2020c WATER SOFTENER
Owner’s Manual
visit
www.kinetico.co.uk
04
K5 DRiNKiNg WATER STATiON
Owner’s Manual
05
USER MANUAL
Now that your Kinetico 2020c is installed, you can enjoy the benefits of having soft water
through your home. If you are not accustomed to soft water, here are some helpful tips so
you can gain the full benefit from your system:
Use pure soap products
Most leading brands of laundry soaps, household cleaners and shampoos contain large
amounts of detergent. The harsh chemicals in these detergents are necessary when using
hard water but you can be reduce the amount you use or even eliminate them altogether
with soft water.
We recommend you to use pure soap products and clear liquid soaps without dyes or
perfumes. If you continue to use your normal detergents, you should reduce the amount
you use to suit your needs. Your Kinetico dealer can provide you with more information and
recommend the correct detergent amounts.
Use less soap and household cleaners
When using soap or cleaners with soft water, start by cutting the amount of soap that you
normally use in half. You may even find you can use as little as a quarter of the amount you
were using before. Hardness minerals in water interfere with soaps cleaning ability. Once
they are removed, soap can do its job better. although you will use less soap, you will get
more suds and cleaner results.
It’s especially important to reduce the amount of washing detergent you use. Washing
clothes in soft water not only means you will need less powder to get your clothes clean,
but also that the powder you do use will rinse out completely. Washing in soft water makes
your clothes look brighter and whiter and they will last longer too.
After bathing in soft water, your skin should feel “silky“. The silky feeling is your smooth
skin without soap curd or residue. When bathing in hard water, this soap residue is normally
left behind. The soap curd that left a visible ring around your bathtub was also left on your
skin. The same difference is applied when using shampoo also.
Reduce or eliminate the use of fabric softeners
Fabrics washed in hard water retain soap curd or residue, making them “crackle” when
removed from the dryer or stiff if air dried. Fabric softeners are necessary with hard water
to keep your clothing soft. When using soft water, you can reduce the amount of fabric
softener used in your laundry or even eliminate them all together.
Take special precautions with automatic dishwashers
Soft water, when combined with caustic phosphates in some dishwasher detergents and
very high temperatures in the dry cycle, can etch dishes and glassware. To prevent this
from happening, use the “no heat“ dry cycle on your dishwasher. Use the minimum amount
of good quality, low phosphate dishwasher detergent needed to clean your dishes. This
may be as little as 20% of the amount recommended by the appliance manufacturer or on
the dishwasher soap box. Wash good china and crystal by hand.
Special care for plants and fish
Depending on your water hardness level, the amount of rainfall and how often you water
your garden, you could use soft water for outside watering, but why waste your soft water?
Water your garden, shrubs and outside plants from an outside hard water tap or put
your Kinetico 2020c in by-pass before watering. See the “By-Pass“ section on page 12 for
instructions on how to do this. Many house plants can be watered with soft water although
some can be very sensitive to the elevated level of sodium ions in soft water. You may
prefer to water with hard water or from a Kinetico Drinking Water System.
The accustomed to hard water may have trouble with an abrupt change to soft water. Make
the transition gradually over a period of 7~14 days by combining hard and soft water until
the tank contains 100% soft water. As soon as you start using soft water, you should notice
your fish tank will stay cleaner for longer.
Drinking water
The process of softening water adds a small amount of sodium into the water. When a
person is on a low sodium diet, all possible sources of sodium should be evaluated in
relation to the limit set by your doctor.
To enhance your drinking water, you may wish to consider using a Kinetico drinking water
product, also available from your Kinetico dealer. Kinetico drinking water products will
significantly improve the quality of your coffee, tea, cold drinks and water used for cooking
and baking.
Please contact your local Kinetico dealer for further information regarding our range of
drinking water solutions.
