About GrainsGone

GrainsGone answers one kind of question: what is going on with a home water softener, and what should you do about it. How big a unit your house needs, what to type into the control head, how much salt it should use, and what to check first when the water turns hard again.

Why the site exists

Most of what turns up when you search for softener help is written by someone who sells softeners, salt or service calls. That is not always bad advice, but it leans one way: bigger units, more visits, earlier replacement. We sell none of those things, so we can tell you when a $5 o-ring is the fix and when a "48,000-grain" box really holds about 30,000 grains at the setting you will use.

Where the numbers come from

The guides are built from control valve manuals (Fleck, Clack, GE and others), the Water Quality Association, USGS and university extension material on water hardness, and the questions owners ask in service forums. Every guide lists the sources it relies on at the end, by name. If a number cannot be traced to a source, it does not go in.

The softener planner and the hardness converter run on the same published figures: about 75 gallons per person per day, 17.1 mg/L per grain per gallon, and the capacity a cubic foot of resin delivers at each salt setting.

How the guides are made

We use AI tools to help draft the guides and to create the illustrations. The illustrations show generic equipment, not a specific brand or model. The numbers in each guide are tied to the sources listed at its end, and we correct a guide when a reader or a newer source shows we got something wrong.

GrainsGone is written by a small team. We do not put names on the guides because no single person here is a licensed water treatment professional, and we would rather say that plainly than borrow a title.

What we are not

We are not a plumber, a dealer or a lab. For anything that involves your main water line, a permit, or a water test you need to rely on for health reasons, use a licensed local professional or a certified lab. The guides tell you when you have reached that point.

Get in touch

Corrections and questions are welcome on the contact page. You can read more about how we choose topics and handle corrections on How we work.