# Water softener resin replacement



## fastracer20 (Jun 25, 2011)

I have an 8 year old water softener that is only softening to about 6 grains per gallon.  This is an improvement over the city water's 20 grains, but is still not good enough because I need to protect my new tankless water heater.  I had a local water softener assembler inspect my system and they said the resin has chlorine damage due to age and I need to replace the resin.  He quoted me $600 for new 1 ft^3 of resin and a valve rebuild.  The valve is a Fleck 5600.  Resin by itself would be $450, which still seems high.  Does anyone know where I can buy a high quality bag of resin for a little cheaper than this so I can do it myself?  I should be able to get a rebuild kit straight from Fleck and do this myself too.


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## Speedbump (Jun 25, 2011)

How's $258.40 sound?  That's what I get for a bag of dark resin.  I don't really know if any resin is any more high quality than another.  It's magnetic plastic.

I'm not sure what "1 ft^3" means.  Do you need three cubes of resin?  That would be a rather large unit for a home.

I wouldn't rebuild the 5600 either.  I have a few people around here that do, then a year later it needs it again.  You can change the stack, but you can't repair the brass cylinder that eats the rubber in the first place.  In my experience, the 5600 is good for about ten years.  Then it's time for a new one.


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## Redwood (Jun 25, 2011)

Speedbump said:


> I'm not sure what "1 ft^3" means.  Do you need three cubes of resin?  That would be a rather large unit for a home.



I think he's saying 1 cubic foot...


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## Speedbump (Jun 27, 2011)

> I think he's saying 1 cubic foot...


That would make more sense for sure.


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## fastracer20 (Jun 28, 2011)

Thanks for the help guys.  I ended up ordering a cubic foot of resin from affordablewater.us for $110 including shipping.  They list it as "Dow American Made 8% Crosslinked Cation Softening Resin", but they don't say exactly which Dow resin it is.  That's okay, because even if they did say which one it is, I wouldn't know the difference between the others if there even is one.  Also, I have a Fleck 7600 not the 5600.  After the resin arrives, I probably won't feel like rebuilding the valve and I'll just call it good.


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