[hkstroud]

I'm with everybody else on the location of the softener. Besides it looks like you have a sump pump or something in front of the water heater. Marks approach is easier to do. If you can get a Sharkbite on the pipe out of the meter, switch to Pex, go to the softener and come back to the pipe in the floor. Put you bypass and isolation valves at the softener or any where along the way. That way your only real plumbing is getting a Sharkbite on the pipe out of the meter and one on the pipe going into the floor.

If you drawing is anywhere near scale, you have more room between the door and the water meter than you do in front of the water heater.

[CeereeOoo]

There isn't a sump pump in front of the water heater, just a drain (I believe). The space between the door and the water heater isn't exactly going to work. There is no electric outlet for me to plug the softener into. There is an electric outlet right by the water heater and the pipes. If I do the pex piping, wouldn't I have to route the pipe from the water meter to the other side of the room where the other pipes are?

As for the water heater replacement dealio, it will definitely be a challenge. We are hesitant to switch to a stackable washer and dryer setup since that will mean we will have to spend extra $$. We are very limited in funds at the moment, hence the self plumbing job here. The garage is directly behind the wall where all the appliances are placed in the laundry room. Then there is the kitchen where the door leads to. Other than that, the other walls are to the outside of the unit.

Man, this is getting more complicated by the day for sure, stupid townhouse...

[mygirlsdad77]

Is there room in the garage (if its heated, or no chance of freezing)? If so, that sounds like an ideal place for it. No codes that I know of would not allow this.

[CeereeOoo]

Is there room in the garage (if its heated, or no chance of freezing)? If so, that sounds like an ideal place for it. No codes that I know of would not allow this.

Unfortunately, the garage is not heated and will freeze during the cold Minnesota winters. We kept ice cream out there when the kids come over :).

Now my plan is to somehow elevate the softener so that it won't be blocking the drain and will give me access to re-light the water heater if I ever have to again. A loaded softener can't weigh that much, can it? I imagine a good 3-400 lbs, if that is the case, I can just go to Ikea and get their little stool like table thing for $7.99 and place the softener on top of it. I used the larger version of that as a stand to a 40 gallon aquarium, which with water, weighed a good approximately 460lbs.

The girlfriend is getting antsy about hooking the softener up since currently it is sitting right in front of the door from the garage. Looks like I will have to give this a try over the weekend. Hopefully I won't end up with a pool party.

[mygirlsdad77]

I wish you the best of luck on your weekend project. Let us know how it all turns out.

[CeereeOoo]

How long should the water stop gushing out from the pipes after I have turned off the water? It just keeps oozing out of there, can't really proceed with it like that.

[hkstroud]

Means you stop valve is not turning off the water completely. You will have to go to the street and turn off water there.

You may have to rush down to Home Depot and get a Sharkbite stop valve or pipe cap if you can't get to stop valve at the street.

Don't you have two stop valves?

[CeereeOoo]

Only one that I can tell. The other two are for outside hose outlets. I just read that people use white bread to stop the water just enough time to do the connection, going to give that a try.

By the way, it was the first pipe from the left. At least one thing went right.

[hkstroud]

Bread is not going to stop the water. That only works temporarily when you have a little water draining back when you are trying to solder pipe.

Nothing is going to stop the water except a seal equivalent to a pipe joint. No matter how little the volume of water that is leaking, eventually the pressure will build up to your line pressure.

Do you know where the street valve is?

Do you have a Sharkbite valve to fit that pipe?

[CeereeOoo]

Got it all hooked up now. The bread was able to hold the water back just long enough for me to clean up the copper pipe and insert the sharkbite connector.

I have no clue where the street valve is, this whole compound is built rather strange. I did not get a sharkbite valve, totally forgot about it the two times that I went to Homedepot, sigh.

I went over to one of my neighbors and he was kind enough to show me his setup. He was surprised that my unit did not come with a softener as the water here is pretty darn hard. His unit was the model home, so it had a nice Commers softener installed.

Thank you all of you for helping out, it's been a great learning process for sure. I managed to hook it up without flooding the house thanks to all of your advices. I could have done a better job, the Pex pipes were a bit too long. Not the best looking plumbing at all. Hopefully everything will hold together just long enough before we move on to a real single family home. Once again, thank you!

[hkstroud]

We should have told you, you don't do plumbing work when the plumbing store is closed. Now you know why. Glad you are not swimming.

[mygirlsdad77]

Glad you got it done. For future reference, you can slap shark fittings on even if water is running out a little. And you can cut pex to the length you need.

[CeereeOoo]

I should have thought of getting it done before the stores closed, haha. As for the sharkbite fitting, I did not know that you can put them on while water still runs out of the pipes. We were sittign there waiting for the water to stop oozing out, it seemed like forever.

Well, something didn't go correctly somewhere. Seems like some water is leaking from the softener. After a recharge, there was a puddle of water around the softener. I checked all of the piping and they were all bone dry. Also, no water puddle when the softener isn't recharging. I am going to have to play around with it some more. Hopefully nothing major.

[mygirlsdad77]

Uh oh. Is this a brand new softener, or a used one? Hope its an easy fix.

[CeereeOoo]

It's a brand new one. I suspect the drain hose were splashing water out of the floor drain. I have re-taped them so they are now pointing into the floor drain. No recharge yet and no puddles (thank god), so it's not leaking constantly. I will have to supervise the machine when it recharges to see if my theory is correct.

[CeereeOoo]

Figured out what happened. The softener has a backwash function and when it does go off, water literally shoots out. Most of the water does get into the drain, but then a lot of it also get splashed back up onto the ground. I have secured the drain tube so now it points directly into the drain, that should solve it. But then again, I will have to wait until the next time it recharges to really know.

[hkstroud]

Well, you could post a picture of this contraption you have built. After all, we sweated over this along with you.

[mygirlsdad77]

I agree, lets see a pic. Also, you should be able to manually put that baby into backwash and watch it. Should give clear instruction in the install manual.