Start by setting the water hardness level on your water softener to match the GPG of your water supply. For example, if your report shows that your water hardness level is 10 GPG, then you will need to set your water softener to 10 GPG as well.
What happens if your water supply contains iron? This is when you will need to add extra buffer to account for the presence of iron. For example, if your water contains 1 PPM of iron and the water hardness is 5 GPG, then you will need to set your water softener to include 5 GPG of hardness plus 1 PPM of iron x 4 extra GPG. This means you will need to set the water hardness setting on your water softener to 9.
Finally, if your system is older, it may not be working properly. Therefore, you may need to increase the water hardness setting slightly. If your water softener is over 10 years old, you should add an extra point on the hardness setting to ensure that it is working properly. So, for the recent example above, if your water softener is over 10 years old, you will need to add an extra point, which means the water hardness setting on your water softener should be 10.
