AquaHouse 9 Litre Metered Water Softener

The AquaHouse 9 Litre water softener is compact and suitable for complete scale prevention for average residential or light commercial use. The compact design means that this unit fits neatly into most kitchen base units and utility rooms.

Utilises a metered control board. The softener can be programmed to automatically regenerate when needed based on your water use and hardness.

Integrated bypass valves are included and pre-installed on the rear of the softener, the connections are 3/4" BSP (22mm) male threaded.

Features

• Recommended for average sized households (1-5 persons) or light commercial use
• Meter controlled - only regenerates when needed based on your usage and hardness
• Integrated bypass valve
• Suitable for all UK water hardness levels
• Hardness control valve (can adjust the level of softening if desired)
• Compact design (H: 583mm, W: 225mm, D: 512mm), fits most kitchen base units
• Sliding lid (less height clearance needed for refilling)
• WRAS approved control valve and internal tank. NSF 44 approved softening resin.
• 2 Year warranty*

Specification

• Meter controlled valve settings: Meter immediate, Meter Delayed, Day Override, Holiday Mode
• Mains powered supplied with UK standard plug
• Tank contains 9 Litres of fine mesh NSF 44 certified water softening resin
• 3/4" BSP (22mm) fittings included with integrated bypass valve
• Rated service flow*: 1m³/H / 1000 Litres per hour / 16.66 Litres per minute
• *Rated service flow is for completely softened water, to NSF 44 standard at 342ppm hardness. Flow rate can exceed this but softening effect will lessen above these rates, consider our larger 21 litre model for higher usage.
• Max flow rate through valve: 4.5 - 5.9 m³/H / 4500 - 5900 Litres per hour / 75 - 95 Litres per minute
• Operating pressure: Minimum: 1.4 Bar - Maximum: 8.4 Bar
• Litres between regenerations - Dependant upon hardness - Example @ 200mg/l up to 1500 litres, @ 300mg/l up to 1000 Litres.
• Salt storage capacity: 21KG
• Salt used per regeneration: 0.9KG
• Salt type: Salt tablets (must be water softer salt, to BS / EN973 Type A specification)

How it works

Water softening is carried out by an ion exchange process, whereby the hardness mineral ions, Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg), are captured by the softening resin inside the water softener tank, thus removing them from the water. When this happens, Sodium (Na) ions are exchanged in their place, which due to its higher solubility, avoids hardness related problems as the water becomes soft and cannot form lime-scale throughout pipework and appliances.

Once the softening resin is saturated with hardness mineral ions the water softener needs to go through a regeneration process, where a brine solution is automatically flushed through the tank to regenerate the resin by recharging it with sodium ions, so that it may continue softening the water.

The AquaHouse water softener uses a programmable meter to control this process, so it will automatically regenerate when needed based on your water hardness and usage, for the most efficient use of salt and delivery of soft water. You then just top the softener up with salt when needed (salt sold separately & widely available).

The amount of water which can be softened between regenerations depends upon the amount and quality of resin within the softener, and how hard the water is to begin with. The AquaHouse water softener uses a very high quality fine mesh resin meeting NSF/ANSI 44 standard (for cation exchange water softeners), suitable to be used for all UK hard water areas.

FAQ

How often will the softener regenerate? - This will depend on the water hardness and the amount of water used, if we took an average hardness of 200 mg/l this softener will produce approximately 1500 litres of soft water between regenerations. For example, an average family of 3 people, assuming all of the water is used at home and is from the water softener, could expect the unit to regenerate 2 times per week.

How much salt does it use? - This also depends on the usage and hardness, if we took the above example of 2 regenerations per week, with 0.9KG of salt used per regeneration, a 25KG bag of salt would be expected to last for up to 28 regenerations, 14 weeks using the above example.

What happens during the regeneration process? - The system automatically enters bypass mode, so there is no interruption to water supply, once complete it switches back to normal.

When will it regenerate? - This depends on the settings on the meter controlled valve, you can choose between:

- Meter Immediate - it will immediately regenerate when needed

- Meter Delayed - it will know it needs to regenerate but delay this until the programmed time, by default this is usually 2am

- Day Override - you can manually tell it to do an immediate regeneration

Does the salt get added to the water? - No, although you add salt to the softener it does not actually add this salt directly to your water, the salt is used to make a brine solution which the softener uses to regenerate the resin. The resin then uses the sodium ions (Na) which is used to exchange for the hardness mineral ions when making soft water. This process does add sodium (Na), the amount of which is dependant upon the hardness of the water being softened. For most people this is ok to drink unless in an extremely hard water area, but should be avoided for babies and people on a low or zero sodium diet. If you need to or would like to avoid drinking softened water you can:

- Install an unsoftened / hard water tap at the same time as the softener, or take a separate feed to the cold water input on your kitchen tap before the softener

- Install an under sink reverse osmosis system for your drinking water tap - this will remove sodium from the water to a very high level, in addition to virtually all other chemicals / compounds from the water to a very high level - please see our range of reverse osmosis systems if this is of interest.

- Alternatives such as salt free whole house water filters with scale prevention are available, please see our Whole House systems such as the EcoPlus if this may be of interest.

*Warranty

The warranty is valid providing that the softener has been installed in accordance with the instructions provided, has not been misused or tampered with, and has only been used with appropriate quality salt for water softeners (to BS / EN973 Type A specification). This warranty does not effect your legal rights.