|
Since moving in we've had poor water pressure. At some point my dad and I
had messed around with the well pump
switch and pressure tank, but didn't seem to fix it completely. Since it's just
the two of us (Jen and I), we let it
go.
With the allergy/humidity/winter setting in and
the fact I've never replaced any of the salt in the brine tank, we
decided it was time to have someone official check it out. Since Mattioni had their logo on most of our stuff, we
called them. There was a two week waiting list for their water
conditioner guy, so we waited two weeks.
For reference
from left to right we have the water heater, water conditioner,
water neutralizer, water pressure tank and brine tank.
Turns
out the actual water conditioner is Culligan and the Mattioni guy
couldn't service it. He did say it wasn't working and was nice
enough to quote us $1800 for a new one. The neutralizer needed
servicing, so he did that. Turns out it needs servicing roughly once
a year. The cool thing that made the $250 bill totally worth it was
he fixed our water pressure. The gauge (the one you see on the pipe)
was busted, so the readings were all off. He put a new gauge on and
recharged the pressure tank. Now we have constant water pressure.
It's like the house I've always wanted to own.
Downside is
we've made an appointment with the Culligan man for Friday Jan. 4th.
We called the number on the conditioner, but they don't have record
of our system. That makes it at least 10 years old. It's likely
we'll need another one, so we've started researching and now we're
in analysis paralysis mode. Do we go green? What is green as far as
water conditioners? Salt or no salt? Big name or Sears? The
questions go on and on. So this one is temporarily on hold. At least
until the Culligan man comes out.
|
|
After the Culligan man and further discussions,
we decided on Mattioni to do the work. They're local and have a
reputation of being very good.
In addition to the water
conditioner not working, there was this fine installment. Both
the conditioner and neutralizer have backwash cycles. When that
happens, they flush flush themselves with water to waste. The
"to waste" part happened to be the side of our septic pipe. It
should never be the side of any pipe. Granted there's a check
valve to stop any possible backwash from the septic system, but
as nuclear power plants prove more then they should,
valves can malfunction.
When the Mattioni guy came back out
for a more accurate estimate, I had him throw this in the mix. It's
bothered me since the home inspection and I wanted it
gone.
|
|
4/16/08 was the day. Paul, the Mattioni
guy, and his apprentice showed up bright and early to get
the job
done.
|
|
They seemed pretty serious, so I stayed
out of their way. When they went out to the truck for lunch,
I snapped this picture of the
progress.
|
|
A
better progress shot. We had some special requests for our install.
In our research we found it's important to not condition (or soften)
all the water. The water you drink, your animals drink and the
plants, should not be softened (at least not with salt), so we asked
for the kitchen faucet cold water, the fridge ice and water and
the outside spigots to not go through the softening system. The only
real benefit of softened water is for your equipment (i.e. water
heater, washing machines, etc.). In the picture below, the center
pipe (with all the valves) is our softening system bypass.
Conditioners actually come with manual bypasses, but we wanted it
"hardwired".
|
|
The
new conditioner with the official Mattioni logo.
|
|
Check out the workmanship. I wish half the work
I've paid for around here was this good.
|
|
And
the bad backwash design? They took care of that too. They
plugged the hole and created an air trap system. Now, if the septic
system were ever to have a catastrophic failure, we'd end up
with sewage on our water conditioning system and not in
it. That's a very important difference considering the sytem is
sealed.
|
|
They
did a really great job. My wallet is a little lighter, but who needs
to carry around all that money anyway?
Even though we
realized this probably wasn't working when we bought the house, and
we probably could of had it replaced under the home
warrenty the first year, I'm glad we did it this way. At least
this way we had a choice in who and how it was fixed. The furnace
wasn't like that at all and that still bothers
me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
