Twin Tanks

Single Tank or Twin Tanks?

When it comes to softening some companies push a 2 tank or TWIN TANK softening system for homes, mostly to be impressive and or to feed their service department with larger service bills in the future.

What is the benefit to twin tanks?

Any service department would say twin tanks will make them more money! Everything gets more expensive on the service side. The heads and replacement parts are costlier and when doing a re-bed it is twice the materials and more time.

Twin tank systems were designed for applications like 24 Hour Restaurants, Car Washes and other special needs places where they can’t allow for any delay in getting soft water. The idea is that water flows through one tank while the other cleans or regenerates and then sits waiting to be put in service when the other tank needs to regenerate itself. The special head and or controller switches from one tank to the other so soft water is always available.

The single tank system also needs to clean or regenerate itself and this process is usually done when it won’t need to deliver good water. The Twin tank seller will tell you that if your system runs out of capacity it won’t regenerate until the scheduled time after it reaches capacity (usually 2am) and during that time you may experience hard water.

To give you a better idea, let’s say that your system reaches capacity after the morning showers. The unit would then clean itself at 2 am the next morning, leaving those hours in between allowing hard water to flow into the home.

To avoid that most single tank systems have a reserve capacity that insures you have good water without interruption during its cycle even if it has reached its capacity.

The 2am regeneration time is usually set so that your system regenerates itself while you are sleeping. This is usually an adjustable time for those who have special schedules.

So for most family homes one tank is more than adequate if it is properly sized for the home and the water demand, and if it is properly adjusted for reserve capacity and cleaning. In the longer run it is less expensive to operate and to repair. A one tank system takes up much less space too!

The twin tank system has its place: Restaurants, Car Washes, Large Motels, Hospitals and other places where water can be flowing and being used at any time during a 24-hour period.

Then there are the multi-tank multimedia units. One tank may hold totally different media for a specific reason. But the above information is about a single or twin tank SOFTENING system.