RO - As long as there are no leaks, you should able to just disinfect, rinse, replace the filters and go.

Softener: Call your Kinetico rep to find a price

Water data: units are required. There is, after all, a huge difference between ppb, ppm and %

As far as your softener is concerned: what color are the tanks? What is the number on the wheel at under the lens on top. Look at the float control in the brine tank, does it have a plastic cone or styrofoam disks?

One of the problems of getting nay USED piece of water treatment equipment is the condition it is in, the age, and the type of water it came from. These are rebuildable but you need to know what to look for. Can you describe the appearance of the RO: color of filter housings, tank, etc.

ROs can be sanitized. I recommend complete change of filters and membrane. The holding tank needs to be sanitized, too. Is it metal or plastic?

Get your water tested.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

FWIW....I had 16-year-old Kinetico softener refurbished by them a few years ago. Head cleaned, new gears and palls and disk....whatever it needed. New media. Pretty much made like new again. As I recall, I paid them about $225.00. They did all. I did nothing.

If you can find filters and membrane for the RO just replace them and sanitize the whole thing and you'll be fine. Be advised Kinetico has upgraded their RO systems over the years and no longer provide filters/membranes for some older units. That's one reason I recently upgraded mine to latest K5 W. They were no longer providing filters for my 19-year-old unit.

The tanks are tan, the wheel is an 8, the float is a plastic ball. The float assembly was replaced last year by kinetico.

The r/o is black with a blue filter on either side. the tank is metal.

When questioning the kinetico rep about refurbishing the softener and r/o, I received a sales pitch for new equipment. are there other sources for what I need to service these units my self?

Your softener is very old. But it only has one job to do. Do you have a water-test kit so that you can determine whether or not it's working?

Your RO unit is three generations old. You should explore availability of the filters you will need and whether or not you can get a new membrane-cartridge if needed. May or may not be available at this point. You should also get a TDS meter so that you can determine whether or not it's working.

no water test kit.

I don't know what a TDS meter is.

The plan is to install the softener and pre-filter Saturday, flush both tanks with iron out, and schedule a service call to calibrate to our household needs. The softener was working fine when I purchased and uninstalled it.

I will question the kinetico tech when he is out about the parts for the r/o unit.

do you know which disc will be needed for my home?

How did you know water softener was "working fine" if you had no means by which to test the water?

For softness testing, I recommend the Hach 5B test kit linked below. Hardware stores also have test kits. Or the Kinetico tech can tell you with his own testing. Whatever the inbound reading is (measured in "grains") the outbound should be zero.

The disc used will be determined by the inbound hardness and by the unit itself. Kinetico tech will explain.

Kinetico tech will also have a TDS meter. (Total Dissolved Solids; measured in PPM = Parts Per Million) This is how you determine whether or not your RO membrane is working properly. You're looking for "exclusion ratio" of 90% or better from any membrane. 95%+ from higher quality membranes. For example, my inbound water reads about 200 on the TDS meter. Outbound from my RO system reads 2. That's 99% exclusion. My brother-in-law bought a used el-cheapo unit that he figured would do the same thing. After he set it up and ran it for a couple of weeks, we were reading 200 inbound and 146 outbound -- indicating that his membrane was shot.

TDS meters available here: http://www.h2odistributors.com/hm-digital.asp?gclid=CIivsJSS_KcCFagZQgodFyporQ

Here is a link that might be useful: water softness test kit