This is my experience with AIM. I'm new to water softening systems & had a tech come in to evaluate my system/water. The system was put in by AIM seven years ago. I have softening in the water & can feel it when showing or washing my hands. I do get a slight metallic smell at the kitchen sink occasionally. I also get a sulphur/rotten egg smell for the first ~20 seconds of cold water on a bathroom sink upstairs. Everything else is fine.
Technician tested the water at the kitchen sink & said my water has no softening at all on the hot water. He said the system was not performing the way it should. After discussion, he said the softening was not on the cold water either. We went to the softener and he said my problem was no circulation in the brine well in the salt tank of the system. I noted some water but it was significantly brown from the iron. Discussions let go him saying to regenerate the resin in the tank & repair the valve would be about $800. He said that a new softener of the same kind was about $1000. He then explained that the downside of my softener too was that it runs on electric and needs to be reset whenever the power goes out. He then mentioned the Kinetico systems that AIM sells and started pointing out the advantages of the Kinetico softeners. Mainly that they don't use electricity & are pretty much carefree.
Further talking led us to talk about the units they offered. He was recommending a unit that I could get refurbished or brand new. No model number was given but he said refurbished came with a 5 year warranty & one year of service. Cost was about $2100 installed. For a new model the total cost was about $3500 installed but came with a 10 year warranty & three years of service. I mentioned it I was gonna do it that I wanted to go with refurbished. I mentioned I'd put the cost on a credit card. The technician said if I was gonna finance that he recommended going new and then said AIM could offer me 60 month financing with six months same as cash. It sounded good but told him I'd rather stay with refurbished and save the almost $1400 cost. He countered by telling me he could give me nine months same as cash/no interest then asked me how many bathrooms I have in the house. I told him four - two full baths and two half baths. He then asked if I had a garden tub which I do. He said he needed to make a call because the system I have installed now may be a little small for the needs of the house. That kinda raised a question because AIM is the one who installed it, so why wouldn't they have evaluated that then? But he made his phone call.
Upon coming back in, he said if I went new he could also offer me discounts which would bring the total price down to about $3100. He also said that he has messed up and was quoting me for a Kinetico M60 unit. He pointed out a K90 unit and another unit which was more expensive but gave a higher replenish rate for water. He said that the bigger unit would be more for a business with high water usage. The K60 he said would give about 6 gal/min, the M60 would give about 8 gal/min, and the other, more expensive one would give about 10 gal/min. I asked him what my current unit delivers and he said maybe 5 gal/min but that again, it was probably too small for my home. I then asked what the difference was between the refurbished M60 he quoted and he then told me that no, the refurbished into was actually a K60, not an M60. So I asked him why he would quote me new on a more expensive unit and then give a refurbished quote for a lesser/different unit? He said that he had messed up but that refurbished really meant trying to get rid of last year's models. So was the unit smaller and refurbished or was it new? Or seemed to raise questions. I told him that if he threw in all the discounts that I would do the M60.
After he left, I did some research then canceled the install. My questions were:
- if the unit wasn't softening, why could I feel it in the shower & when washing my hands?
- if the unit is only seven years old, why is it nonfunctional now & needs to be completely replaced? What kind of products does AIM sell? If it was junk why would I buy from them again?
- as I said earlier, if the current unit is too nail for the house why did AIM sell it the homeowner then? Wouldn't they have noticed that at the time?
- I had concerns about the misquote and different units. It seemed a bit sketchy to me.
After canceling the appointment I went on YouTube and found some videos showing how to perform maintenance on softening systems and how to regenerate the resin. If was very simple to do. So I bought more salt as well as two bottles of a resin/system replenishment solution for about $10 and cleaned the brine tank, brine well, & the venturi valve of the softener. I also bought a water testing kit. Went home, tested the water & it was totally OK. Only alkalinity was high. Cleaned tank, regenerated. Now it works like a champ & my water is great. read more