Most electric, single tank water softeners that we service throughout West Sussex, East Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire are of a certain age – typically, anything from one year up to around five or seven years’ old.

There’s actually nothing wrong with these softeners and they serve a purpose. That is, until the cost of repairs start to outweigh the value of the water softener itself. These situations aren’t uncommon with single tank softeners and what we find is that once the repairs start mounting up, many of our customers switch to non-electric block-salt water softeners, such as Kinetico.

And here’s why.

A single tank water softener tends to regenerate at three different times – either too early, too late or just on time. That means you’ve got a one in three chance of the regeneration happening when it should. Which isn’t ideal!

So, what’s behind this hit and miss approach?

Say you have two samples of water, one from a twin tank, non-electric block salt-water softener and one from a single tank. You’d probably say that they were the same.

Well, that’s partly true.

The reason they may not behave the same is for one simple reason. A water softener has two jobs; one is to soften the water and the other is to clean itself (the regeneration). A single tank water softener cannot do both, with the regeneration set by a timer. If the water softener’s capacity is reached before the regeneration is timed to kick in, then hard water will get through and contaminate the soft water. In which case, it could take days for the hard water to work its way out of the system.

If the softener regenerates too early, then that’s a waste of salt and water. In in some cases, up to 125 litres of water can be used during each regeneration, which is extremely inefficient.

But with a dual tank system, like Kinetico water softeners, they can both regenerate and still deliver soft water all at the same time. This is thanks to Kinetico’s sophisticated metering system that can measure down to the last drop of water, ensuring that it will go into regeneration mode on time, every time. So, if you are not home or not using any water, it will just sit there patiently waiting for you, until such time as it’s called into action. You are in control!

So that’s why a dual tank system is a far better option than a single tank softener.

To find out more about Kinetico dual tank water softeners, call Scott Jenkins Water Softeners on 01243 607494 or via email: scott@sjbs.info.