Newly Installed Water Softner/RO

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Greeny56

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My system has worked great for the year it has been installed, but the one thing both the wife and I notice is that our toilets still seem to get a brown ring around the toilet. Not just one toilet, but all of them. I asked the tech (when he was here to drop off my free filters and salt that was owed to me due to their botched installation) and he stated to just put in the blue clorox tabs and that will take care of it. Wrong answer. Did not work. Anybody have any solutions?
 

LLigetfa

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A brown ring at the water line generally means clear-water iron. The air at the surface turns the iron to rust.
 

ditttohead

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Bleach in the toilet when there is iron in the water will actually make the problem slightly worse. Test for iron. Test it before and after the softener. If you have iron in very small amounts, the softener can be adjusted for it and salt with iron out, or semi regular cleaning may be a solution, or you can add an iron removal system before the softener if your iron exceeds a couple PPM. I prefer to remove the iron prior to the softener instead of using the softener for this purpose, but a softener does a fairly good job of removing iron if it set correctly and you use regular cleaning methods. The Clack Drip system works very well too.

Not scientific, but effective, use lime a way and see if the ring is easily cleaned off the procelain, this can be a fairly good indicator of iron. If it is iron, bleach will do nothing other than further solidify the stain.
 

bill marsh

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There is a selonid on the refrig. that needs x amount of pressure to open so ice cubes can form. You should have been told that by the Knetico rep. Not sure if removing the refrig. filter will help but worth a try. A pump can be added after the RO storage tank to add more pressure. Should be about $100. You also should get a sediment filter if you find it in the washing machine screen.
 

Greeny56

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Been a while since I have been on here so I will just update everyone to how things are going with this softener system. I am still getting the red ring around my toilets and yesterday I delivered samples of my cold and hot water to the installers. They called me today and told me that my cold water sample is clear but my hot water sample shows hardness and iron traces. My question is this. If my water is running through the softener tank before it goes through the hot water heater how can it show traces of hardness and iron, but my cold water not show it. Am I missing something? Once again I brought up the snafu of the installer putting the system lines in backwards during the initial install and getting resin through my lines so that we were getting resin in our bath water and clogging up my washer filter. They stated that when the installer returned he checked the complete system to include the resin tank. Wrong answer. I was down there the whole time he redid the lines and he never took the top off the resin tank to check it. Tech is coming out Monday and we will be going round and round about this lie the installer told. I want the whole system gone through and I should not expect a bill for this.
 
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ditttohead

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Hard water and iron in the hot water tank but not the cold water lines is a good indicator of a system capacity problem. The hot water tank will "tattle" if the softener runs out of capacity, it acts like a dilution tank and takes a little while to become fully soft again. The cold water will be exactly what the softener is at the moment.

If the system was installed backwards, the valve must be removed and the media inspected for loss, especially if you got any resin in the house lines. Removing the head takes a few minutes and is not a difficult item that should be debated or argued, they should simply do it.

Good luck.
 

Greeny56

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Hard water and iron in the hot water tank but not the cold water lines is a good indicator of a system capacity problem. The hot water tank will "tattle" if the softener runs out of capacity, it acts like a dilution tank and takes a little while to become fully soft again. The cold water will be exactly what the softener is at the moment.

If the system was installed backwards, the valve must be removed and the media inspected for loss, especially if you got any resin in the house lines. Removing the head takes a few minutes and is not a difficult item that should be debated or argued, they should simply do it.

Good luck.

Well, the company called today and the tech being sent out is the same idiot that installed it backwards and then told the company that after he reinstalled it correctly he checked it out completely and it was good to go. I am going to light a fire under his a** when he gets here.
 

ditttohead

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What color is the tank? The "natural" color tanks, you can see into them without removing the head. That is the only thing i like about the natural tanks, otherwise, they are the ugliest tanks we have.

Keep us posted, and when he removes the head, give us an accurate measurement.

In theory, the media should be 2/3 up the tank with 1/3 empty.
 

Greeny56

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What color is the tank? The "natural" color tanks, you can see into them without removing the head. That is the only thing i like about the natural tanks, otherwise, they are the ugliest tanks we have.

Keep us posted, and when he removes the head, give us an accurate measurement.

In theory, the media should be 2/3 up the tank with 1/3 empty.

Tank is black in color. It is tagged as a Powerline PS 1054x M.
 
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Greeny56

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Tech showed up and retested the water and got the same results as previous test from last Wednesday. He removed resin tank cap and I have at least 2/3 if not a little less of media. He cleaned everything up and then reprogrammed the system to give me more capacity. Will recheck the water in about 3 weeks to see if there is any change. My wife is asking me all kinds of questions about if the resin leak we had after the initial install could cause you to have skin problems like rosacea. I have no idea but told her to contact a dermatologist.
 

ditttohead

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I highly doubt that any skin problem would be caused by the resin. The system should have been properly regenerated and rinsed prior to putting it online to the house of course. The resin can have considerable "stuff" on it from the manufacturing process that is quickly rinsed away with a simple regeneration.

Glad to hear that the resin loss wasnt too bad.
 

Greeny56

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Anybody know of online web sites for purchasing Kinetico K5 RO filters? I want to check the prices against my installer prices. I watched him do the filter change and figured next time, it will be my turn instead of paying $75.00.
 

Gary Slusser

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Another reason for hard water and iron in it in a tank type water heater is a broken glass lining allowing water to dissolve (rust) the surface or the exposed mild steel the tank is made of adding iron to the water and... hard water scale that was deposited before a water softener was installed being dissolved by the now softened water making it hard. Or there could be galvanized nipples in the inlet/outlet or drain fitting of the heater.

Most of Kinetico equipment is proprietary and only sold by their dealers... for whatever amount they want to charge.
 

Greeny56

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Another reason for hard water and iron in it in a tank type water heater is a broken glass lining allowing water to dissolve (rust) the surface or the exposed mild steel the tank is made of adding iron to the water and... hard water scale that was deposited before a water softener was installed being dissolved by the now softened water making it hard. Or there could be galvanized nipples in the inlet/outlet or drain fitting of the heater.

Most of Kinetico equipment is proprietary and only sold by their dealers... for whatever amount they want to charge.

Gary, I totally agree with all the points you have made about the hot water heater and the iron deposts but that doesn't enter into play with this house. This house was a contractors starter house and wasn't connected up to city water until I had purchased the house in 2010. I had my softener system installed in 2011 and just changed out all my filters this last week.
 

Gary Slusser

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Not true.... I see where you bought the house in 2010, the equipment was installed about Sept 2011 and in Apr 2012 you say it was installed backwards.

Backwards doesn't allow all the hardness to be removed as correct installation does. And you are still having problems 18 months later. Counting up all that time since 2010 you would have hard water scale in the water heater and some iron from the raw water or galvanized nipples or a spot or more of broken glass lining showing up about now. It does not take any type water heater very long to scale up quite a bit when hard water is run through them.

It's either that or the equipment is not working correctly.

Cartridge filters don't remove hardness or ferrous (clear water) iron.
 
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