Recommendation:
What is the best brine tank size?
This one is a bit tricky because there are many factors to consider, including size of system, hardness of water, size of installation location, and general lack of desire to frequently fill the tank with salt.
As a rule of thumb, our “no added cost” options of the 15” x 17” Rectangle or the 16” x 33” Round will be perfect for the majority of typical residential installations.
Lean towards the 18” x 33” or 18” x 40” brine tank if your system is 64,000 grains (2 cu ft) or larger OR you simply don’t want to fill the tank as much.
*Note – if you go this route, be sure to use a high quality water softening salt such as Dura-Cube or Solar Salt (if Dura-Cube is not available) to help prevent salt mushing or bridging in the bottom of the tank. Fun fact: Dura-Cube has a "No-Bridge" warranty!
We would only recommend choosing the 11” x 11” tank if your installation location is extremely tight AND if your softener is 32,000 grains (1 cu ft) or less.
Tight installation space, but need a bigger brine tank? Consider a remote brine tank installation.
Reasoning:
When selecting a brine tank, you want to balance the salt needs of the system with the size restrictions of your installation site. Even if you don't have any size restrictions, you don't want to go "too big", which will result in low salt turnover and a greater risk of bridging and mushing.
A few things to keep in mind:
- An efficient water softener like ours will use 6 lbs salt/cubic foot/regeneration on city water, and 9 lbs salt/cubic foot/regeneration on well water.
- One gallon of water will dissolve APPROXIMATELY 3 lbs of salt, making 1.13 gallons of saturated brine solution.
Efficient Salt Usage Pre Regeneration (City Water/Well Water):
- 24,000 Grain - 4.5 lbs/7.5 lbs
- 32,000 Grain - 6 lbs/9 lbs
- 40,000 Grain - 7.5 lbs/12 lbs
- 48,000 Grain - 9 lbs/13.5 lbs
- 64,000 Grain - 12 lbs/18 lbs
- 80,000 Grain - 15 lbs/22.5 lbs
- 96,000 Grain - 18 lbs/27 lbs
*Most of our residential softeners use a 0.5 GPM (1.5 lb/min) Brine Line Flow Control (BLFC), hence the rounding in some of the calculations above.
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