Fleck 7000 SXT Water Softener Review

If you’ve been considering a Fleck water softener and are unsure which model is the best for you you’ve come to the right place.

In this Fleck 7000 SXT water softener review we will go over the details, pros, and cons of this water softener to help you determine if it’s the right choice for your home water needs.

Other Resources:

• Fleck 9100 Review
• Fleck 5600 Review

Fleck 7000 SXT Water Softener Reviewed

If you suffer from hard water, this 48,000 grain capacity unit works great for anyone with a home with up to eight people. The Fleck 7000 has a flow rate of up to 16 gpm, which is plenty for everyone to use without losing pressure.

We’ve all seen the effects of hard water. It leaves spots on your dishes, scaly buildup around your water faucets, leaves your clothes looking dull, and can dry out your skin and hair. This is, to say the least, undesirable.

I really doubt you’ll ever see someone running down the street shouting “I really wish I had hard water so I could suffer from all the problems it causes!” 

That’s why you need the Fleck 7000 water softener. It uses an ion-exchange salt based system to remove hardness causing minerals from your water supply. The presence of these minerals in your water, mostly calcium and magnesium, is why you’re getting dull clothing and why your water pipes are probably becoming clogged with scale even as you read this. It also can leave deposits in your sink and reduce the flow rate of your shower head.

That won’t be a problem if you attach a whole home filter like this water softener. It will reduce the calcium and magnesium, and has the capacity to handle most homes.

The 7000 features an easy-to-use LCD screen, where you can monitor the salt usage and enter all the settings. This is where you can do things like trigger and regeneration cycle or adjust your hardness level.

As far as setting regeneration goes, you have multiple options to choose from. Each of these are good for the right time, but the metered settings are going to be the most efficient when it comes to reducing salt and water usage.

Options you choose are:

• Set a day of the week that the softener regenerates. It will regenerate every week on this day.
• Metered delay, where it meters your water usage and initiates a regen cycle during the next low-usage period.
• Metered immediate, which is like metered delay, but it starts regenerating as soon as it needs to.
• Or you can set a time for it to begin regeneration. After a preset number of days, it will regenerate at the provided time.

If you choose one of the metered settings, this on-demand regen will reduce salt and water usage for regeneration by up to 40%. That saves you a lot of money because you won’t need to purchase as much softener salt. 

Fleck also uses a double backwash, where it flushes the resin tank with brine twice to make sure the resin is clean and working at full efficiency. This makes it more accurate and helps this be one of the most efficient softeners you’ll find.

One of the great things about this water softener is its backup with a 2-day capacity battery. This saves you a lot of trouble, since you won’t have to re-enter all your settings if your power is down. Your softener also won’t forget how much water you used before the outage, so it will still regenerate at the proper time if you have one of the metered regeneration options selected.

Most customers seem well pleased with their Fleck 7000 and note the great customer service was helpful if they had any problems. But, to help you make the best decision possible, we should note some of the complaints we found during our research.

This is a heavy unit. It weighs about 150 pounds. It also takes up a lot of space, compared to some other units of similar capacity.

Some customers also complain that their system was missing the manual when it arrived. It is available online, but it’s still an annoyance.

Pros

• Low price
• Demand-based regeneration
• Great customer service
• Durable
• Suitable for homes with up to eight people or light commercial applications
• Easy to install
• Two-day battery backup
• Large, 250 lb. capacity brine tank
• NSF certified

Cons

• Heavy, coming in at 150 lbs.
• Two tank design takes up a lot of room
• They sometimes do not include the manual in the package

What it Comes With

• Brine tank
• Resin tank
• Bypass valve 
• Connections
• Drain hose
• Preassembled control unit
• O-rings
• Lube
• Other necessary parts 

Fleck 7000 SXT Installation 

Anyone who has done a few home projects and who is handy with tools can install the 7000 SXT.  It’s not difficult, and most people can handle the entire installation themselves. The manual has instructions on how to do it. It’s your call, but to help you make that decision, here is the basic process:

1. Find a flat location near a drain and electrical outlet to place both tanks.
2. Turn off the main water supply to your home.
3. Cut the distributor tube to length.
4. Using silicone-based grease, lubricate the distributor o-ring and the tank o-ring seals.
5. Place the main control valve on the unit.
6. Use Teflon plumbing tape on the threads, then run the drain line from the unit to the drain.
7. Splice into the incoming water supply and connect to your system, making sure the water goes into the inlet side of the bypass valve and out the outlet side to ensure proper flow.
8. Place the bypass valve in “bypass” mode.
9. Fill the brine tank until there is about an inch of water above the grid plate. 
10. Turn the main water supply for your home on and check for leaks.
11. Slowly switch the bypass valve into “service” mode.
12. Allow water to fill the resin tank.
13. Open a couple of cold water faucets in your home and let water run for a few minutes to release any air pockets in the water lines.
14. Connect the power cord of your softener to an electrical outlet.

First Startup

1. Turn the back to “bypass” mode.
2. Fill the brine tank with salt.
3. Begin a backwash cycle.
4. Check for leaks one more time.

That’s it. At this point, you can now run your water softener normally.

Fleck 7000 SXT Maintenance

The Fleck 7000 is designed for easy maintenance. Because of that, the only maintenance you’ll need to do most of the time is just add salt to the brine tank when it gets low. That makes it simple for anyone to own and operate.

How Does the Fleck 7000 SXT Compare to the Competition?

We like to offer a few comparisons to some top systems available when we do these reviews. It’s important to do that so we can help you make the right decision when you’re selecting a water softener.

We’ll compare this to the Quality Water SoftPro Elite for Well Water and the AFW Iron Pro 2 water softeners.

Fleck System Advantages

• Lower price than the SoftPro and the AFW softeners.
• The 7000 SXT has a double backwash system, which provides better overall performance than the other two.
• Fleck has better customer service reviews than the other two.
• The 7000 SXT unit has better flow, 16 gpm, than the SoftPro, with a flow of only 7 gpm.
• Very easy installation.

Disadvantages of the 7000 SXT Softener

• The 7000 SXT system is heavier than the others.
• The AFW can remove more iron than the Fleck.
• Fleck provides only a five year warranty on parts, ten on the tank, while the SofPro manufacturer offers a lifetime warranty.
• The SoftPro has a shorter regeneration cycle than Fleck’s system.

In Conclusion

You certainly can’t go wrong with the Fleck 7000. Whether your home has two people or eight, it’ll provide enough soft water for all your needs, extend the life of your appliances, and won’t dry out your skin. Its large brine tank limits the refill frequency, making it easy to maintain for most people.

But please compare it to the softeners on our list of best water softeners or our list of best water softeners for well water before you buy, so you can be sure this is the right water softener for you.