That depends entirely upon your water conditions. If you have no particulate, no iron, no manganese, no sulfates and reasonable TDS then you may be fine at 12 days, provided you have good quality resin in your system. If you can provide water analysis, softener specs, and the # of people in your home, I can recommend appropriate softener settings for you.

Thanks, but I don't have all that information on hand.

So generally 12 days MAY be fine, but 7 is said to be optimal.

I think the difference between the 12 vs 7 days is that my husband has the softner set for 75 gallons per person and we are falling way under that.... perhaps setting it for 60 gallons might be better.

So when is longer intervals bad? Like to the tune of 12-14 days?

Oh and another thing... we have a softner with a amanual dial to set the gallons. Aquasystems is the make and I think the valve head is fleck or clack.

Are capacity and gallons the same thing? So if I needed to set the capacity to size of the softner, I think its 34000... then I would have to convert that to gallons?

It is impossible to help you if you don't provide the necessary information.

Softener capacity depends upon three things:
1. Resin volume
2. Resin type
3. Regeneration salt concentration

Proper softener setup depends upon:
1. Water analysis
2. Number of people in your home
3. Existence (or not) of high water use fixtures
4. Softener type
5. Softener BLFC size

As to longer intervals, I thought I was clear above, but one again, you cannot use a long interval if you meet any of the following criteria:
1. Water TDS is too high (you need analysis)
2. You have iron or manganese (you need analysis)
3. Sulfates are too high (you need analysis)
4. You have low-quality resin
5. You don't know what your resin type is
6. You don't know your water analysis

In your case, since you don't have the proper information, you should not use a long interval.

If you can provide the specifics of your softener, I can help you set it up properly. If you can't, NO ONE can help you set it up properly. The necessary information is as follows (guessing will not help):

1. Type of softener (post a pic of the valve and ALL stickers or information since you don't know)
2. Softener size. Measure the tank height and diameter if you don't know.
3. # of people in your home.
4. Hardness
5. Iron/manganese
6. TDS
7. pH

If a softner is labeled as 48000.

How much hardness is removed per pound of salt?

SOmeone wrote 1.5 Cubic ft on the softner if that makes a differennce.

As for a water analysis, it sure tastes good and is clear so I bet its OK. Its not like we are on well water and I don't live in West Virginia.

The guy at the clerks office says we have hardness in the high range....

I do have old test here... I have to find it ... I think the hardness is in the range of 35-45. The soiftner I labeled 48K, 1.5.

Okay, I will try one last time.

The amount of hardness removed per pound of salt depends entirely upon the amount of salt used during regeneration. If you use more salt, you get lower hardness removed per lb of salt, longer times between regens and lower salt efficiency. Generally we try to size and set up a softener to strike a balance between salt usage and water usage. But, again, it's reliant on actual water analysis. It's science and math.

How your water tastes is subjective. You have city water so the water is safe. Those have nothing whatsoever to do with the amount of hardness in your water. The difference between 35 and 45 grains per gallon of hardness is huge.

Since you have city water, you are entitled to a copy of the quarterly report. Some cities post theirs online. Find the report - at least that will tell me something useful.

The only thing I can possibly tell you at this point is that there is no way you should be going 12-14 days between regens.

If you can't or won't provide the necessary info, the only thing you can do is guess where your dial should be set and hope you have soft water. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I have absolutely no way of divining your water conditions. Analysis, analysis, analysis. Period.

Alternately, just find your local Aquasystems rep and have them come out and check your system and set it properly. They will likely charge you for the service.