Purolite C-100E Cationic Resin Replacement for Water Softener 1 CuFt Bag Media

Got this for my 10 year old water softener. We have alot of iron in our well water and it clogged up our softener even though we installed in Iron filter before it.(though it was installed after the softener was already there at the house. This doesn't look like the same stuff coming out of the existing softener but it does the job. I didn't want to replace the entire system, just the "media" and this does the job at 1/3 the price of the new system. My softener has an auto setting where it reads how much water you use and you tell it the hardness of the water. It only runs the purge cycle once in about a week or two depending on how much water we use. Some of the older old school softener are wasteful of the sult and does the recharge every few days or whatever even if you go on vacation.

My 3 year old Morton water softener was good the first year, then gradually got to the point no matter how many times it was cycled and replaced parts, it did not produce any soft water anymore. I was going to replace the entire water softener but decided to try replacing the resin beads inside the tank. If you have a wet shop vac and handy repairing things, this is actually an easy job. The softener was 34k capacity and one bag of Purolite filled it up with some left over. After replacing the resin, it ran the nearest sink for 10 minutes- water ran clean after a few minutes. Some people state a wierd taste but I really did not notice anything, it took a few days of use and now its clean, nice soft water again.

I was able to completely disassemble, thoroughly clean, and change the resin in my 12-yo Coolligan water softener in ~5 hours from A to Z.Required tools and materials:1. The big blue funnel + a table spoon or whatever scoop you find2. 1 bag of the resin being reviewed (1 cu ft)3. 1 bag of gravel (15lbs) for water softeners. DO NOT FORGET TO WASH IT WITH FRESH CLEAN WATER before using! I do not recommend saving a few bucks and washing the old one, the time costs more.4. Direct hands (TM) driver.Steps I did:1. Closed water line to the water softener2. Disconnected the resin tank, the salt tank and unscrewed the head from the resin tank2a. Removed the inlet/outlet pipe from the tank (it's the only pipe inside the resin tank)3. Drained as much water as possible using silicone tubes (my tank was dug ~2ft deep), this tank filled is heavy as my freaking life, otherwise4. Dropped some large cloth to drain water, resin, and gravel (an old linen sheet that was used by my ex worked great!). You do not want to reuse the old gravel, just like you don't want to use sheets that were used with your ex:)5. Thoroughly wash the resin tank, the salt tank, the pipe, and the head, i.e. everything that is possible to reach and clean6. Sealed the top of the inlet/outlet pipe with painter's tape (to prevent particles getting in)7. Inserted the tube vertically, centered and put the new _washed_ gravel in8. Using a blue funnel for resing, patience, and time, shove the resin beads back into the tank9. Assembled everything back, and put water back on.10. ??? PROFIT!!!You'll notice that the water got softer, if:a. objective measurements say sob. dishwasher delivers better results (no white spots, crystal-clear glasses)c. harder to wash soap away while showeringI did not experience any odors or bad smells, if only very little right after I changed the resin, it had gone in a few days completely. But I bet, I would never have noticed it if I hadn't known that I changed something in my system.Yes, this product is great. Yes, I spent ~5-6 hours of my life. Yes, I got satisfaction while working on this project. And yes, I saved about $1500, paying about 150-200 total.I highly recommend this product and the brand in particular.

Change the resin myself two weeks ago, on my 11 year old system. Ran a full cycle of regen and water softening, before I start to use the water. Water is perfectly soft like a brand new water softener. No bad taste. Happy with the outcome.

If you've never replaced your water softener resin before then you are going to be shocked at how much work is coming. I'm the one who installed my current 1 cubic foot capacity water softener system back around 1998. The resin had not been changed since then. I did not remember the resin being so sticky as this product seemed to be. It took me several minutes of work just to get the full bag of resin (1 cubic foot) into the softener tower bottle. By the way, did you forget to buy gravel? Yep, you'll need about 12 pounds of small, CLEAN, gravel to load into the bottom of your softener before adding this resin. The old gravel came out when you emptied the old resin. I've yet to do a hardness test on my treated water so I cannot yet comment on how well the new resin is working. I'll update this review after a few weeks of service.Things they could have done better: Provided a caution about needing gravel and providing a funnel (I still had my funnels from the 1998 install).