Fleck 5600 SXT Iron Blaster 48,000 Grain Water Softener

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 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.

I ordered this 48K unit to get rid of my water hardness, iron & manganese troubles for my family of four. I had proposals from a few water filtration contractors and they wanted $3000 - $4000 for installation of similar systems. I am so glad that I decided to do it myself. I think that I am into everything (softener, pex tubing & fittings, salt, pre-filter, post-filter & drain piping) for around $1500! Those SharkBite fittings get pricey! I did do a bit of extra plumbing though too. Now that this softener system has been running for nearly a month now... I have to admit how thrilled I am. There are no more reddish-brown stains in the shower, toilets, tubs or sinks. My wife & daughter were always complaining about their hair breaking while brushing. Iron will weaken your hair...Now that won't be an issue any more. (Big Plus there!) You actually feel a "slippery" feeling while washing with the softened water. Soap foams up much better now. There is no metallic taste to the water. I can't tell the difference between bottled water and the softened water out of the faucet! Everyone that comes over can not believe the difference the softener has made in taste compared to before. What a huge difference! I placed the order on Aug. 21, 2016 and received the packages on Sept. 1st. The tank was shipped with the resin pre-installed. You can get the installation instructions from ABC's website. There weren't any provided in the packages. No big deal though. I installed the entire unit myself using SharkBite plumbing fittings. I used the "pinch clamp" style clamps for all the brass barbed fittings along with 1" pex tubing. The digital meter was simple to hand tighten on top of the tank. My unit came with a metal bypass valve with one inch connections for inlet and outlet plumbing supply lines. Make sure to use a union on your drain line connection for easy removal of softener system for any future maintenance or resin exchange. I plumbed in a Watts WH-LD Premier Whole House Filter System to be used as a pre-sediment filter before the softener and I plumbed in a Glacier Bay whole house filter with a carbon CTO filter after the softener. The pre-sediment will take care of any particles missed by the well pump screen and the carbon CTO filter will enhance the "softened" water taste out of the faucet. I also re-routed my outdoor sillcocks so that they were plumbed in before the water softener. There is no need for softened water to fill the pool or water the grass. I started off filling the brine tank with 4 bags of salt. Once I ran the initial regeneration process I added one more bag. On average so far, the softener regenerates about once per week. The system drains around 40 - 50 gallons during this process so make sure you have a suitable location outside the house for drainage if you can not plumb into a sump pump drain or the like. My only regret with this system is the fact that I didn't buy it sooner!

It is not easy to install! I hired a 5 star rated plumber who left after 15 minutes and wished me good luck. I finally had to hire a company who installs water softeners, who charged me double their normal rate because I bought from Amazon! So far we see signs of improvement in out water quality. Thankfully, we also added a carbon block filter that removes the chlorine that the water softener doesn't. That has more to do with my improved water taste than the water softener. I am concerned that it is going through more salt than it is supposed to; I will update this rview when I've had more time with it. I would probably buy the Aquasure Harmony Series 48,000 Grains Whole House Water Softener and save $200.

My water softener died. A big box company was going to charge 2,700 while a plumber was considerably less at 1,700. I checked some information online before deciding on which company to go with based on brands used and realized the installation was actually straight forward and required just a little plumbing capability. So I did this myself for the cost of the system and two flex hose connectors + two nipple adapters. The instructions provided by durawater are very detailed and easy to follow. I also found some online videos. Other than me really taking my time to pay close attention to the direction this went very quick. Water was only off to the house for about 20 to 30 minutes while I remove the old tank and made the connections to the new tank. After the first regen there was a noticeable improvement in the water condition. Overall so far I am very happy with this product. One of the companies I was considering was going to install a Fleck system anyway. It does not come with the original owners manual but does come with Durawater installation manual. The full manual is available online but to be honest the Durawater installation manual was much more specific for set up. The full manual just provided some more product information and error code key. Very Satisfied.

Great value, no odor, easy install, no leakage for me, has lasted so far and keeps the water soft.

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.

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.

I have well water with alot of iron and this softener did the job perfect. It was easy for me to hook up but took a little to get it program. After a few days my water was soft. Started to replace my tub and toilets now because of the stains.

Exactly as advertised with easy to follow DIY instructions. Most importantly, I'd like to give a huge 5 star thank you to the rep from Aplus Water who answered my questions professionally, politely and to my complete satisfaction. Very rare these days to have good customer service like that! They knew my name, address and model purchased and I did not have to be passed to 8 different people or stay on hold to get service. Refreshing!!

Easy to install

This is a great product, so is their Iron Filter. I have both installed with great success. I had issues with yellow water at the start but their customer service supported me through the whole ordeal. What a great team! from Heather to Tony, they were both great. Quick and courteous support. Product shipped fast, in good condition, like i said, communication with seller/company is great which is what made me buy from them in the first place. They also have tons of instructional videos online(youtube) which is great for setup. I would buy from them again without a doubt!!!!!! don't hesitate, if you have yellow or tinted water, buy both their systems and you'll be in good hands!

Great customer service. Easy to install.