No soft water / no salt usage with Kenmore 300

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Ted Jackson

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Hi,

I've been troubleshooting a softener issue for months now, and it's driving me insane. Here's my info and what I've done:

Model: Kenmore 300 (625.393060) from 2008 ( 7 years old)
Water hardness: Approx 500ppm (measured two ways, titration and electronic tester)
Water source: Well water, very hard and with somewhat high iron
Current hardness setting: 30

History:
We're unsure if the softener has ever worked properly. We don't recall ever having soft water. Even back when we bought the house, we never noticed it consuming salt. Softener was not cleaned with the softener cleaner (until recently). Up until I bought hardness testing kits it's been "subjective" so I'm throwing out all the subjective comments on how the water feels and going with the test kit now.
The hardness setting was set way too low for years up until a few weeks ago (It was set to 7 instead of the 30 I have it at now based on the 500ppm/17~=30gr/ga math)

Troubleshooting steps:
Cleaned venturi and brine valve, including the small mesh filter on the brine valve
Taken entire unit apart, removed all salt, cleaned tank, and put back together
4 regenerations with softener cleaner in past week
Replaced seals and complete o-ring kit

Current observations:
-Regen cycle appears perfect.
A: Brine tank fills about 18 inches higher
B: Brine tank drops down to just about an 2 inches from the bottom.
So this tells me that the brine valve and venturi should all be fine..Right?

- Salt does not appear to be consumed. I have done in excess of 12 manual regenerations in the past week and from what I've read I should be consuming several pounds of salt every regeneration - however I am not seeing the salt level go down. I started with fresh salt about a week ago and I have stirred it up a bit before each regeneration as well. It's not bridged or stuck at all and if I stick a poker into the brine tank I can feel around on the bottom of the brine well. All of this, despite the fact that the brine tank DOES fill up and drain about 18 inches of water every regeneration.

- We never have any salt water, even immediately after regeneration.

- I have visually inspected the rotor and disc and... quite frankly they appear picture perfect to me. So were the seals (which I replaced) and the old seals looked identical to the new ones. Same story on the venturi - picture perfect.


So, where am I looking now?

Is it possible something is amiss in the resin tank? Could my resin be rendered useless by years of really hard, high iron water and infrequent regenerations? (Even though it's only 7 years old?) If so, is there a way to tell if I take it apart or do I have to replace it on a whim? Quite frankly, the resin seems fairly expensive and if I replace it and it doesn't fix the issue.... then I've wasted a lot of money that could go toward a better brand softener.

The most perplexing part to me is that it's not consuming much if any salt. Why would it not consume salt, even if the resin was bad, the brine should still be pumped out and substantial amount of salt should still be used, correct?

What else could I look at or do?
 

ditttohead

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Iron, no salt usage, 7 years..... replace the unit. Personally, I wouldn't waste time on it. Get a good updated water test done to see what treatment you need. I hate to say it this way, but that system is not a good match for your application. Most on this site consider that unit a disposable system, all except for one person who thinks they are ok...

Stay away from Big Box store, lowest bidder wins equipment.
 

Mialynette2003

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Stick a tube or something to get a sample of water from inside the brine well. Taste the water. It should be extremely salty. If not, I believe the salt has built up to the point that the water will not flow into the salt. It only stays in the brine welll. Another thing to look at is the water level in the brine well up to the float assembly? Can the float assembly be pulled out of the brine well? These are all indications that a brine tank cleanout is needed.
 

Ted Jackson

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mialynette, the water is very, very salty. The water is up to the bottom of the float assembly, and yes the float assembly can be pulled out.

I have done some additional tests:

I bought fresh (evaporated, non-pellet) salt, and put 10lbs of it into a clean plastic bin. I put some water in there as well and let it sit for about 24 hours. Then I removed the float assembly from the brine tank and placed it into the plastic bin and ran a regeneration - that worked fine and a vast majority of that salt was properly consumed (at least 8lb). However, we still did NOT have soft water and saw no improvement in the TDS readings at all.

After that, I took the resin chamber apart, and I removed some resin to inspect it. The resin appears to look good to me. No discoloration or any issues. The resin beads are smaller than I expected but they look normal compared to the photos I have seen online. I have taken a picture of some of the resin I removed - please let me know if that looks like "good" resin or not. The picture is attached to the post.

Any other things I can try?
 

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Reach4

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A TDS meter will not help to measure softening effectiveness. Softening replaces ions, rather than getting rid of them. Get a Hach 5-B test to measure hardness.

You can compare hardness by shaking up a drop or more of liquid soap into water being tested in a jar with a lid. No more than half full. More suds with less soap means softer.
 

Noyzee1

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Ted,
Warning- do NOT use a TDS meter (just in case you're doing this). Use either some cheap pool test strips from the hardware store or get the proper test kit from a dealer (will cost $$). Personally, I use an aquarium test kit I found used for cheap which uses the reagent drops and it works great, along with the pool test strips for a rough reading.
You need an actual HARDNESS measurement, not a TDS measurement. Soft water will still have a high TDS measurement even though the water is really soft because you're not removing solids from the water by softening, you're trading a calcium/magnesium hardness ion for a sodium ion. If you live close to a Sears, I'm told they'll test your water for free and tell you the actual hardness...
I would also put the unit into the BRINING cycle and then taste the water coming out to the drain after about 1/2 hour. If it's salty, then it's pulling salt from the storage tank.
I'm not a pro, but in my opinion unless your water is very chlorinated, the resin should be fine. My Kenmore is about the same age and works fine in SoAz with somewhat chlorinated water and about 15 grains of hardness, which varies.
Once I fixed my Kenmore unit, it took several days for all the hard water to purge from the hot water tank where I could notice the difference in the shower. A good test should reflect this.
Cheers,
JIM
 

Ted Jackson

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Guys,

I have been using a TDS meter primarily (I bought it when I got serious about troubleshooting this thing because I didn't want to be subjective about it). I didn't realize that was inaccurate.

I just used my pool test strips on it (thanks Noyzee) and those show a clear, marked difference between my inside and outside water. It appears I do in fact have soft water at least to some degree.

Thank you so much for your replies. I will buy a Hach 5-B test (thanks Reach4) so that I can measure objectively in the future. I may also stop by Sears tomorrow there is one not too far from work.

Thanks again,
 

Noyzee1

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Ted,
Sounds great!
You may also want to check the distributor tube which connects the valve body inside the resin tank. If the O-ring slips off or is damaged, it will cause the brine to bypass the resin inside the resin tank and give you hard water output. Plus, it's hard to detect. Get some silicone grease (if you don't already have it) and check and lube that O-ring to pipe to valve body connection- just for the heck of it.
Let us all know what you've found.
Your pool test strips should give you a rough idea (check cold water after a recharge, but hot water in a few days) if you've made any headway on the repairs. Fine tweaking (to the control unit's settings) can be made using the Hach kit- for better economy.
Cheers,
JIM
 
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