Whirlpool WHEWSC Water Softening Cleanser 16oz

Our previous unit which has been in our house since it was built in 2006 had the valve fail and so we thought we would upgrade to this unit. I was very surprised to open the box to see the exact same unit when I opened the box… it is 100% identical but has a different logo on top (our old one was GE). Even the screen and button power up the same way. I am not convinced this unit filters anything as stated.That being said, install was incredibly easy (basically swapping the same unit). It returned our water to softened water as I procrastinated for two weeks once our old one broke. My wife said the dishwasher wasn’t cleaning which is how I found out that our old softener has stopped working. We are in Minnesota and have incredibly hard water (it was off the chart on the test strip that came with the new softener) which makes me think that we have a hardness score of ~30-35. That being said, there are 5 of us and we shower and have to do laundry every day and the unit seems to keep up just fine.

It does its job, keeps my softener function correctly. One of the bottle did come leaking all over the box, but amazon customer service was really helpful with the refund. Will buy again.

This was a very easy install, I would recommend getting SharkBite hoses to make it even easier. This unit has "standard" water softener connectors, which are weird pressure connectors with clips. But this unit also includes adapters to 1" NPT. The Sharkbite hose can go from any pipe to 1" NPT, and the Whirlpool bypass valve and connection to the unit were easy and worked great. Keep in mind that with Sharkbite you generally only get one bite of the pipe so be sure the pipe is good and clean and where you want it before installing.The softener works well and the water is obviously soft right away. I didn't test the actual level yet, but will do so when everything has had a chance to settle in the pipes and fixtures. My hot water tanks even started to "clean" as they poured out rusty water for a while. Apparently that will happen as the softer water slowly breaks down old buildup.The design of this unit is tried and true. It is 90% the same as the 20 year old unit I was replacing. Same parts, same procedures. This unit has upgrades that my old unit didn't have, better/clearer electronics, etc but is generally a simple device. I bet almost all of the cost for this unit is for the brine tank, which does all the softening and filtering.The only thing I was missing was a way to read the Gallons Per Day usage. The unit knows how much water is being used and my old unit allowed you to check, which was an easy way to know if there was a leak somewhere in the house. But this unit has no way to read this, that I know of.I never installed one of these before so I followed the directions exactly, and they were mostly good. The biggest issue was the section on sanitizing with bleach. The directions tell you to add salt and do some other things, then there is the bleach section, implying that is the next step. But after I did this, all of the salt smelled of bleach and needed a few regens to get rid of. I think a better way would be to only sanitize when empty of salt, but I am still not sure which is correct. Regardless, there was never enough bleach to smell anything in any faucet, since the brine is such a small portion of the water that ends up there, and the unit filters bleach anyway.For the price it really can't be beat. Any place near me with the fancier softeners was several thousands to buy/install. And when all you are doing is making salty water, simple is better.

This is my first water softener. I live in a rural area on a community well and the hardness is over 120 gpg (grains per gallon), which is pretty hard. I have a filter system, but it wasn’t enough. After a lot of research and talking to plumbers an neighbors with softeners, I picked this Whirlpool unit. It arrived promptly, and the shipping box was in OK condition. But, when I opened it up, I found a lot of issues. The case was pretty scraped up and the bottom was sort or warped. The brine tank was rattling around in the salt tank a the input/output valve was turned sideways inside the cover. When I opened the cover, I found that the circuit board cover was off and the board itself was lying loosely in the cover. The plug was bent and there was some damaged insulation on the power wire. I initially decided to return it, but it would have been a lot of work to get it upstairs and shipped and then wait for a new one. I put the circuit board and display back in place and fixed the other things that I could see. When I plugged it in, it worked so I decided to try it out instead of returning it. The actual hookup was easy (other than running the pex lines through the ceiling). I used 3/4 pex line and shark bite fittings in it (so that it would be easy to disconnect if it didn’t work). The instructions were fairly straightforward, although there is no mention anywhere as to how much salt to put in. I used 2 bags of pellet salt, but shoul have bought 5 or 6. I programmed everything and ran a recharge as per the instructions and it all went well. The next morning however, I noticed that the salt tank was almost full of water (up to 6 on the fill level). I removed the cover and looked it over carefully and noted that the seal between the brine tank and valve body was leaking. I was going to return it again at this point, but decided to dive in further. Found the instructions on servicing the Distributor O-ring kit and took the valve body off off the brine tank. I found that the lowermost O-ring (under the filter screen) was out of place and covered in loose charcoal. I cleaned everything, lubricated the O-rings and put it all back together. So far, no leaks and the unit works perfectly. I will say that installation is relatively easy. Be sure that you have feed lines and drain options wherever you’re going to install this. I will also say that Whirlpool’s website is very good with lots of clear instructions and information. The softener seems to work fine, and there is a significant, measurable difference in the water hardness. Time will tell if this is a lemon, but I do have the extended warranty 🤞.