Fleck water softener issue

[Macki]

I bought a Fleck 7000 sxt, On Demand, 48,000 or 64,000 grain (not sure how to tell after the fact) water softener to manage my hard water, classified as "very hard" using a litmus type water test. As I recall it was 40 grain per gallon hardness. I installed it about 5 years ago. This is on my own well. When it was first installed my water was very soft, a very noticeable difference. Over time the softness dissipated and it became hard again. The softener was cycling but didn't use much salt. I spoke with the seller (discountwatersoftenera.com) and they were of no help. Local water softener people only wanted to sell me a new unit, and it seemed they were not horribly knowledgable on the actual process or troubleshooting. Theyonly suggested dumping water in the brine tank thinking it was a salt dam. This succeeded in making the softeners function, however, but did make the water salty, and after a short amount of time it was hard again.
I found this site and after reading many posts on the subject determined that my softener, in the default settings, was not making enough brine. The brine cycle was 16 minutes. I found that my orifice is smaller than average, BLFC - 0.125, and it appears that they average 0.25. It also has an 00 injector, though I am unsure if this plays into my issues.
I reset the time for making brine to 40 minutes which gives me 5 gallons of brine. I ran a cycle, and repeated it that evening. The water is different, but not really soft, and it is noticeably salty, leading me to believe that it is not rinsing the media.
I believe the the media has been logged with minerals at this point, but am certainly not an expert, and am not sure it it is salvageable.
Other settings;

DF
Backwash 10
Brine draw 60
2nd backwash 5
Rapid rinse 10
Refill 12 (now 40)

Thank you,

 

[Reach4]

48,000 or 64,000 grain (not sure how to tell after the fact)

What is the size and diameter of the tank? That should correspond to the amount of resin.

For now, try increasing the Bd to 90 minutes or even more. That cycle is both a brine draw (until the brine has been sucked out) and slow rinse (the remainder of the time). Maybe time how long it takes during that cycle to suck out the brine.

There is a process of rebuilding a controller. Maybe you should go through that, or maybe do it while cleaning but not replacing parts. I would use a little silicone plumber's grease on the O-rings.

Do you have rust colored residue in the toilet tanks or other indications of iron?

You should get a good water test on your raw water.

I am not a pro.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Macki]

Okay, switched the BD to 90 and will time, it is cycling right now. When I changed the brine fill setting, to 40 minutes, I recall it took about 30 to drain the 5 gallons of brine.
The tank is a 10 x 54, so with my brief net search, that makes it a 48,000 grain system.
Our water had been tested before I installed it and there is very little iron. No brown water at all. I don't think the valve needs to be rebuilt, I think it has just been running on the default settings which would only make 1.5 gallons of brine. Just need to figure out what settings need to be changed, what they need to be changed to, and whether or not I need to replace my resin.

 

[Reach4]

Here is my take on it with your 40 grain of hardness number without further compensation for iron. You did not comment on iron. If you have significant iron, an iron backwashing filter should be used before the softener. You still should get a water test. The well check from NTL Labs is good, but not cheap http://www.ntllabs.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=NTL&Category_Code=Homeowner. That will tell you hardness, iron, and much more.

 

[Macki]

Okay, it is making brine using it in 30-40 minutes and the 90 minute brine draw has cut the salt taste down. The water is still not horribly soft though. Do I need to replace the media? If so, what should I buy, and how much?
I will mail off a water sample in a week for a test and see what that says (waiting for a sample vial).

 

[Bannerman]

Most BD cycles will empty the brine tank in 15 minutes with the remainder of the 60 minute BD cycle being a slow rinse. As your injector is smaller than usual, the brine tank could be taking 30 minutes to empty so I can understand salty water as the remaining slow rinse cycle was not long enough to completely rinse out the brine.

The time to empty the brine tank should be 1/4 of the total BD time. If your brine tank is actually taking 30 minutes to empty, then your BD setting needs to be set to 120 minutes.

The settings R4 outlined above, are for 4 gallons of water to dissolve 12 lbs/salt (8lbs/salt/cu/ft) which will regenerate 36,000 grains of usable capacity with your 1.5 cu/ft unit.

As your softener's total capacity (48K) had been exhausted, the usual procedure to restore capacity is to perform 2 regenerations back to back using 15 lbs/salt/cu/ft. As you had already performed one regen although the BD setting was not long enough, it will probably be OK to perform one at 15 lbs/cu/ft and the second at 8 lbs/cu/ft as is now programmed.

Manually add 3.5 - 4 gallons of water to the 4 gallons already in the brine tank, wait 2.5-3 hours for the additional salt to dissolve, then initiate a manual regeneration. After that regeneration has completed, wait 2.5 hrs to initiate the second regen right before going to bed.

Edited to add: If you do have iron in your water, add a strong solution of Iron-Out (or similar) to the 1st regen brine solution so as to clean off iron deposits from the resin.

 

[Reach4]

Do I need to replace the media? If so, what should I buy, and how much?

1.5 cuft.

Any indications of IRON????? That could affect things.


I guess standard 8% resin would be the usual choice. Purolite C100E is the benchmark that many claim to be equivalent to and is going to be much better than resin from China. Purolite SST is a premium resin. Most don't find the extra cost to be worthwhile.

 

[ditttohead]

Get a Hach 5B test kit. We must have an accurate hardness test done before anything else can be done, otherwise we are just guessing wildly.

Also, a real water test as suggested above would be a very good start.

Programming it is quite simple with the correct information. Without a hardness, iron, manganese etc. test, not much that can be done.

 

[Macki]

A real water test was in hand at the time of purchase to determine hardness, iron, etc. there is NO appreciable amounts of iron in my water. The hardness was accurate at the time of installation. A new test will be performed, but it takes time.

 

[ditttohead]

water changes. A local well feeding a dairy has regular variances in water hardness ranging from 40 gpg to over 120 gpg. If you are going to DIY, a good test kit is a must. Also, since you are basically your own water municipality, regular testing of your well is very important.

 

[Reach4]

Note that with your Hach 5B water test, you should mix your raw water with distilled water 1:1. Then test that mix. Then double the result. So 20 drops would be 4o grains of hardness in the raw water. It is in the instructions, but not everybody catches that. Click Inbox above.