Hi Chris,

"So please put in your opinion or review of the WATTS SMART 'n' SOFT water softener and the FILOX".

Happy to... once you post the results of your water test including hardness, TDS, iron, manganese, PH, copper, and arsenic for starters and answer these questions...

Well or water system?

# of bathrooms?

# of people?

With that info we can speak intelligently regarding your treatment needs.

If the Smart n' Soft is the dial chamber model you won't find a lot of support for that around here. Multiple media softeners can be problematic and the the jury is still out on the Vortec. If you have a problem the entire resin tank must be replaced.

I recommend you look for an independent water treatment professional rather than a plumber who sells and installs softeners. An independent pro will offer an industry standard softener that parts are readily available for in many directions and will be more knowledgeable regarding correct softener sizing and setup than a plumber who offers whatever the plumbing supply is selling.

Found the data. Our development is on a well, but there is a newly installed water treatment plant and 2 new water tanks that the well water goes through. We have 3.5 bathroom and 3 people, but typically have 6-8 total, about 5 times a year. The water results I am listing are from the annual drinking water report as required by the state of Texas.
All ppm unless noted otherwise.
Barium .134
Floride .38
xylenes 1.7 ppb
Free chlorine 1.98
lead .4 ppb
copper .458
no coliform bacteria
no fecal coliform bacteria
NOTE: reporte states Violation-did not correctly monitor
bicarbonate 259
calcium 51.1
chloride 300
Iron .533
lead .002
magnesium 9.5
manganese .081
nickel .001
Ph 7.2 units
sodium 45
sulfate 16
total alkalinity as CaCO3 212
Total dissolved solids 301
total hardness as CaCO3 167
zinc .04

And I incorrectly stated I was dealing with a plumber. The is a water treatment company locally. Also we have a salt water pool that we would like to bypass along with the outside faucets and sprinkler system. Hopefully this is the information that will help you and others to evaluate the system. I appreciate the time you take to share your advice.
Chris

To understand you, your housing development has water provided by a well and treated by a water authority that provided you those test results? How about the delineators for all those numbers? PPM, ml, ounces, pounds?

Can you elaborate on "3 people, but typically have 6-8 total, about 5 times a year"?

Curious to know the details on what your plumber/water treatment person recommended especially the size cause it sounds like he/she doesn't know a lot about water treatment and is offering off the shelf products rather than tailoring the equipment to your specific needs.

Bypassing the softening of pools, sprinklers, and hose bibs is a plumbing question and has nothing to do with any water treatment equipment regardless of brand. If you home is plumbed that way then it is EZ to accommodate you but if not the plumbing charges to achieve what you want could be a considerable expense.

Thanks, all the delineators are PPM EXCEPT as noted, xylenes and PH. There are 3 people living in the house. However, several times a year there is a total of 6-8 people staying a week or so at a time. Does this help at all?

Well, hardness, iron, and manganese are manageable numbers and should be addressed with a properly sized softener.

With only 3 people the numbers would indicate a 1 cu ft softener for regeneration about once a week but that would only give you an SFR of about 9 gpm which would be low when the 6-8 people show up and use those 3.5 bathrooms.

Jumping up to 8 people poses an interesting problem cause you're going from about 2200 daily grains of hardness removal capacity needed to about 5900 daily grains of hardness removal capacity needed and should have more than double the size softener as 3 people.

If you size the softener for 8 people then you'll have channeling problems with just three people.

One solution might be a twin resin tank softener.