Is it ok to bypass you water softener for say about 6 hours to do some repairs on the water softener? the water is about 115ppm so its pretty hard water. Thanks

The water softener is not a vital piece of equipment in your setup. The only thing your water does is prevent scaling on the RO membranes. If you're only going to have it down for 6 hours, it should cause no noticeable effects. I once had mine down for 3 days waiting on a part to come in and had no ill effects. Our incoming water is about 9 gpg hardness (<150 ppm).

Thanks for the help. that's what I was wanting to hear.

A word of warning....the softener does more than prevent scale from forming on the RO. If you bypass your softener, you will feed more calcium and magnesium to your RO. The more calcium and magnesium you feed to your RO, the more calcium and magnesium will be in your RO product water. You still need to make AAMI grade water. I suggest sending in a water sample for an AAMI analysis to validate bypassing your RO.

The RO will remove the Calcium and Magnesium (and Iron) without a problem. Acute programs RARELY incorporate use of a softener, and the membranes last upwards of 3-5 years PLUS the AAMI analyses are always good. (At least in my 13 years!)