Aquasana SimplySoft® 40,000 Grain Water Softener - Whole House Hard Water Reduction - Base Tank & Cabinet System WH-SF40-BASE

Delivered right to my front door on time and without any damage issues. I was able to bring down to my basement all by myself. Installation was not too difficult. I called the Aquasana tech support with some questions and they were friendly and walked me through what I needed to do. It took me about 6 hours to install but a real plumber could probably had done it sooner. The step by step installation video was helpful as well. It works great. The taste and smell of my water greatly improved. I will recommend for sure.

We bought this to replace a Kinetico system that was in our home when we bought it. It had a 10 year warranty and they've had to repair it at least half a dozen times in the 8 years we've lived here. The local Kinetico dealer was purchased by an out of state company and started charging us just to come and look at it even though it was still under warranty and we were tired of paying them so we purchased this unit as a DIY upgrade. Since the loop was already there it was simple for us to remove the Kinetico system and install this in its place and so far it's working great. All we had to do is connect the incoming water to the input and connect the output to the rest of the house. The instructions were missing from the box but I'd already found them online when I was researching which unit to buy so I printed them out and it was quick and simple. My only negative is that it has connections on the side that seem to be intended for things like an RO filter system but they're a proprietary connection and have plugs in them instead of usable connectors so we were unable to use them and had to plumb our RO system into the output line. Including a standard pipe fitting for that would have been a trivial cost to them but and major help to us. I'd also like to point out that it was the only comparable unit we found from Amazon, Lowes or Home Depot that was IAPMO and NSF certified. That's the main reason we ended up choosing it over the others.

Awesome product. Just needs instruction to be provided on how to set the timer and settings on the control head.

I got this to replace an existing, nonfunctional whole-house water filter left behind by a previous owner. I wanted to get rid of it and then reduce the hardness of our water by installing a water softener. I invested a significant amount of time researching various brands' softeners, and decided to go with this Aquasana 40,000 grain unit because of the company's good reputation with water filters and long time in business. Water softeners are a new product line for them, and it can be a bit difficult to navigate their website to find the information about them. Once you do, the site is helpful.One frustration during my research was that posted specifications for different companies' softeners do not provide much (if any) information about drain lines, other than assuming a handy floor or wall drain will be available in places like basements and garages. In my case, there is no drain in our garage, which I suspect is not unusual. Plus, the entry point of my house's city water line is pretty far from the nearest laundry drain located just inside the house. This meant that I had to ensure a given softener could support a drain pipe with a 6' vertical rise to the garage's ceiling plus another 40' over, around a few corners and back down to a pass-through to the laundry drain. Aquasana's installation manual mentions that a 7' vertical rise would work, and that any distance of more than 20' should use 3/4" pipe. But there was no indication of a distance limit beyond 20', so I took a chance and ordered this system.I decided to use PEX-B 3/4" pipe for the drain line. I also made sure that the pipe ran slightly downhill from the top of the 6' vertical run through the rest of its 40' distance, such that it's about 2.5" lower than the ceiling at the point where it drops vertically to the wall's pass-through. I believe gravity helps reduces the reliance on water pressure alone (65 psi in my case) to keep the drained water moving along. By the way, if you need to use PEX pipe, I strongly recommend buying 10' straight "sticks" of pipe with couplers instead of one long coiled pipe, as the sticks are SO much easier to work with. I used SharkBite pipes and couplers, which worked great - no leaks.)Installing the new softener was straightforward. But I will say that the instruction manual, which Aquasana's support people told me is only available online, differs somewhat from the installation video you can watch online. For example, the manual warns you to not use the included silicone lubricant on the O-ring that seals the control unit's joint with the tank, but the video tells you to do this. Which is right? I used it and was careful not to tighten it too much. The manual and video also differ in the amount of teflon tape you should use on the main inlet/outlet fittings, so I used five turns. Oddly, the manual also says the AC outlet that powers the control head can't be more than 6' away. Why? I know a thing or two about electricity, and there's no good reason I can think of that a longer, good quality extension cord that's not exposed to water can't be used. It works just fine.I knocked off a star for not having a printed manual included with the softener, as you really must have one handy to guide you throughout the many installation steps. The support person I talked with about this said that they are an "online company", so they don't include printed materials with their products. Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. If I have to print one out myself, I'm using at least the same amount of paper and ink to do so, if not more. I decided to use an iPad instead, but was worried about dropping it or dropping tools and parts on it, as well as handling it with water or lubricant on my hands. A printed manual really is a must with a project like this.The blue tank is quite heavy, so I strongly recommend using a hand truck with fastening straps to move it any distance. I would not recommend trying to carry it anywhere, as this could cause an injury and/or possible damage to the tank.I used SharkBite flexible/bendable lines to connect the softener tank to my 3/4" copper water inlet and outlet pipes. The push-to-connect (PTC) fittings on these flexible lines require very clean and deburred copper pipes, so I used a deburring tool I got from Amazon and an emery cloth to thoroughly clean the ends where I cut the pipes. The SharkBite PTC fittings work very well if you take the time to get the pipes nice and clean - no leaks whatsoever in my case.Getting the system ready for use requires some initial flushing steps to prevent pipe shavings and other contaminants from entering the main tank. The instructions tell you to run the rinse cycle twice for some reason, which you do by rotating the main rotary dial until you get to the "rinse" step. In my case running it twice filled up the adjacent brine tank with too much water. If I were to do it again, I would only run the initial rinse cycle once.After setting the time of day, programming the control head is very simple. You enter the date, the hardness of your water in grains (if you have a measured parts-per-million number instead of grains, divide the PPM number by 17.1 to get the correct number in grains) and how many people live in the house. That's pretty much it. I then ran a manual regeneration cycle to make sure everything was working properly and to verify there were no leaks anywhere. Once this cycle finishes about an hour or so later, the control head will tell you how many gallons of softened water will be used before the next cycle will automatically run some number of days - depending on water usage - in the future, at the default time of 2:00 AM. In other words, the control head doesn't measure hardness - it simply keeps track of water usage based on the parameters you enter, and then regenerates once the remaining water usage hits the target on the display.My 45' drain line is working quite well with 3/4" PEX-B pipe, which I'm happy about. The system is very quiet when doing a regen cycle, which has not always been the case with previous softeners I've used. Nice! I'm using 40 pound sacks of salt crystals in the brine tank, as I read somewhere that they are less likely to create salt bridges than pellets over time. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I figured there's no downside to using crystals, so why not?In summary, everything seems to be working well, and I would recommend this system. If you're lucky enough to have a drain and AC outlet conveniently located where you'll be installing the system, it should be a relatively simple, 2-4 hour job to get everything connected and running. My 45' drain line took much more time to install than the actual softener system, but that's not Aquasana's issue.Sorry for the long review - I hope it's helpful to anyone considering this system. The friendly and helpful Aquasana support people I talked with answered a few questions, and I think the company does care a lot about its customers - a good sign that they'll be around for a long time.

Pretty simple to connect. We had existing system so some pipe length adjustments had to be made. Plan accordingly on your fittings to the system itself. We had to run out and get some fittings to make the final connection.

I had a plumber install this and we were pleasantly surprised that the actual footprint of the softener is quite reasonable. I had a previous install of a different product at a different home and it was larger than a Carrier air conditioner unit. In this case I actually think you could reasonable install in the corner of a garage if your pipes line up. For me it's outside near the water main in a nondescript corner. The water is much more pleasant after install and the build quality seems quite strong after a few months of use. Softened water was at the same quality as other more expensive systems, particular for showering purposes and leaving our skin feeling a lot less dehydrated and damaged by hard water. This was installed in a mediterranean/desert climate where the water is quite hard and also water taste quality is very good as well. Recommended.

Deceptive description on flow rate. The flow rate listed of 16.6 is NOT the flow rate while in service. The manual (not provided but available on their website) states a SERVICE FLOW RATE of 11.1 the flow rate advertised is most likely during bypass operation.

Arrived with no install instructions :(