Water softener for a house on a sewage pump.

[bradgray]

Fellows, experts,

I've been debating the risks of adding a water softener to my home. We initially planned to have one installed from day one after construction for various reasons, one of them being the pool fill. As for many in the west, our water is hard from the tap and I was painfully familiar with my clients pools having high CH within a year because of our absurdly evaporative climate.

However, the sewer main was 4 feet higher than the city said it was, and we have a large lot so we didn't make grade by the time we hit the property frontage. We built on an unimproved pecan orchard lot and brought utilities gutter, sidewalk etc to the lot. Lots of moving parts and old inaccurate data from the city. Short story, we had to add a lift station for our entire house. Yay for us.

This meant that all of the NaCI or KCI rinse will go to the basin and bathe the sump. I didn't like this one bit and basically gave up on the idea instantly a year ago.

But my CH is doing what I knew it would and I'm annoyed because I really don't want to waste water trying to dilute my pool or hire osmosis trucks. Funny how this stings more when it's your own pool.

I'm contemplating if the cost is worth it to just replace my pump proactively every few years. Maybe an average of $100 a year going that route. And I always yearn for a chance to play in poop.

Have any of you actually used a salt based softener with a septic sump? Did it last longer than you expected? Die in 6 months?

I just need some voices to reseal my prior decision or talk me over the ledge. Either way, I can't make up my mind of late.

 

[proavia]

How many gallons is the sump pit?
Does it have to get to a certain level before the pump comes on?

A water softener only sends salty water out the drain during rapid rinse (if it's working correctly). Softeners only run a rapid rinse for typically 10 minutes during each regen cycle. A regen cycle uses probably 30-70 gallons (based on softener grain capacity and programmed settings). But, only 10 minutes of the regen cycle is sending salty water down the drain.

 

[ajw22]

@setsailsoon may have dealt with some of these issues in his recent house build.

 

[bradgray]

How many gallons is the sump pit?

Less than 40, at it's maximum. Meaning it would backflow at probably half that.

Does it have to get to a certain level before the pump comes on?

Yessir. Probably 20 gallons. Which was where the salt bath on the iron had me worried.

A water softener only sends salty water out the drain during rapid rinse (if it's working correctly). Softeners only run a rapid rinse for typically 10 minutes during each regen cycle. A regen cycle uses probably 30-70 gallons (based on softener grain capacity and programmed settings). But, only 10 minutes of the regen cycle is sending salty water down the drain.

So 1/12th of 30 - 70 gallons is chloride rich. Does that sound right?

 

[proavia]

I think my total regen time is under 2 hours. 60 minutes of that is set for brine draw - to pull the salty water from the brine tank into the softener. But my brine tank has maybe 5 gallons of liquid in it for the draw and only takes about 10 minutes to draw. The rest of the brine draw time is the brine sitting in the softener tank doing its thing before the rapid rinse which purges the softener tank of the brine (which goes down the drain).

Default regen start time is set for 2am. You can change this, along with other settings. And using a bit of water in the morning would probably be enough for your sump to empty itself, thereby diluting and pumping the salt laden water out. Subsequent water use would tend to rinse the saltiness from the pit.

The softener (if properly sized) would probably regen every 7-14 days, based on water usage.

 

[wireform]

I have a slop sink draining into a zoeller pump/basin as my sewer line is elevated from the basement floor about three feet. I also have the whole house water softener regeneration cycle drain into there too. In 19 years I only had to replace the pump once when I was set to replace the internal pump switch only to realize it's time was up. When I remember to do it the next morning I let the water run long enough to dump the basin twice sort of rinsing out any salt residual that may have an affect on the pump.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I wonder if there wouldn’t be a simple way to activate the sump pump when the water softener enters regeneration. That way you’re draining the sump as it’s filling up with brine and rinse waters … maybe that’s overly complicated but the quicker you get the brine out of the system the better.

At the end of the day, I suspect the damage/wear to the sump pump will be minimal. Just think of all the chemicals we dump into our drain pipes on a daily basis - soaps, acidic and alkaline fluids, poop, etc, etc. I think some brine water is the least of the issues.

Is it possible to upgrade the pump to something that is maybe designed to handle extreme effluents? Maybe look into that when you change out the pump next …

I do believe the downside risks to the sump pump is minimal compared the benefits you get from demineralized water. Your heaters, fixtures, appliances, pool, etc, are all getting trashed from mineral build up. Considering all the money you will spend replacing those from premature demise has got to be a lot smaller than replacing a sump pump every couple of years …

 

[proavia]

At the end of the day, I suspect the damage/wear to the sump pump will be minimal. Just think of all the chemicals we dump into our drain pipes on a daily basis - soaps, acidic and alkaline fluids, poop, etc, etc. I think some brine water is the least of the issues.

Is it possible to upgrade the pump to something that is maybe designed to handle extreme effluents? Maybe look into that when you change out the pump next …

I do believe the downside risks to the sump pump is minimal compared the benefits you get from demineralized water. Your heaters, fixtures, appliances, pool, etc, are all getting trashed from mineral build up. Considering all the money you will spend replacing those from premature demise has got to be a lot smaller than replacing a sump pump every couple of years …

What he said.....

 

[bradgray]

I'm contemplating if the cost is worth it to just replace my pump proactively every few years. Maybe an average of $100 a year going that route. And I always yearn for a chance to play in poop.

I do believe the downside risks to the sump pump is minimal compared the benefits you get from demineralized water. Your heaters, fixtures, appliances, pool, etc, are all getting trashed from mineral build up. Considering all the money you will spend replacing those from premature demise has got to be a lot smaller than replacing a sump pump every couple of years …

Yeah.. I was thinking that same thing but wasn't sure if I was trying too hard to justify it out of frustration with the hard water in general. Thank you for the affirmation!

 

[setsailsoon]

Brad,

I've been dealing with pretty bad well water in S Florida. No sump and all my waste goes to a septic system. We have over 200 homes in here and all have water softeners plus air injected catalytic carbon plus some form of oxidizing injection ( A few use peroxide like I do but most use chlorine injection) to remove S and/or iron. Most also route the regen water to their septic systems. In my case that isn't very convenient so I route my to storm water runoff drains close to the water equipment. Regeneration puts 6-9 pounds of salt for most newer systems into the drain that is combined with all the other waste and drains. This happens about every 7-10 days. The community is about 30 years old and I don't hear about any big issues with this. I suspect the flora in the septic system is affected by the salt and this just means they are more salt tolerant. A few systems do have lift stations due to the elevation differences in the development but none of them seem to have equipment problems in their lift tank. My neighbor has one and his is about 15 years old with no issues.

I hope this helps.

Chris

 

[bradgray]

Brad,

I've been dealing with pretty bad well water in S Florida. No sump and all my waste goes to a septic system. We have over 200 homes in here and all have water softeners plus air injected catalytic carbon plus some form of oxidizing injection ( A few use peroxide like I do but most use chlorine injection) to remove S and/or iron. Most also route the regen water to their septic systems. In my case that isn't very convenient so I route my to storm water runoff drains close to the water equipment. Regeneration puts 6-9 pounds of salt for most newer systems into the drain that is combined with all the other waste and drains. This happens about every 7-10 days. The community is about 30 years old and I don't hear about any big issues with this. I suspect the flora in the septic system is affected by the salt and this just means they are more salt tolerant. A few systems to have lift stations due to the elevation differences in the development but none of them seem to have equipment problems in their lift tank. My neighbor has one and his is about 15 years old with no issues.

I hope this helps.

Chris

Thanks Chris!