germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,017 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Tue Feb 26, 2013, 9:51am Subject: Re: duetto and very soft water
I was thinking about the under sink setup from CC but began comparing to the setup you got because of the cost of the 10" replacement gets pretty high per year compared to a big bag of salt from the box store. I am not able to rap my brain around how many gallons at 6GPG for a 15000PPM cartridge, CC says 88gals for 10GPG, I go through a half gallon a day in the tank being conservative, I will probably go through a gallon a day plumbed by doing all rinsing at the machine. Seems like I would go through 3-4 cat-ion carts a year, $90-120, pays for the commercial tank kit upgrade in one year, I suppose you thought about this already, lol.
Posted Tue Feb 26, 2013, 5:01pm Subject: Re: duetto and very soft water
That was my reasoning behind it also. I guess after I am able to do a recharge it will get alot better.I wish they didnt precharge them. with one of the hx machines hooked up to the flojet with flush and all I would go thru roughly 15 gal a month so I was basing my decision off that even though I knew with the duetto I would be using alot less water. if I had to do it over I would go with the smaller commercial tank and recharge once a year or every other year depending on the hardness. I think the smaller tank running at 6 grains = 900 gal or so. If you decide to soften Id stay away from the repacement cartrages, they would cost way more over a years time to soften the same amount of water. I think it came out to it would cost 318.00 for replacements to do 900 gal. I think a 40 lb bag of potassium salts are 20.00 big difference.and only takes 4lb to recharge bigger tank. I decided to put mine in the basement next to my sump.with a pressure reducer before the filters set to 45 psi keeps it at 37 psi at machine. even with a 30ft run I get no water hammer at all. it will also make it easier to recharge when the time comes and no hastle with twp.regulations using potassium. techs at cc says potassium doesent soften as well but this confirms what my water expert told me and would better suit my needs since we are only somewhat hard . if you do decide to go with the commercial setup make sure you flush the tank and filters seperatly it's not in the directions this way but if you talk to the techs this is the way they tell you to do it.
germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,017 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Tue Feb 26, 2013, 6:53pm Subject: Re: duetto and very soft water
My wife is laughing hysterically at me, two nights in a row researching water softening. I am now looking at whole house systems, lol. My home had a whole house system before but it is 26 years old and not something i want to salvage yet all the plumbing is already there. If I am going to go through the work to install this for my espresso machine why not get the benefits from soft water throughout the house. I need to look into the potassium salts some more, I like what you have said though, I really do not want 0GPG, I grew up with softened water and would be fine but the wife would not like her showers at all. Apparently there are ways to do a controlled feed back in after the softener that can give a certain amount of regulation, if this could be done just before the whole house carbon filter with even some control that would be great. Off to do more Bing searches.
Posted Wed Feb 27, 2013, 5:19am Subject: Re: duetto and very soft water
lol welcome to my world friend. I spent 2 sleepless weeks researching before I decided to take the plunge. I would always look to see what other people were doing with reguards to water quality but seems nothing has really changed since I've done my last crash coarse on water a few years back. my wife keeps telling me I have ocd because I'm so anal about my coffee and spending 300 on a softener for the espresso machine when I could have went whole house for a few hundred more. If you go this way I think kenmore is the cheapest of the higher raited ones starting at 400. I'm thinking of hooking up a bypass going around the softening tank and finding a cheap blender to install before the carbon filter.having a tap right before the machine makes it real easy to test. I think some of the better whole house softeners have a bypass built right in to the softener head.
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