Fleck and Autotrol Valve Seminar

On a recent, very snowy day, twenty-two plumbers, well drillers, and dealer personnel braved dangerous driving conditions to attend the Res-Kem hosted, hands-on seminar on Pentair and Autotrol multi-port valves for residential water treatment systems. These 22 people are owners or employees of 11 Homestead System dealers, www.homesteadsystem.com, from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The seminar was taught by Dave Smith, Dealer Development Manager, and Kathee Srygley, Regional Account Manager of Pentair.



The valves the seminar primarily focused on were two multi-port valves with advanced electronic controls. The Pentair Fleck 7000 XTR valve and the Pentair Autotrol 268 760 valve were studied, broken down and reassembled. Attendees learned how to diagnose and fix common problems. These valves are used respectively in the 3000 and 2000 series Homestead System softeners, neutralizers, carbon filters, city systems, odor removal and iron removal systems. To add realism to the class, Res-Kem enhanced the normal Pentair program by giving a live demonstration of an installed water softener in the Res-Kem wet test area.
Typically, Pentair graciously sponsors similar seminars at a local hotel. We felt having the live demonstration and access to Res-Kem’s complete warehouse of valves and parts would enhance the learning experience. Michael Urbans, Res-Kem Residential Technical Manager instructed this part of the seminar.

In addition to learning about softeners and filters, attendees were introduced to the Pentair Fleck 5600 SXT, Homespring, FreshPoint and RO membrane systems. They were given a sneak peak at the new iron removal valves Pentair will introduce based upon the Pentair Fleck 7000 AIO valve and SXT controller.

WQA members were given .65 Continuing Education Units (CEU) for attending the seminar. If you would like to be on the invitees list for other courses, please contact us.

General Water Services Website Being Revamped

The General Water Services website, http://www.generalwater.net/, is currently under construction. The new and vastly improved website will be back up not later than March 1, 2009. If you want to be notified when the site is refreshed, send us an email to us or subscribe to this blog using any of the links on the left side of this page.

About General Water Services:
Located in suburban Philadelphia, General Water Services offers portable service DI water systems. General Water Services regenerates and delivers large and small deionized (DI) water systems. The flow rate through an individual bank of tanks ranges from 1 to 150 gpm.


Depending upon your flow requirement, single or multiple banks are used. We supply portable service DI water systems for high purity and ultra high purity water applications for virtually any process industry including, but not limited to, chemical, power, beverage, food, electronics, pharmaceutical, medical, medical device, hospitals, laboratory, glass manufacturing, and assembly industries where deionized water is critical to production.

DI water systems are available for long-term contractual service and also for short term or emergency needs.

Our standard service area runs north to south from New York City to Washington DC and east to west from coastal New Jersey to Harrisburg, PA. On a case-by-case basis, and depending upon the economics, we provide deionized water systems significantly outside our standard service area.

Unmatched Quality Control Procedures
Meeting high purity water quality immediately after regeneration is the easy part. Having your DI water tanks reach projected capacity at the specified water quality is the bigger challenge. Each batch of mixed bed resin regenerated by General Water Services is laboratory tested for both quality and capacity to guarantee predictable capacity at the specified water quality. Retained samples of each lot of regenerated resin are kept for a period of two years. General Water Services takes the time and bears the expense to test for capacity prior to shipment. It is this consistency that sets General Water Services apart from the competition.

Segregated Resin
General Water Services maintains cation, anion, and mixed bed resins for specific customers. These resins will only be used for your plant and will not be mixed with any other company's ion exchange resins. Depending upon the agreement, the resin can be your property or General Water's ion exchange resins; we can use your tanks or ours. We'll regenerate the resin at our plant, put in the tanks, and return the tanks to you as required. Extra resin is tagged and stored in our warehouse for your future needs.

Complete Resin & Tank Traceability
Each General Water Services DI water exchange tank has its own serial number regardless of tank size. Serial number tracking is used in combination with resin lot traceability to track each DI tank and, its ion exchange resin lot, back to its applicable regeneration and retained sample. This gives you complete ion exchange resin traceability for any and all DI water tanks delivered to your site. This process is carried back even one step further in that all of General Water Services' ion exchange resin lots can also be traced back to the ion exchange resin manufacturer's production documentation.

For Further Information:
General Water Systems brochure.
General Water Systems product bulletin.

Aquamatic Valve & Control Lines Discontinued

In addition to the announcement of the A200 series impulse control stager being discontinued, the letter from Pentair has other Aquamatic discontinuations. The following Aquamatic Valve & Control Lines will be discontinued after March 13, 2009. Also, certain Aquamatic Valve & Control options will be discontinued after March 13, 2009. Orders can be placed until March 2, 2009. Contact Res-Kem if you need help finding a potential replacement.

Discontinued Aquamatic Valve & Control Lines:
Product Family: V82 Series
Product Type: Diaphragm valves
Description: High pressure brass line
Potential Replacement: V46 Series

Product Family:V44 Series
Product Type: Diaphragm valves
Description: Iron and brass isolated bonnet line
Potential Replacement: V42 Series, K55 Series

Product Family: 59 Series
Product Type: Stager
Description: 16 port brass stager line
Potential Replacement: 58 Series

Product Family: 96 Series
Product Type: Stager
Description: 8 port high pressure line

Discontinued Aquamatic Valve & Control Options:
Description: Drill and tap Options 5(all four bosses) and 7 (bosses #1 and #3) on K52 Series and K53 Series valves
Potential Replacement: Drill and tap Options 1-4, 6

Description: FKM (Viton) diaphragm on K53 Series
Potential Replacement: Buna-N diaphragm: K52 series FKM diaphragm

A200 Stager Control from Aquamatic Discontinued

Soon after we completed changes to our website, discussed in our previous blog post, a discontinuation notice was Res-Kem just received in the mail from Aquamatic about the A200 Stager Control. After March 13, 2009 the controller, also called an A200 Impluse Stager Control, will no longer be available. The reason given was "despite their lengthy time on the market, (these products) have experienced low demand and declining sales in recent years. As a result, Pentair is making the difficult decision to eliminate these lines so it may focus on growing its core Aquamatic Valve and Control business."

Possible Solution:
A potential replacement could be the 962 Stager Control series from Aquamatic. If you contact Res-Kem we can help you determine if it will work for your application and how it may need to be configured to work.

Aquamatic Stager Controls Information for GE/Osmonics

Res-Kem added a significant amount of information on Aquamatic Stager Controls to our website including Product Specifications, Manuals and Ordering Guides. We wanted to make the information more easily accessible for our customers and others who use Aquamatic stager controls in their water treatment equipment.

Res-Kem uses Aquamatic Stager Controls for many of the systems we manufacture. Stager controls are used to automatically control softeners, dealkalizers, sand filters, multi-media filters, cation and anion deionizers. Also, we use these same stager controls, with a valve nest, to retrofit old Permutit, and Brunermatic multiport valves. Also, given our system expertise, we service these units in the field.

Aquamatic Stager Controls:

Res-Kem uses Aquamatic Stager Controls for many of the systems we manufacture. As the name implies, it is comprised of an Aquamatic Stager and an Aquamatic Control. Res-Kem uses Aquamatic valves with a variety of stager control combinations to automate the operation and/or regeneration of valve nest type water softeners and filters. Aquamatic Stager Controls are used to automatically control softeners, dealkalizers, sand filters, multi-media filters, cation and anion deionizers. These same stager controls can be used with virtually any other valve manufacturer with pneumatic actuated valves ONLY if their actuators are air/spring. These manufacturers include Keystone, Bray, George Fisher +GF+, Hayward, and Asahi. Also, we use these same stager controls, with a valve nest, to retrofit old Permutit, and Brunermatic multiport valves.

Aquamatic 962 Stager Controls:
The AquaMatic 962 stager controls combine an AquaMatic stager with an Autotrol 962 series electronic control, mounted and prewired in a NEMA-rated enclosure. When combined with a flow meter, the series 962 electronic controls provide sophisticated, demand-based water conditioning by monitoring the amount of water used. Time-based and/or external signal initiation is also available as a standard feature.

Aquamatic A100 Stager Controls:
This series of AquaMatic controls combines an electromechanical timer with a stager. The A100 series initiates a regeneration based on a time set on the built-in time clock.

Aquamatic A200 Stager Controls:
This series of AquaMatic controls combines an electromechanical timer with a stager. The A200 series initiates a regeneration when a signal is received from a water meter, sensor, pressure differential switch, push button or other remote device.

Aquamatic 7000A Programmable Regeneration Controller (DISCONTINUED):
These units are no longer sold. Through some careful engineering, the 7000A controller can be replaced with a Aquamatic 962 Stager Control. The Aquamatic 7000A was an electronic programmable regeneration designed to control the regeneration of filters and ion exchange processes. The 7000A was used in combination with an Aquamatic 48 Series Stager, Aquamatic 51 Series Stager, or Aquamatic 58 Series Stager.

Aquamatic Stager:

Added are product specifications on Aquamatic Stagers. A stager is a motor-driven rotary multiport pilot valve, which is used to control a set of individual diaphragm valves in a predefined sequence.

There are five stager designs available:

Aquamatic Series 48 brass stager with six ports. The 48 stager can control typical softener or filter systems as well as sequential backwash filters.

Aquamatic Series 51 brass stagers with eight ports. Used for more complex systems such as non-standard softeners, twin alternating softeners or filters.

Aquamatic Series 96 brass stagers with eight ports. Used for more complex systems such as non-standard softeners, twin alternating softeners or filters.
The 96 stager design is similar to that of the 51, but is rated for 250 psi (17 bar) and used for high pressure systems.

Aquamatic Series 58 PVC stager with sixteen ports. Used for more complex systems such as non-standard softeners, twin alternating softeners or filters.

Aquamatic Series 59 brass stager with sixteen ports. Used for more complex systems such as non-standard softeners, twin alternating softeners or filters.

Given our expertise building systems with Aquamatic Stager Controls, we can help you select the correct parts, select/troubleshoot stager controls or service stager in the field.

Water Analysis Could Have Saved $57,000

In the white paper, "A $150 Water Analysis Could Have Saved $57,000 in Capital and RO Cleaning Costs" by Joseph Urbans-Sales Engineer at Res-Kem Corp., he details how a water analysis is extremely important in the design phase of a water treatment plant design.

Summary:
The paper shows after spending $52,000 in capital and installation for water treatment equipment, technical and service personnel from Res-Kem Corp were called in to diagnose a major problem with a three week old reverse osmosis (RO) system specified, built, and installed by others. Upon investigation, an inlet water analysis may never have been done, or at least no one could produce the analysis used to originally size the plant. It appears the engineering firm sized and designed this project without one.

The Costs:
If the system had been designed correctly from the start, Res-Kem conservatively estimates the savings to be $57,000:

Total capital and installation costs of original system $52,000

Membrane cleaning costs of $5,000

In addition, if the RO membranes cannot be cleaned, the cost will be $15,000 for new membranes plus installation service.

Frozen Ion Exchange Resin

During the winter months here in the Northeast we are often asked about how to handle frozen ion exchange resin. The best way to avoid frozen resin is to make sure the ion exchange resin is shipped in a climate controlled reefer type van. There is usually additional expense involved with use of this truck but it is an option to consider if you are located in a cold climate and need to install the resin upon arrival at your plant.

How can I avoid freezing ion exchange resins?
You can avoid the frozen ion exchange scenario by making sure your vendor doesn't ship on a Friday. Shipments that go out on Friday often will sit over the weekend allowing enough time for the resin to freeze. That's not to say the resin wouldn't freeze over night if the vendor shipped on a Monday and delivered on Wednesday. You just cut the odds of having frozen resin delivered.

What do you do if the resin is frozen?
On Page 5 of a Purolite brochure addressing transportation and packaging of ion exchange resins, Purolite states:

"Although it has been found that Purolite Resins will withstand temperatures as low as -40 degC, (-40 degF), successive thawing and freezing may damage the product, and/or the packaging. Hence it is recommended that the resins are stored above 0 degC, (32 degF). If for any reason resin becomes frozen it should be left to thaw out gradually. No attempt should ever be made to free frozen mechanically. If it is anticipated that it will be necessary to handle resin at sub-zero temperatures, the resin may be conditioned with saturated brine prior to storage. During transportation of resins precautions should be taken to avoid the extremes of temperatures as outlined previously. If product becomes frozen during transportation, thawing should take place gradually, with out any physical interference."

So if you have frozen resin, put it in a sunny spot and let it thaw, don't go at it with an ice pick!

Triple Softener System for Steam Heat Peaking Plant Sized for 750 gpm Flow

Here is another example of number of the industrial, commercial, residential, and/or residential water treatment systems being designed, assembled, shipped and installed by Res-Kem engineers, pipefitters, and/or contractors within in the past few months.

A Boston steam heating company needed to replace their aging Permutit triple softening system. These units, with Permutit multiport valves, had reached the end of their life.


Res-Kem was selected based upon the recommendation of a sister company in Cambridge, MA which had a Res-Kem triple softening plant at their facility. Since the Permutit multiport valves are no longer commercially available, the Res-Kem design used Aquamatic valves instead of the Permutit valves. Also, it appears the size of the existing Permutit units was too large for the plant flow requirements. Res-Kem used a peak design flow from the softeners of 750 gpm. Upon careful review and competitive bidding process, Res-Kem was selected to provide the replacement system.

Several design changes from the standard Res-Kem industrial softener design were needed to meet the unique requirements of this peaking plant. In particular, the valves needed to be changed from our standard normally open (air to close) actuation to normally closed (air to open) actuation. This was done so the valves will fail closed in the event of loss of air pressure. Normally air pressure is used to stop the water flow during periods of downtime. In this case, when the plant is not being used to generate steam, virtually all power is turned off including tha air compressors to save energy.



With precise drawings by Res-Kem engineers, accurate assembly by Res-Kem pipefitters, and excellent coordination with the site mechanical contractor, the water softeners are being rapidly installed. Commissioning is scheduled for the week of December 15, 2008 only 5 business days from shipment! When our start-up engineer visits for operator training, we will post a picture of the installation.

Triple Sand Filters Shipped and Installed Treat Sized for Peak Flow of 1000 gpm

It has been a very, very busy couple of months at Res-Kem. Systems of all sizes have been designed, built, shipped, and installed for industrial, municipal, commercial and residential customers throughout the US. As a recent example, on November 20 we shipped a triple sand filter to a customer on the California/Arizona border.


With precise drawings by Res-Kem engineers, accurate assembly by Res-Kem pipefitters, and excellent coordination with the site water and wastewater contractor, the sand filters were rapidly installed and commissioned by December 8, 2008! Please note, there was shipping time of 3 days and a Thanksgiving holiday in between!



The triple 84-inch diameter sand filtration system is sized to treat a peak flow of 1000 gpm. The sand filters are used to treat all of the potable water going to an 823,000 gallon reservoir tank after chlorination. Most of the storage capacity is for fire water requirements.

Dealkalizer Control Upgrade

The Problem:
A seafood processing plant called Res-Kem Corp to service their Brunermatic Dealkalizer. Their problem was of water running to drain during backwash and rinse stages. To repair the valve, Res-Kem service personnel would need to replace or rebuild the backwash outlet port and rinse outlet port.

The Analysis:
The Res-Kem service manager noted during the site visit that the control on the dealkalizer is no longer manufactured and the caustic pump was not functioning. With a dealkalizer, caustic can be fed during the regeneration cycle to enhance dealkalizer performance. The addition of caustic to the brine gives greater capacity to the Type II strong base anion ion exchange resin used in the dealkalization process. The following shows the increase in dealkalizer capacity with the addition of caustic to the brine regeneration step.


The Solutions:
Having seen this problem before, the Res-Kem service manager suggested the customer consider an upgrade to a current design that incorporates the Signet Flow Sensor and caustic pump. Res-Kem uses the Aquamatic 962 Controller and Stager. The Aquamatic 962 controller is a programmable electronic control with a relay that can be used to signal the chemical feed pump. The cost to repair the existing caustic pump exceeded the cost of a new one and the customer was happy to learn the pump manufacturer they use elsewhere in the boiler house could be used in conjunction with the new Aquamatic 962 controller.

The Benefits:
This simple upgrade to the existing dealkalizer benefits the customer by:

Allowing use of their standard pump manufacturer and enabling them to keep "standard" repair parts on hand

Allowing continued successful operation of the existing dealkalizer

Gets them back to the original design - automatic operation of the dealkalizer.