New House: It came with a water softener

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Jason Kay

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Hi. I just moved into a new home and it has a water softener. I have no idea how to use it, but it appears the valves aren't positioned correctly for the softener to actually be working. See pics below. The pipe on the left is the water line into the house. It looks like the valve coming out from the softener is closed. Shouldn't the bypass valve be closed, while the other 2 are open (the 2 yellow valves should be open, the black valve should be closed)? If this is the case, should I just adjust the valves? Is there anything else I should be doing? Thanks.
 

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Bannerman

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1) Your unit is currently by-passed. The two yellow handle valves connected to the softener need to be open while the Black handle valve on the left will need to be closed for water to flow through the softener.

2) The brine tank will need to contain a supply of salt.

If the softener has been by-passed for some time, it may be wise to discard any remaining salt, dump any brine water to drain, and clean the brine tank using a small amount of bleach (non scented) in water.

Once the brine tank is clean, add two or three gallons of water with a small amount (~ 3 tablespoons) of bleach and then perform a manual regeneration to sanitize the resin within the softener.

Once the resin has been sanitized, add a few bags of water softener salt to the brine tank along with 5 gallons of water. Wait for at least 2.5 hours to permit salt to be dissolved into a brine solution and then perform another manual regeneration to recharge the softening capacity of the resin.

After the regeneration has completed, (likely 1-2 hours), the unit should be putting out soft water to your plumbing fixtures but if you have a tank type water heater, it may take a few days of use before the stored water has been replaced with soft water.

Regarding programming, you may wish to post some photos of the current control settings while also stating your water's hardness level, iron and manganese content, number of people in the house and the softener's BLFC number. This stands for Brine Line Flow Control which should be printed on a label, usually located close to the drain connection. If you know the softening capacity of the softener, that would also be useful.

Edited to correct > Manganese and > BLFC
 
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Bannerman

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Thanks Gary.
It started in my mind as manganese but by the time my fingers were in action, it came out as magnesium. Corrected in the post above.
 

Jason Kay

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Thank you for your reply. Attached are 2 photos of the current settings and brine tank. I haven't changed a thing since I moved in. I don't quite understand your directions on what do do.

Thanks again.
 

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Bannerman

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Often when ownership of a property with a well is transferred, the purchaser will require a current water analysis as a condition of purchase. Even if not requested, if the seller recently had the water tested, the report will usually be provided to the new owner.

An analysis report will indicate contaminants and minerals within the water as that information is required for selecting any appropriate treatment method, if treatment is required.

If your water source is a municipal or a community supply, a water report should be available from the system operator, often on-line.

As your house is equipped with a softener, the water will at least contain calcium and magnesium as that is the source of hardness. To program the softener, the amount of hardness will need to be known along any iron and manganese and the average amount of water utilized which is often estimated by the number of residents.

The salt setting adjustment will be on the backside of your Fleck 5600 Econominder softener control valve so we will need to know that info. Were you able to locate a BLFC label?

I was surprised to see so much salt in the brine tank. I had expected very little salt since some residents will bypass a softener instead of buying salt.

The salt appears that it may have hardened. Any that is loose and dry might be saved in a clean bucket or wheelbarrow, for reuse after the brine tank has been cleaned and sanitised. Salt that has hardened or is wet should be discarded as you don't know how long it has been there and the water may have stagnated.

What procedures are you having trouble in understanding?
 
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