Plumb Your Own Bypass for a Water Softener

Every water softener at Aquatell ships with a bypass valve. A bypass is actually a set of two valves that can be opened or closed to either send water through the water softener or around the softener. In other words, it allows the user to bypass the system. This can be handy if you need to inspect, service, or remove the softener. With the bypass valve this can be done without interrupting water flow to the home.

Sometimes our customers ask us if they can plumb their own bypass and not use the one we provide - the answer is, yes!

The photo above came from our customer Darin in San Diego (nice work, Darin!). In this photo you can see that he used a series of three valves (blue handles) and copper pipe to build a manual bypass. It's shown in "service" mode where water is being pushed through the softener. If the middle valve were opened, and the other two were closed, the water would bypass the softener.

There are several reasons that customers typically ask us about plumbing their own bypass. Usually, customers are trying to figure out how to install the softener as close to a wall as possible. Using the Aquatell bypass does create a small amount of extra distance. In some cases - often in a garage installations - this isn't ideal and even a few extra inches of saved space is important enough for customers to look for an alternate solution.