking the level of the block salt my Kinetico Premier Compact uses and as my unit is outside due to space restrictions, I thought there must be away to remotely alert if more salt was required.

Final Version (23 February 2022)

Below you will find a number of different versions and iterations of my attempt at alerting to low salt level in the water softener, this is what I have ended up with.

  • No additional devider required to keep the salt blocks apart in the softener, this caused the salt block to jam 🙁
  • The Sonoff wireless contact was simply out of range of wifi reception no matter what I did, this caused it to intermittently drop offline and eat batteries, so this was removed.
  • Replaced the Sonoff with a Pyronix Nano door contact:

The magnet carrier within the softener remained the same, simply resting on top of one of the blocks and the Nano contact velcroed on the side of the casing, in the same place where the Sonoff used to be.

A little circular magnet gives me a level indication of the salt block, average usage is about 11mm of salt block erosion per day.

The Nano contact links into the house alarm system and is configured to log events and act as a simple switch to operate a relay when the contact opens or closes, this is a totally independent function of the alarm and will not cause an alarm activation if the salt goes low 🙂

I have brought the Sonoff switch inside and it is now triggered by the relay which changes state based on the Nano, this allows a ‘Scene’ to run, switching on and off a mains lit sign when the salt is low as well as an App notification.

The use of using an intruder alarm contact is that communications between the contact and the alarm is monitored as is the battery condition, giving me a failure alert which I didn’t have with Sonoff.

This setup has been in use for about two months and has worked really well, I think this may be the last time I have to play with it!

Version 4 (21 May 21):

I have used Sonoff Smart devices for a number of years which are monitored and controlled via the eWeLink App on my iphone and ipad so I knew this was the non invasive way to go, especially as the DW2 battery level and online status is monitored and alerted on the App .

Caution – The method I’m using is not fail safe, please don’t blame me if your water reverts back to being hard because you ran out of salt :-).

The idea is that a strong magnet will be carried on top of the left hand salt block as this was observed to be slightly lagging the right hand one as the blocks dissolve.

The magnet will be lowered by the dissolving salt until a point is reached which it will trigger the Sonoff sensor which will be attached to the outside of the water softener, this will then trigger an alert via WiFi and the eWeLink mobile App as below.

A 90mm length of 25mm PVC tube with sealing end caps sits on the salt block, inside the left hand cap is a 20mm x 4mm disc Neodymium magnet. To enable the magnet to be guided throughout its travel, a Perspex divider is used between the two blocks.

On the outside of the softener the Sonoff switch is fixed with Velcro at a height which will give me a few days notice of low salt, with the wires from the switch have been extended to the Sonoff transmitter, and this is now mounted as high as I could get it within the enclosure in an attempt to get the best WiFi signal.

I also decided to use a smaller magnet on the outside of the softener to show the position of the salt block magnet, a graduated strip shows approximate days salt usage left (26 days per 8Kg).

The level detectors signal strength is quite good and seems to work, but its still early days and more monitoring is needed before I can say with certainty that it can be relied upon fully.

On thing to App allows you to do is link to other devices in the Sonoff range, I have set a ‘scene’ so that on low salt detection, a mains powered light will turn on in the house giving me a visual indication, which is a great feature.

Testing of the Sonoff is very easy, I simply place an external magnet near the device to confirm operation.

NOTE: Most of the difficulties in my installation have been with WiFi signal, if your softener is indoors, an unmodified DW2 with a magnet in a tube would work just fine 🙂

Sonoff Devices

The WiFi sensor I used was the battery operated stand-alone Sonoff DW2 -WiFi wireless Door/Window Sensor, as I already had a number of Sonoff devices and the eWeLink App on my iphone.

I did modify the sensor as described further on, but I didn’t have too, as the App had a selectable setting to push notify when the sensor either goes Closed or Open, equating to ‘seeing a magnet’ or ‘not seeing a magnet’ which if I’d known first I wouldn’t have gone to the effort of taking it apart :-).

A key takeaway is that the Sonoff must be in range of your WiFi, obvious I know, but it caught me out!

How it evolved to the working version

The Sonoff modification would be to change the original Reed Switch which is normally kept closed and out of an alert condition by the presence of a magnet, I needed the opposite of this, the introduction of a magnet would cause an alert, (as mentioned earlier, this really doesn’t matters as the App settings could have solved this).

So to the shopping list, all of eBay:

Version 1

  • ABS Box (75.5 x 49.5 x 28) @ £4.50,
  • Disk ring Neodymium magnet 20 x 4mm @ £4.89 for two,
  • Reed Switch 3 pin magnetic switch normally open closed conversion 2.5 x 14mm @ £4.79 for five,
  • Sonoff DW2 – WiFi Door/Window Sensor Smart Switch @ £8.15,
  • AAA batteries x2 (already had),
  • Piece of Velcro sticky back Hook & Loop,
  • Glue CT1 (already had),
  • (Version 2) offcut of 22mm and 20mm plastic conduit (already had).

Parts came to ~£23.00

Version 1 – First job was to glue the disc magnet inside the ABS box, after trail and error, the best place for the magnet was the rear left side of the box.

Next task was to remove the reed switch which comes with the DW2, this is easily identified as the long thin black rectangular component on the same side as the battery clips, this simply unsolders from the PCB pads.

The PCB is held in place by a small blob of white silicon at each end and a clip, using a small screwdriver to carefully prise the board out does the trick.

I originally soldered the normally closed reed switch in the same places as the original, but I thought I needed to get the reed switch as close as I could to the wall of the softener, so I used the Sonoff’s magnet enclosure to hold the normally closed reed switch after attaching so flying leads.

The image below shows the type of reed switch I needed to fit as I had to change the reed to be normally closed without the presence of a magnet, telling the DW2 door sensor that the door was closed, when a magnet is introduced, the reed moves position within the glass envelope, breaking the circuit, triggering the DW2 to alert to a door open which in our case is low salt level.

A couple of holes were drilled and the wires from the reed switch were soldered to the PCB pads.

Once the eWeLink App is downloaded and an account is created (can be free but I chose to pay the nominal fee), the DW2 can be paired on the 2.4GHz WiFi home network, this is incredibly easy, open the app, press and hold for 5 seconds the push switch on the DW2 until a red LED flashes, back on the App – Press add device and after entering your WiFi details, the DW2 is paired 🙂

Details can be configured in the App, including changing the alert description, push notification and sharing the alerts with other eWeLink accounts if needed.

Now the moment of truth – bringing the magnet close to the reed switch should trigger the App status to show the switch is open and change to closed when the magnet is moved away.

As my block salt level was low, I noticed that the blocks tilts back slightly in use, I put the ABS box on top of the left hand block and due to the lean it should stay in the same place on the block as it drops.

I offered up the DW2 to the outside of the softener while watching the App status, moving it up and down the outside of the unit until it triggered, I marked with a pencil using the top of the DW2 on the cabinet the point at which I wanted an alert, I then stuck a strip of self adhesive Velco hoops under the pencil line.

The magnet I used is deliberately powerful, and it was no surprise that it operated the reed switch when it was some distance away from the reed switch and will continue to hold the reed switch open for a fair bit of travel as the salt level lowers, this was factored during the setup process.

Using Velco I secured the DW2 to the softener as this allows for fine adjustments and the job is done.

Salt changed and system ready with room for the lid.

This was the first time I had replaced the blocks and those with keen eyesight will note the blocks are not installed as per the manual (page 18), this has now been rectified.

Version 2 – Magnet Carrier

A few days after changing the block salt, I decided to see how the ABS box magnet carrier was sitting on top of the salt …………disaster!

As you can see from the picture, the left hand salt block has leaned over to the right taking the magnet too far away from the side wall, it may well be that when the salt block drops it may once again move to the optimal position for the magnet, I didn’t want to take the chance, so here is Version 2 which will defiantly need further revisions.

I took the two magnets out of the ABS box and cut two pieces of plastic conduit, the 25mm conduit spans the salt block gap, with a shorter piece of 20mm conduit glued inside it, the magnet was glued inside the 25mm pipe with the 20mm pipe acting as a backstop.

It was important that the magnet was flush with the end of the pipe as I’ve ordered some plastic end caps as I don’t want any metal contact with the salt or brine solution.

Its quite hard to see, but the conduit pipe bridges both salt blocks, I put a magnet at each end so it wasn’t important which way round I put it in.

The major problem with this design is that the pipe will hit the salt grid which I have only just noticed, so watch this space!

Version 3

To address the problems with Version 2, I bought a piece of 3mm thick Perspex and cut it to act as a full height guide for the left and salt block, the guide simply rests against the salt and the existing salt grid assembly.

I cutdown the magnet tube holder to be a nice fit and this time I’m only using one magnet to bias rather than trying to balance the tube.

Lessons Identified

1 . Make sure you have a solid WiFi signal where the DW2 is fitted.

The eWeLink App shows signal strength that the DW2 is seeing, however, once I put the box around the softener, the received signal strength fell and the DW2 went offline. To resolve this I changed one of the kitchen sockets, which is near to the softener, to a WiFi extending version from Screwfix (988FV) and this worked fine.

WiFi Extending Socket InstructionsDownload

2 . The DW2 eWeLink allows for a selectable Push Notification to your phone if the switch either opens or closes, I could have left the DW2 as it arrived out of the box and made the change in the App rather than physically modify the DW2.

3 . My salt level was falling at a rate of 14.6mm per day and we will always have 8Kg available (Block 280mm tall/14.6mm daily usage = 19 days per 8Kg). This was the first salt the softener had used, so it may slow down, the point being to set the alert level to suit adding a new block straight away, or as a trigger to re-order or change it in X days, the positioning of the DW2 determines the alert trigger.

You could always add another DW2 using the same magnet, with one DW2 set as a pre-salt order trigger with the other DW2 as the block change alert.

4 . The ABS box for the magnet was just the right size, if it was any larger it might not allow the lid to close in the salt compartment when a new block was fitted, but it was small enough to give me an alert on low salt level with 30mm salt left (day and halfs worth).

5 . Keep an eye on things in case they don’t go to plan, hence Version 2 🙂

Ricks TwinTec Softener Alert

Rick got in touch as he has a TwinTec water softener and was looking to also have a low salt alert and sent me a list of parts he was going to use and his ideas:

Ricks design was for the magnet which triggers the wireless door sensor to mounted on the outside of a waterproof box which sits onto of one of the salt blocks, the external magnet will also space the box away from the side wall, the wireless sensor will be affixed to the outside of the softener.

The final location of the sensors exact position will be by ‘test & adjust’, making sure it triggers when the salt level is at the right point that it needs replacing.

With the aid of a Zigbee repeater (Hubitat C8), when the sensor triggers an alert is set to Ricks phone and Alexa speakers announce out loud ” replace salt in water softener“, but so as not to wake everybody, Rick has set the announcement to stay quite between 10pm and 9am.

Really pleased it works for him and a great project, so thanks for allowing me to share it.

Plumbing & Heating

Kinetico Water Softener

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Updated 13 December 2022

LOw salt level alert blog
Table Of Contents
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We moved from the North a number of years ago from a soft water area to Chatteris, Cambridgeshire which has water classified as Hard, the effect of this is that soap doesn’t lather easily and appliance heating elements get coated in limescale reducing efficiency and life.

As a home improvement project, I decided to research water softeners.

How is Hard Water Quantified

Parts Per Million (ppm)

This scale is used to measure very small amounts of something in a larger quantity of liquid. It is used to measure dilute concentrations of chemical substances. One litre of water weight 1 million milligrams (mg). So 1 part per million (ppm) would mean the chemical is one millionth of the solution, or 1mg per litre. 

For water hardness levels, we measure parts per million of minerals including calcium carbonate (CACO3) in the water. Calcium carbonate is the compound in hard water that causes limescale build-up. Soft water typically has less than 50 ppm of calcium carbonate. Hard water has over 200ppm, Anglia Water drinking water quality information for the Chatteris area shows that the level is 230ppm compared to where we used to live which was 17.5ppm. 

I bought a water hardness test kit from Toolstation and this indicated that my incoming cold water was between 240ppm ~ 280ppm so I know the extent of the hardness which be of use later.

1 drop of reagent into incoming hard water , adding drops until the solution turns blue
After 12 drops equates to 240ppm on the 1 April 21, the same test on the 22 February 21 came out at 280ppm.
Find out how hard the water is where you live

Water Softeners

These work by ion exchange, incoming hard water passes through a bed of activated resin beads, these beads remove the calcium carbonate and magnesium molecules as the water passes through the resin chamber, the exiting water is now free of the limescale causing molecules and is now soft.

To maintain the resins ability to ion exchange the resin is backflushed with a brine solution, the backflush waste water goes directly to drain.

There are a number of considerations to take into account in selecting a water softener, these are:

  • Cost to purchase
  • Cost to run
  • Salt – Block or Granular
  • Number of bathrooms
  • Number of people living in the property
  • Incoming water pressure
  • Single or Two resin chambers
  • Type of hot water system (Gravity, Indirect or combi boiler)
  • Electrical supply required or not
  • Physical size of the softener and where will it go
  • Warranty
  • Dealers
cutaway
Cut away view of of Kinetico premier compact

What did we choose and why

I’m definitely no expert on water softeners, first port of call was the internet and YouTube to see what were the popular UK models and to read reviews that users made on dealer sites.

Going through the above list, the purchase and running cost will be known after most of the other points are answered.

3 live in the property and we have 2 bathrooms (ensuite shower is classed as a bathroom), the hot water is supplied from an unvented indirect cylinder, meaning the hot water is under a constant pressure and pushed out of the cylinder to the hot tap by the incoming water pressure at the bottom of the cylinder, the incoming pressure is typically maintained at 3 bar so that the hot & cold taps and mixer showers for example are at the same pressure.

Where the hot water uses the incoming water pressure, a High Flow (HF) unit will be required as the flow rate is higher through the resin chambers to reduce any pressure drops, also the softener inlet and outlet pipes are larger.

If the water pressure to the house was low, introducing the water softener might cause a problem, I measured the pressure here at 2.8 bar (40psi) which is fine, a pressure gauge is available from Toolstation.

The activated resin chamber I mentioned earlier needs to be regenerated, (back flushing the beads with brine (salt solution)), with a single chamber, softened water will not be available during the regeneration process, we opted for a dual chamber unit so we always have a supply of softened water, however this does have a cost implication.

How does the softener know it needs to be regenerated?

Two methods, timed or metered. With a timed version, an electrically powered (low voltage via a transformer) timer will trigger the process, the main disadvantage apart from requiring a power source is that regeneration could occur if no softened water was used, but simply based on time.

A strong advantage of an electrically powered softener is the ability to have an alarm indication on low salt, with a mechanical only unit, you have to physically monitor this (but I’m working on it 🙂).

The softener we selected used actual metered soft water usage to mechanically trigger regeneration

The model which satisfied all our requirements including a 10 year warranty was the Kinetico Premier Compact HF which we bought from Aquastream Water Softeners Ltd who gave exceptional service, they responded to my emails quickly and are experts in their field, I would not hesitate in highly recommending them.

Kinetico Premier CompactDownload

Installation

If you are a confident at DIY, the plumbing for the water softener is very easy, with only two pipes and a drain hose, the price of the softener included the 22mm Bypass kit which contains all the full bore valves, strainers and 0.75m flexible hoses to connect the houses fixed plumbing to the softener.

Due to the underneath of the kitchen sink base unit being full of other stuff, we decided to put the unit outside and to build a wooden insulated enclosure for it.

As we replaced the kitchen a few years ago, I knew where the incoming water pipes run, from the picture below you can see the rising main and stop cock, this tees off for the kitchen sink, with the 22mm copper pipe transitioning to John Guest 22mm push fit disappearing behind the dot & dab plaster boarded wall on its way to upstairs.

The kitchen base cabinets were a bit too ‘busy’ for the softener to fit but left enough room for me to access the buried pipes once a hole is made in the cabinet back .

Once the cabinets back was cut out and plasterboard removed to expose the 22mm plastic cold water pipe, two 32mm holes were drilled to outside, the holes then sleeved with 28mm copper pipes ready for the 22mm copper passing through these to outside.

The water supply to the Insinkerator hot water boiler is from the valve on the left of the picture, the boiler water feed will be moved from hard to soft.

It is important to keep the kitchen sink cold tap feed before the water softener for cooking and untreated drinking water, it is also advisable to supply any outside taps before the softener to save on salt usage and prevent damage plants over time.

I used ‘O’ rings around the 22mm pipes to keep them centralized within the through wall sleeves.

To make the plastic pipe to fitting connection, it is important to cut plastic pipe to leave a clean cut and to use superseal pipe inserts, marking the depth of the fitting on the pipe before pushing it onto the pipe ensures that it is fully seated.

The pipe cutter I used came from Lidl and cost £5.99

Lidl Parkside Pipe Tools

On the John Guest pipe their are fitting engagement marks already made to assist with ensuring the fitting is fully pushed over the pipe, but my fittings didn’t marry up with these, so I measured and marked the pipe to confirm the elbow and Tee were fully engaged before pushing them home and tightening the collet ring after which I pushed on the locking rings (Blue clips).

The 15mm copper pipe leaving the Tee in the picture below, is the new softened water supply to the hot water boiler, all the copper elbows (15mm for the water boiler and 22mm for the softener) are long street elbows, this reduces joints and saves space which was ideal in my situation.

To keep everything in place and to insulate the pipes I used expanding foam, two other pipes are in the picture, one is for the outside taps which I lagged internally when the kitchen was being fitted, the other is another plastic pipe, this time 15mm for the kitchen sinks hot water tap.

With the cover on, nobody would know the carnage 🙂

On the outside the bypass valves and copper runoff to drain installed.

The copper pipe is the regeneration drain for when the resin chambers are back flushed and must be air gapped from the waste system to avoid any cross contamination with the drinking water. The cold water inlet to the softener must have a a non return valve to prevent back flow.

WRAS Water Softener Installation Guide

Finished installation, the Kinetico softener is off the ground sitting on a 50mm polystyrene backed base, 22mm stainless steel braided hoses each have a strainer fitted and to ensure that the softener doesn’t freeze, I have taken the precaution of installing a 40 Watt thermostatically controlled tube heater from Toolstation.

Easily removeable frame, sides and top lined with 50mm polystyrene, access for checking salt is by lifting the top off.

Pipe Schematic

Schematic for planning valves and documenting modifications

What are the Running Costs

The cost of the softener including bypass valve arrangement and 2 x 8Kg blocks of salt including factory setup was £1,295.00 inc VAT which was as cheap as I could find.

The only consumable other than regeneration water is Kinetico Block salt, the cost varies tremendously and I have found Saltstore to be the most competitive with an excellent online ordering system and friendly staff.

I have mentioned water hardness and the metered chamber regenerations, the Kinetico uses different metering disc types in their machines depending on water hardness, this directly impacts on the number of regenerations.

For my areas water hardness a Type 6 disc, which regulates regeneration frequency based on flow through the softener, is installed, therefore after 327 litres of softened water has passed through the resin bed, the cylinder will regenerate using 20.5 litres of water and 0.34Kg of salt.

After referring to the specification table, I did query with Aquastream Water Softeners the reason for supplying a Type 6 disk with my softener as this is for up to 362ppm and in my area the maximum I have measured was 280ppm which would be within the scope of a Type 5 disc (305ppm).

The answer was based on their experience and knowledge in that the table values are factory test bench conditions and not real world, the water in Chatteris is typically around 300ppm and very low flow through the softener would not be metered, therefore their is a risk that we could have hard water before the softener regenerated which made perfect sense. Good to know.

The following spreadsheet shows the actual 2021/2022 annual costs based on current usage:

Actual Running Costs

The cost of 8Kg of salt increased to £6 in 2022, the softener uses ~ 11.35mm of salt per day based on my usage circumstances, therefore, the cost of salt per year is £78.00.

For two years before the softener was installed, my annual usage was steady at199m3, after a year in use of the softener, my metered water usage has risen to 127m3, therefore, the water used in the ‘Regeneration Cycle’ was 8m3 costing £13.47.

The total running cost is £91.47 per year or 25p per day.

Water-softener-running-costsDownload

In Use

The softened water is fine to drink with no trace of a salty taste, soap lathers well with either hot or cold water, skin no longer feels dry and Barneys cocker spaniels coat is nice and silky now.

I need to remember to put the softener in bypass when I top up the central heating pressure, so I have a reminder drawing in the softener cabinet.

Low salt level alert blog

Update

The softener has performed faultlessly, salt block usage is consistent, however, the price of salt has increased marginally, probably to reflect the increased cost of fuel.

Two observations since the installation have been:

  1. I record and upload water meter readings every time I replenish the salt blocks and this led to the discovery that my water meter was failing due to the low recorded water usage, Anglian Water replaced the meter and the blog on that is HERE.
  2. I have not monitored the effectiveness of the 40watt tubular heater in cold weather until now, and I’m happy that the wattage is more than sufficient to keep the water in the pipes from freezing.

External water softener enclosure at -5.6oC, the internal 40W heater is ON and the picture shows where heat loss is occurring on the lid, internally the temperature is at +7.1oC, so all is good.

External temperature -5.6oC and has not got above freezing for a few days.

The ‘Sensor Blue’ within the softener cabinet shows a temperature of 7.10C indicating that the heater is working perfectly.