Fleck 5600SXT Iron Pro 48,000 Grains

easy to install replaced my old water softener . this comes with a 1 inch connector, there is a 3/4 inch connector available and i switched this out and it was an easy connect just disconnected the hoses from the old and connected them to the new softener. this is the best softener that i have had, and i have had multiples over the 30 years the water has no sulfur or iron smell or taste. we have a heavy iron problem in this area. after one year service this softener is going strong with no iron smell or taste in water. it does use a fair ammount of salt but it is worth it for the clean water no shower or toilet stains no smell. After 1year this softener is still working well. No iron smell or taste in the water. Will update from time to time. Update. June 2022 I installed this unit in august of 2018. It has functioned very well removing iron and sulfur smell from the water. Occasionally we would exhaust the resin and iron and smell would return although much less intense. A regeneration would fix this. I installed an iron filter in front of this unit and we have no issues now no matter how much water we use. I also add iron out to the brine tank when I add salt to help keep the resin clean. I have owned this house since 1986 and have tried various water treatment units. We have heavy iron and this is the best water treatment combo I have found the water is taste and Oder free. And we love the soft water and my wife loves doing laundry in the soft water. No orange toilets. It’s now June 2022 and the system is working nicely. Now may 2024 softener still doing a great job no orange water. Water still soft. I add iron out to the brine tank every month due to our high iron. Installed this in 2018 so am pleased with this unit.

I originally got some quotes to install a water softener/conditioner from a few full service companies like Culligan or EcoWater who were quitting me around $3k-$4k for what is essentially a fleck 5600sxt with proprietary parts you can't service yourself. I did a little research and decided I could but an industry standard unit and install it myself. Mission accomplished! And I'm all in for less than $700 including salt, extra connectors/fittings, tools, and other supplies. The unit works just as described and I was able to tell the difference in the water during my first shower to clean up from the install. ABC water made a great installation video on YouTube that was you through the whole process. It took me about 1.5 hours from start to finish. In addition to this softener you will need the following items to complete the install: - 1/2" drain line and house clamps - 1" connectors to connect the control valve to the plumbing (I suggest sharkbite lines with either an integrated or separate shut off valve to service local leaks.) - You may need a few extra connectors and pipe lengths for your specific plumbing depending on the location of the line you need to intercept. Planning out the entire install in advance to make sure you have everything you need before you start really helps make it a smooth and stress free install. Tip: Make sure you run the water at the nearest cold water tap (preferably a laundry or garage sink) for 10-15 minutes to clear out the excess resin and particulates that will wash out after the install. Wait until the water runs clear and then follow instructions for bleeding air from your pipes to avoid having water that appears milky (it's just tiny air bubbles). If you don't do this you might be in for a surprise the first time you use your water and it comes out brown and gritty.

I had a 25 year old Kenmore water softener that I replaced with this. This uses a ton more salt than the Kenmore. I set the system up according to recommendations, like forcing a recharge at a minimum every 7 days for better resin "health" (I'm going to switch to 14 days and see if that helps). My Kenmore lasted 25 years without this feature and water was still fine at the end (I replaced it because the valve wore out and froze up). The Kenmore was a single unit - the resin tank was inside the salt tank so the whole thing took much less space. The design of the Kenmore let me put it closer to the wall too. The Kenmore had a light inside the tank so you could see how much salt was in there. Since it is in my basement I have to bring a flashlight every time I check the salt level. The Kenmore brine cycle filled the tank with water, let it set a while and backwashed the resin tank with it. This unit fills the tank (you can control how many gallons of water is pumped in which is nice) right after the recharge cycle and leaves the water in there until the next cycle. I think this is where it is using more salt since it is dissolving the salt for a week. I am currently filling with less water than recommended, but I am going to cut it down even more and see what happens. Installation was really easy. I was in a hurry and cheated by using Shark Bite hoses from HD that simply screw on to the unit and the other end just pushes onto the copper water lines. No sweating/soldering needed. The drain was slightly harder but I just used a piece of PEX for it. The unit does what it is supposed to and removes my iron and hardness.

City water quality is poor here and I needed a new water softener. I looked at whole house filtration systems, salt free softeners, and salt based softeners. I chose this model for the higher quality filtration media and for the water flow rate. I have three full bathrooms and three additional sinks, dishwasher, washing machine, and an RO water system. I wanted a >10GPM flow rate softener. I liked the separate salt storage tank (some models were integrated). The flush system instructions were clear. The system did not come with hoses. You need two supply hoses and a drain hose. I chose a clear drain hose and you need to cut it to integrate a Tee fitting because both the filter and the salt tank need to drain. It has 1" connections and the hoses available locally had limited lengths. I had to modify the 3/4" copper lines so they were close enough to the unit. Cooking oil was recommended for the rubber seals and that's what I used. The unit is heavy and the cardboard box was damaged during shipping. luckily, the unit was protected sufficiently. This softener has been great. Not only does it filter the water coming in, but the filtered water is actively cleaning the existing piping and fittings and we can tell that the water quality is improving weekly. The display counts down the number of gallons before the next filter cycle.

I knew nothing about wells, filtering water, plumbing, salt, nada... I plumbed this in with Pex a couple months ago and no I didn't get it right the first day, or week, took about a month or two slowly improving it a little at a time. I had clear water that was hard and turned everything orange and it had a sulfer smell. After setting this up the water was softer, but the orange stains were still occuring and the smell was still there. I added a filter that ionized the iron before this system. The filters are about $80, but it helped. Then I switched to a charcoal filter for my sediment filter 5 micron. All this did slow down my water pressure and I was close to a solution, still getting the sulfer smell but the staining was much better. Finally out of desperation I took the well cap off and dumped some fairly potent bleach water down the well shaft. It was something like half gallon of bleach to 3 gallons of water. I was too lazy to unscrew all four bolts on the well head, they were rusty. I just unscrewed one and dumped the water slowly down the bolt hole. I was hoping to kill the iron feeding bacteria that creates the sulfer smell. I bypassed all my filters for this and ran the water from the ground up through the pipes into the holding tank, bypassed all filtering softening, and ran the sink until bleach smell started. Then shut it all down and let it sit for a couple hours. Then I flushed it throughly until the bleach smell was completely gone, took awhile at least 150 gallons to flush it. That was 2 months ago and my water is like bottled water. I think I'm going to do that bleach trick a couple times a year, it seems to last awhile. I got all kinds of crud out of the pipes. I'm pretty sure my concentration of bleach was drastic. I might cut that down a bit on subsequent tries. Basically now that I got it all configured it's working great. Don't expect this system to clean the iron/sulfer out, it might help a little but don't expect much in that department. Overall this system is playing it's part as expected. Nothing has broke and it seems adequate. I'm guessing the salt bin will go first, but it looks cheap to replace. I only have a small cabin in the woods and it sits a lot not being used.

We are on a well and our water use to smell like rotten eggs. This was easy to install and got rid of the smell. I think it is a little small for our house, and family, but it still does the job.

System worked ok for about 2 years. Now won't brine draw (BD) and because of that the resin can't be cleaned in the tank. Control head supposed to have a 5 year warranty. I Called Oceanic Water where I purchased the softener and they told me to call Pentair that they handle warranties so I called Pentair and they told me Oceanic is supposed to send me a warranted replacement. Called Oceanic back and they told me to take a picture of the label with the serial number on the control head and send it to them. I did that and waited a week for a response but did not here from them. So I called Oceanic again and the I guess owner said he was getting old and could not remember if they received the picture and info they wanted. So getting a little annoyed I called Pentair back and told them the story and said this is a nonsense runaround issue why can't your company (Pentair) just send me a replacement control head and tech support guy said we can't break apart a pallet to send you one. What? After that Pentair gave me the number of a company called Nelsen that distributes Pentair products to Oceanic. That also was a runaround and went nowhere. They stated that they needed my sent information from Oceanic Water! I wasn't going there again, I had enough of this popcorn stand for over a month. Pentair tech support did eventually send me a piston for the Fleck softener that did not fix the problem with the brine draw. When I called them again saying I put in the piston I received from you and it did not fix the brine draw issue, the tech asked me how did you get a piston sent to you? I just chuckled and said forget it. Believe me you can't make this stuff up! Final close, beware of Oceanic and especially Pentair if you need help with a warranty issue. The 5 year warranty on there control heads is a joke.

We have iron, rust & sulphur in our well water. Not to mention, we live right next door do an abandoned gold mine, who knows what got pumped in back in the 1800's? I replace my softer approximately every 10 years. My 1st was a Culligan, I didn't know any better and paid over $ 3000 for it including installation, it had to be professionally serviced almost every 6-9 months to the tune of $ 200 or 300 per trip - I would NEVER buy another Culligan product. The 2nd unit was a Aqua Pure NSF-100, quality unit with timer operation, lasted a full 10 years. The timer needed repair & the media needed replacing. Figured it was time for a new one as the price was negligible between this new vs. repair/recharge on the old one. The upside is this one has a usage metering head, which should save salt. Installation was just like the last one, I went ahead and replaced the filter housing ahead of the softener with a "Big Blue 20" large filter housing & 100 micron filter. Has been in operation for about 3 weeks now. Water is excellent, showers are more enjoyable, dishwasher & clothes washer are cleaning much better. Two thumbs up!