EcoPure EPHS Hybrid Water Softener + Whole Home Filter System – NSF Certified – Reduces Hard Water, Chlorine Taste & Odor – No Filter Replacements – Easy Programming – 1” Plumbing Connectors

My 19 year old Kenmore water softener finally died. Doing my research it appears that EcoPure makes Kenmore, GE, and Whirlpool softeners so why pay extra for them. I figured I'd just buy from the source.It's amazing how the inside looks identical to my old Kenmore softener. The electronics and program is updated and much nicer. My old Kenmore ran nightly where the EcoPure measures the amount of water used and only runs when it needs to so I should save a lot of money on water and salt. I only wish it was a direct replacement installation. The unit is slightly taller and the ports on the bypass valve are about an inch wider. I ordered the slip fit Sharkbite hoses which made installation simple without any sweating or hiring a plumber (saved me $350). Just cut, sand down the copper to remove any burrs, and slip the hose on. Total installation took about 30 minutes.

Works great! Now that we have soft water our dishes are actually sparkling clean right out of the dishwasher without any rinse aid and that dishwasher looks like new! All the hard water deposits are gone. I can only imagine what wonders it does for our pipes and for our health drinking filtered and softened water. The only thing that takes some getting used to is that the display on the water softener is always on whether you need it or not (you rarely do).

Product was a little broken up from shipping but I was able to repair and or/replace parts from old Sears product it was replacing - they were a close match. Plumbing connections were a bit different - required some adaptation. Once installed worked very well.

I have owned three houses over the past 23 years and installed a new version of this product in each house shorty after I moved in. I haven't had an issue with any of the units. This unit is for a house I recently purchased, and it is pretty much the same unit as the last two I installed. They are easy to operate, are relatively easy to install, do a good job softening the water, and are pretty much maintenance free. I like the fact that the unit recycles based upon metered water usage; I really like the salt monitoring feature where it warns you if the salt is getting low...…. which is about all I need to maintain to keep it running.

Like a lot of people I had the Kenmore hybrid softener and it hit the end of it's lifetime. This is advertised as a pretty much exact replacement. Firstly none of the fittings line up. If you're going to copy a design, make it a direct swap. They are just different enough you have to redo all the plumbing lines. Unnecessarily poor engineering. But that isn't why it's a one star rating. It's one star because it doesn't work well. I've turned the softness setting up high enough that I'm burning through tons of salt but my water still smells like iron. Never had this issue with 10 years of the Kenmore one. Now I'll end up having to buy something else and have wasted the money on this worthless unit.

We have been using Kenmore units before and know, with our bad well water, that we get a lifetime of about 5 years from the unit. Well the last Kenmore indeed gave up and we choose this replacement brand. We have it up and running for over a week now and it delivers clean and clear water. We also have a UV filter. Two issues: when unit was delivered, he put it in front of the door, unfortunately upside down (arrows were quite clear) luckily it seems it did not damaged unit. Secondly, in description it reads it is a direct fit for the Kenmore. It’s not. But fortunately the unit comes with its own isolation valves which makes installation easy.

The manufacturer advertised it was a exact fit replacement for a Kenmore. It was close, but I had to shorten the input and output copper pipes 1/2” to connect the softener. With the aid of two shark bites, I was able to get it installed.

I had a 2003 Sears Kenmore UltraSoft 250 that was an identical twin in shape and dimensions to this EcoPure unit. I wanted it to fit an existing space and to match my plumbing hook-ups. The total time to disconnect and reconnect was under 30min. The shipping of this 100lb item was my only concern. The box came in good condition but the heavy tank had shifted and broke off a small piece of the tabs that center the take head. The cardboard packing materials were not sufficient to protect the product from a UPS person from bouncing it around. The broken part in no way affected the performance or operation after installation. Overall I very pleased with the product and ease of installation.