Jerked around? Water Softener

[jessb_55]

So I had a company out today to clean my air ducts as I have been finding black stuff coming out of our vents. Well the company also does plumbing work and the guy from the company informed me today that he checked my water softener and said it isn't regenerating.

Now I put in a new Fleck 5600 system a few years ago and believe I have it set up right and have asked plumbers in the past if they thought so as well and they didn't say anything bad.

Anyway, the guy today said that he could tell my unit isn't regenerating as the water line is above the salt. The brine tank is probably a 1/4 full of salt and the water about an inch above that.

Question is...this guy filling me with crap? Or how do I know if it's regenerating or not?

 

[ditttohead]

Get a Hach 5B test kit. You can put the system into a manual regen and watch it, the water level should drop, then refill... simple to do but is the system using salt? Is the water soft? The 5600 is fairly bullet proof, they typically last for decades with very little service.

 

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[jessb_55]

Get a Hach 5B test kit. You can put the system into a manual regen and watch it, the water level should drop, then refill... simple to do but is the system using salt? Is the water soft? The 5600 is fairly bullet proof, they typically last for decades with very little service.

Hi dittohead yes the system is using salt but I guess that brings up the question as to how much salt should it be using over what time frame. Overall though then is this guy giving me crap about the water level being over the salt? Does that just mean I need to add salt? After a regen how much water should be filled back into the brine tank?

Thanks!!

 

[Reach4]

Hi dittohead yes the system is using salt but I guess that brings up the question as to how much salt should it be using over what time frame. Overall though then is this guy giving me crap about the water level being over the salt? Does that just mean I need to add salt? After a regen how much water should be filled back into the brine tank?

Thanks!!

How hard is your water? What size is your resin tank? What level is your iron and/or manganese ( much red or black stains in toilet tanks?)? Those numbers determine how much water should be used each regeneration.

I like to tilt my salt fill so that there is salt above the water but some water is still visible. It sounds like maybe your water level is about 11 to 12 inches from the floor in a blue rectangular 15x17x34 brine tank. Or is it?

Any idea how often you add a 40 pound bag of salt to the brine tank?

Get the test kit that Ditttohead suggested.

 

[jessb_55]

Okay I'll pick up a kit but when i had the Culligan man out and he tested the water and told us we were at about 17 g hardness. Another thing is maybe I don't even have the thing programmed right as the instructions I find always confuse me.

My unit is a a 32,000 grain unit with a 14x34 square brine tank. Yes I would have said my water was about a foot from the bottom and probably almost two inches over the salt. I really have no idea how often I'm adding a 40/50 lb bag of salt...maybe one every two months? It's only two of us in the house with one shower.

We do get red residue in the shower at times but often in things like our humidifier. Yes some black and pink/red in the toilet every so weeks too I'd say. However we never get true rusting on anything so I thought that meant that maybe our iron levels aren't all that bad but it sounds like I'm wrong eh....

 

[Reach4]

A "32,000 grain" unit is 1 cubic ft of resin. How much water should be injected could be as high as 5 gallons corresponding to 15 pounds of salt for each regen, but that is less salt efficient than 6 pound (20000 grains) or 8 pounds (24,000 grains) of salt usually. With 2 people, 17 grains and let's guess 1 ppm of iron, you would use about 20160 grains of capacity per week.

A cubic ft of water is 7.48 gallons. The part of the space which is both salt and water would be probably half or less water. You could try some calculations. You could also pull the water out down to where it normally drains, and measure how much water that came to. Then put it back.

I don't know how to program your unit. You can find a manual on line: http://waterpurification.pentair.com/en-US/product/fleck/ Bottom line is that if your water is soft enough, your system is working. Even if that is the case, you might be able to save salt with a different setting.

Do what Ditttohead suggested.

 

[ditttohead]

Maybe I missed it but are you on a chlorinated municipal supply or a private well?