We have harder water and use a Lelit water softener cartridge with our Elizabeth espresso machine. Doing a bunch of research on when to replace and if to recharge it. Got two different opinions from two different vendors (on line research/you tube videos). One said 'just replace cartridge every 6 months, no need to recharge', other said very important to recharge cartridge every two weeks. Any thoughts? Thanks.

chanty 77 wrote:One said 'just replace cartridge every 6 months, no need to recharge', other said very important to recharge cartridge every two weeks. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I'll respectfully disagree with both.


You do want to replace it at an interval no longer than 6 months. Longer than that invites risk of microbial growth in the filter (The water going through this filter has hopefully been stripped of disinfecting chlorine and chloramine by a charcoal prefilter, or comes from a non-chlorinated source, and that makes it more hospitable to microbe growth.)

The manufacturer of this filter does provide guidance as to the softening capacity. You should replace the filter per the manufacturer's recommendation. They don't explicitly advise or instruct recharging them and so I would not do that. Here's an example instruction for the LeLit 70:



Note that this one can soften 70 liters of water with a total hardness of 200 mg/L CaCO3 equivalent. To adjust this to your own water hardness you would divide 200 by your own total hardness, then multiply that by 70 to get the number of liters it will treat. When you are close to that mark replace the filter.

I suspect these filters use a SAC resin that could be recharged with a soak in sodium chloride or potassium chloride, but I wouldn't count on that if not advised by the manufacturer. To me, recharging these, especially on a 2 week frequency carries some risk of exposing the machine to corrosive chloride ion if you fail to flush every milligram of salt from the filter after a recharge.

Thanks for that. Although they both agreed on replacing the filter at 6 months.

homeburrero wrote:I'll respectfully disagree with both.


You do want to replace it at an interval no longer than 6 months. Longer than that invites risk of microbial growth in the filter (The water going through this filter has hopefully been stripped of disinfecting chlorine and chloramine by a charcoal prefilter, or comes from a non-chlorinated source, and that makes it more hospitable to microbe growth.)

The manufacturer of this filter does provide guidance as to the softening capacity. You should replace the filter per the manufacturer's recommendation. They don't explicitly advise or instruct recharging them and so I would not do that. Here's an example instruction for the LeLit 70:

image

Note that this one can soften 70 liters of water with a total hardness of 200 mg/L CaCO3 equivalent. To adjust this to your own water hardness you would divide 200 by your own total hardness, then multiply that by 70 to get the number of liters it will treat. When you are close to that mark replace the filter.

I suspect these filters use a SAC resin that could be recharged with a soak in sodium chloride or potassium chloride, but I wouldn't count on that if not advised by the manufacturer. To me, recharging these, especially on a 2 week frequency carries some risk of exposing the machine to corrosive chloride ion if you fail to flush every milligram of salt from the filter after a recharge.

Just wanted to thank you for your response. I have saved portions of it & has been very thorough & helpful!