BWT WS555 Hi Flow Luxury Water Softener (compatible with salt or tablet) 14 Litres

Fitted this myself as an average DIYer. Needed to replace some of the 22mm connectors though - they include FlowMasta internal 22->15mm adapters, which are to put it generously, complete dog toffee. I couldn't get them to seal and replaced with 15mm isolation valves and 15mm double check valve. Kept the 22mm hoses though. Happy with the resulting water and salt usage. Been in use now for about 2-3 months without issue.

easy to set up with included water testing kit supplied, it also has a low salt alarm to remind you to fill it up.it takes salt tablets or blocks. The only thing different from our last softener is the overflow pipe which is 3/4 overflow solid pipe not flexible (im guessing it wouldn't freeze up like a thinner flexible pipe).Had to call technical as motor wire had come off and they were brilliant, quick to answer the phone and knew the product so all sorted. Very happy so far with really soft water and using a lot less soap and shampoo (first shower with it connected and used way too much shampoo :-).

Nice compact water softener seems quiet compared to other softeners I have had before .colour is good easy to set up .After sales service available

Noticeable difference straight away. Great unit, serves a large house of 3-4 easily and would be fine with more. Got my plumber to set it up as I needed some pipework doing under the sink. Still on my first set of salt 4 months later. Had made a huge difference to our hair and skin.

Summary: Very good item when working but with design flaws that if improved would be a 5 star product. great customer service from BWT and faultless delivery.Delivery was faultless, very clear on when it was going to be delivered and arrived on time and undamaged.The softener comes with almost everything you need including valves and flexi-hoses with the exception of a Pressure Reducing Valve (not necessarily required) and overflow pipework (except two elbow joints - one on the unit and one spare).The item itself is very good overall but with some big areas for improvement. Being a bulky item, it was not particularly easy to remove from the packaging or move around in general. Subtle indents on the unit could be useful to ease movement if required. Added to that, is the poor lid design that falls apart at the slightest touch into two pieces. The two pieces could do with either being permanently attached together or at the very least clipped together and to the unit. The very top piece with the display screen is attached to the unit by delicate cables which is a recipe for disaster given how easy it is to dislodge. This leads on to my next issue...Error message 'Err 1' - this frustrated me for a whole Sunday when trying to set up the softener going through litres and litres of water. I had all the correct plumbing connections but could not figure out why I was getting the error message.I phoned BWT customer service on the Monday as I could not find any guidance online or in the installation manual except to ring BWT. The customer service was brilliant, by far the best customer experience I have received in a very long time. They arranged for an engineer to visit the next working day (Tuesday) as it couldn't be sorted over the phone.Upon hanging up, I rechecked what I was told on the phone and noticed that two prongs on the grey cable had been dislodged from their connections on the motherboard next to where the power supply is plugged in to the unit. (this appears to be a common problem) I plugged them back in; retried the installation and it worked perfectly within minutes. I can only assume these cables became dislodged when accidentally knocking the unsecure lid off (my fault I suppose - but poor design).I phoned to cancel the engineer appointment but BWT explained they carry out a Free of Charge Commissioning Service to ensure correct installation so they proceeded with the call out - Again, great customer service! The engineer was not surprised when I explained the error message issue. He checked the set up, water pressure, water hardness (as he was surprised I had set it so high), and the unit itself.Now installed correctly the unit works perfectly and produces perfectly soft water. A testing kit is included with simple instructions of how to test for water hardness and how it corresponds to configuring the water softener. Living in Oxfordshire we have extremely hard water (400ppm - tested by me using the kit provided, and by the engineer). The water softener is easily adjustable to suit this.

Good Built Quality and cheaper than other competitors in the market.At first I was wondered by the price of Harvey water softeners as you will find them as the only product when search for best water softeners in Google.This one is cheaper and does it jobs like others.Negatives1. It is quite heavy (but its good quality) and tall. Need to be more compact2. The inlet and outlet hose supplied with it is too hard and not flexible which made by DIY installation much more tough.3. The flavour is not that goodPositives1. Go for it if you know basic plumbing2. Well softened water and softness can also be adjusted

Nothing wrong with the item but be aware if DPD are delivering it, despite my requesting them to leave it with my neighbour, they left it outside my gates on a main road!

Ok