How to Determine a Water Softener's Settings

Determine the hardness of the water coming to your home. Water hardness is usually expressed in grains of hardness, and many water softeners require the grains setting to work properly. Sources of hardness information are your local water utility company, buying a home water test kit or sending a water sample to a testing lab.

Evaluate the types of settings your softener requires. Softeners range from those that require all parameters for regeneration to be set manually to softeners that are mostly automated. If your softener has several dials for setting the time, regeneration time and hardness, it is a manual system. If you softener has an electronic controller or just a single dial for hardness, the system is mostly automatic.

Enter the common settings almost all softeners need to function. The water hardness will be set using a dial or an electronic entry screen. Most softeners also need the current time so that the regeneration can be scheduled for the middle of the night. With these settings, automatic softeners will measure the amount of water you have used and regenerate when the resin bed is nearly exhausted.

Enter a schedule for manual regeneration if you have a manually scheduled softener. The schedule will typically be at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. and one to five days a week. The frequency of regeneration is dependent on the size of the resin bed and the amount of water your household uses. If you do not know the size of your softener, set the softener to initially regenerate twice a week. If you run out of soft water before the regeneration day, go to three times a week. Continue adjusting the regeneration schedule until you have the minimum number of regenerations per week and still always have soft water.