Newly Installed Water Softner/RO

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Greeny56

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I just had a new Powerline Water Softner and a Kinetico R5 RO system installed. Since that time (One week), I have found my ice maker taking longer to make ice, and the ice is hollow and smaller in size. I have also had a problem with the washing machine where I cannot get cold wash/rinse water to load the washer. If I change it over to warm, I get hot water to load the washer which tells me the cold water is not loading. The cold faucet in the washtub right beside the washer works just fine. It feeds right off the same line as the washer. My wife also have had a lot of sediment in the bath tub tonight which was sand-like and brown in color. Can anyone tell me what my installers should have done before leaving my house or have told me before they left?
 

Chevy427

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Check the washer's cold water line. There may be a screen there and it could be plugged.
Do you have a fridge filter? Take it out and see if water pressure increases.
 

Greeny56

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I will take the cold water line off and let it run into the washtub and see if it runs normally. I don't believe I have a fridge filter, but will recheck the line where the installer screwed it in for any kinks. Thanks for the reply.
 

LLigetfa

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Is the Kinetico R5 RO a POU or whole house system? If POU, and if plumbed into the ice maker, you probably will need to remove the filter in the ice maker to allow more flow since a POU RO has very low pressure.
 

Rjh2o

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By your description of sediment in tub and no cold water to washer it sounds like you have RESIN in your lines from water softener. I would by-pass the softener immediately and run the tub again to see if water is clears. Check the rest of the faucets in the home also. If resin (small round, brownish/gold colored beads) are present take off all the aerators, run all faucets to clear, leave softener on by-pass and call company. A Kinetico K5 RO is a POU reverse osmosis system. It may be plugged with resin or your fridge may have a filter that is restricting the flow of water from RO, this will cause hollow ice cubes because of lack of water supply. The location of the RO tank will affect the water pressure / supply to fridge also. If it is located in basement this is a common problem and be resolved with a delivery pump or larger tank.
RJ
 

Greeny56

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Water in the tub is now running clear. I suspect that the brown sandish residue was sediment left in the line to the tub that was was washed out once the softner was installed. As to the ice maker, I had previously removed the fridge filter so that it was not running a redundant filter. My ice maker requires 30-120 psi of water pressure and the RO supplies 35-120 psi of pressure so I think that is not a problem. I also turned down the cool level so as to freeze the ice quicker and once we backed off taking ice too often, the ice maker started to fill. I still have not solved the pulsating water and noise I get when using the ice water paddle. My wife swears she hears the pulsating noise coming from the basement which is most likely the RO system. Thanks to all who responded with answers.
 

Greeny56

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Well, finally got to the last thing on my agenda of the newly installed Water Softner/RO System problems. Turned off the cold water to the inlet hose for the washer, disconnected it and put it into the washtub and then turned it back on. Got all the cold water I wanted. At that point, my brother cleaned out the screen which was clogged thick with brownish scum. Hooked it back up and washer worked like it was supposed to. Softner rep came out to check on the system and I asked about the pulsating of the RO when getting water from the fridge. He stated that is the way the system operates. Guess we will learn to live with it.
 

Greeny56

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Well, finally got to the last thing on my agenda of the newly installed Water Softner/RO System problems. Turned off the cold water to the inlet hose for the washer, disconnected it and put it into the washtub and then turned it back on. Got all the cold water I wanted. At that point, my brother cleaned out the screen which was clogged thick with brownish scum. Hooked it back up and washer worked like it was supposed to. Softner rep came out to check on the system and I asked about the pulsating of the RO when getting water from the fridge. He stated that is the way the system operates. Guess we will learn to live with it.

Well, here I am back again. Since my brother and I cleaned out the screens in the washer, I attempted to run a load of laundry and once again the water pressure dropped to a trickle. My brother came over and the screen was once again clogged with sandy residue. My brother says that this is resin. We cleaned it, put the hoses back on and ran a cycle and once again the screen was clogged thick. We captured the residue on a rag so I can show it to my installer (name omitted) who will be out this coming week to look at it. The company advised me to put the system on by-pass until then. This brings me to my next question. My valve system has two valves on the top with one on the inlet side and the other on the outlet side. On each valve is an arrow showing direction of flow. On the inlet from the meter (city water) the arrow is going in the direction back toward the water meter, not toward the resin tank. On the outlet side, the arrow is in the direction of the resin tank, not out to the direction of the pipes running through the house. Can I assume the valve was installed in reverse since it seems we are getting this resin residue?
 

LLigetfa

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I'm not familiar with that brand but by your description it does sound like it's plumbed in backwards.

As for the RO pulsating, it could be that there is too much air precharge in the tank and so the tank is not buffering the pump. How much water can you draw off before the pump kicks in? The tank might not be storing enough.
 

Greeny56

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Well, the company sent out the person (whose name is Mark) who installed the softener system, and as we were looking over the system, I brought it to his attention that the arrows seemed to be going the wrong way on the valve. He looked and said, "Yeah, it's backwards". I said, "well, way to go Mark and patted him on the back. He laughed and said "well, I ain't perfect". We struck a deal that when he comes back out in 70 days to check the system, he will bring me free salt and filters to make up for my inconvenience. He also gave me his personal cell number in the event I have questions.
 

Tom Sawyer

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Is Mark a plumber? cause plumbers can usually read the arrows LOL Make sure you flush the resin out well. The stuff will get everywhere including the toilet ballcocks, dishwasher lines, Ice Maker Lines etc.
 

Chevy427

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He is going to make you wait 70 days?! The pulsating is caused by the pre-filter in the RO being clogged. That, at least, should be changed immediately. The powerline is probably either a Fleck 2510 or a 5300. Some dealers use a Clack version.
 

Greeny56

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Well, I just purchased a new Kenmore Fridge and hooked up the water connection, and I can get water out of the front but I am not getting any water into the ice maker. I know it says you need between 40-120 psi of pressure and I don't know what the pressure is once a Softener system with a RO is installed. I also don't know if the pre-filter at the RO system which supplies the water to the fridge might be causing my problem. The wife is ready to chop off my head since all the problems we have had with everything now.
 

LLigetfa

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If you have a filter between the RO and the icemaker, remove it, it's not needed and may add to the drop in pressure. I think you would be hard pressed to find anywhere near 40 PSI on the outlet side of the RO. Does the RO have a booster pump?
 

Greeny56

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Well, I just purchased a new Kenmore Fridge and hooked up the water connection, and I can get water out of the front but I am not getting any water into the ice maker. I know it says you need between 40-120 psi of pressure and I don't know what the pressure is once a Softener system with a RO is installed. I also don't know if the pre-filter at the RO system which supplies the water to the fridge might be causing my problem. The wife is ready to chop off my head since all the problems we have had with everything now.

Well, the fridge did make ice cubes and either Kenmore has really missed the boat by only allowing the ice maker to make small cubes or the RO is not getting enough water into the ice cube molds. My wife is resorting to using ice trays to get the ice cubes she likes. Never, ever, go buy a fridge without taking your wife. I will never hear the end of things about the fridge. :)
 

Baill

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K5 Pulsing

Hey Greeny, I may have a solution for you for your ice cube problems. The problem is with the K5 units itself, not that it is a faulty unit, just a part of how they opporate. How the K5 works is that instead of using an air charged tank for the reservoir it uses a water on water tank. This tank in essence fills a bladder in the centre with RO water ready to be used and pumps pre-filtered water from the supply line in around the bladder to squeeze it out. as a result if you have 60psi for the home, you have around 60psi for the RO. What can happen is that if it is a long run to the faucet or if it is going down to a 1/4" line, the high pressure output can cause pulsing. Because of this pulsing your ice maker may not be operating properly. All that needs to be done is you need to call your Kinetico dealer and ask to them to get a K5 flow suppressor valve (part# 14585) to be installed on the line from the k5 unit to the outer bladder of the WoW tank. This valve can be fine tuned to eliminate or at least drastically reduce the pulsing, which should fix your ice maker issues.
 

Greeny56

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Thanks for the info Baill. They are coming back to give my system the 90 day checkup and before they head out for my house, I will call and request that the flow suppressor valve be put on the truck for them to install.
 

Greeny56

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Well, they came back for the 90 day follow-up. I reminded Mark (the technician who installed my system) that he had promised me some free salt as well as filters for installing my system backwards. True to his word, he gave me 2 bags of salt and the replacement filter for my tank system. I then purchased 3 more bags of salt and the replacement filters for the RO system. He gave me 15% off the filters and the salt. He then went and installed the 5 bags of salt for me and said that should hold me for a while being there is only 2 people in the house.
 

Rjh2o

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He,s not doing you any favors. He should have pulled the head off the softener too see how much resin was lost and rebedded or add resin to bring system back to full capacity. You also have resin in the water heater now and is almost impossible to get out by flushing. Make sure you check the screen on hot water to washer. You may need an in-line filter on the HOT water line after the water heater to keep resin out of dishwasher, shower heads, etc.
The Kinetico powerline is usually a clack valve now. In the past it was the fleck line of valves.
RJ
 
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