Ready to get a new softener

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SemiHandyRon

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My 7-year-old Culligan no longer softens the water, so I'm going to scrap and replace it. I'm not dealing with Culligan again because of the way they overcharged me on a repair.

Having done my "due diligence" of softener sizing (profound thanks to Gary Slusser!), I'm thinking of replacing it with a Prosoft CS1 EE Metered Smart Memory Model CS1-40K from Quality Water Treatment, doing a self-install. Anyone have any pushback on this plan?

Perhaps an alternative would be to modify my current setup (see photo) with new resin and a new control valve. Is that a better idea?
 

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LLigetfa

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IMHO 7 years is a short life and I think it prudent to do a forensic analysis on what killed it. Unless you deal with that, the new one could suffer the same fate. I had my softener rebedded after 12 years and what killed mine was probably iron. I had my iron filter rebedded at the same time but will have to rethink how I treat the water.
 

SemiHandyRon

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Hmmm...maybe what killed my w/s is what killed my w/h, which died at age 6 years, 1 month spewing rust. (That's a new Rheem w/h sitting next to the w/s.) Checking with the city water department, our water contains no iron and no manganese. Any thoughts on what forensic steps to take? Hardness here is 8 to 10 grains.
 

LLigetfa

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Not sure what steps to take as I am a consumer, not a water treatment expert but there are several experts here that may be able to answer that. By comparison, my State gas water heater lasted 11 years. I am on well water.
 

LLigetfa

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Checking with the city water department...
How are you dealing with the clorine? My understanding is that while there are softener beads that may be clorine resistant, none are clorine proof. How good is your pressure and flow rate? I think both are a benefit to a good bed shake-up and thorough regen. Since I have an iron filter that uses a micronizer, my pressure and flow rate are less than ideal. I will periodically override the pressure switch, taking it up to 80 PSI to shake-up the bed during a backwash when I start to notice diminished capacity.
 
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Akpsdvan

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Sounds like the city ran some thing through the water line and your place was hit by what was clearing out of the city water lines.
Normally the city lets people know that they are going to do line cleaning, when that happens if the softener is put in bypass that will save the resin from getting all that junk that might come in.
If you only know of a month, then maybe a large big blue filter before the softener that only gets the filter in the time frame that the city is doing the cleaning.

I am not sure if the Culligan tank could take another control valve..
 

Gary Slusser

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My 7-year-old Culligan no longer softens the water, so I'm going to scrap and replace it. I'm not dealing with Culligan again because of the way they overcharged me on a repair.

Having done my "due diligence" of softener sizing (profound thanks to Gary Slusser!), I'm thinking of replacing it with a Prosoft CS1 EE Metered Smart Memory Model CS1-40K from Quality Water Treatment, doing a self-install. Anyone have any pushback on this plan?
BEWARE... that model is not using a Clack WS-1 EE control valve although the site makes it sound as if it is.

They actually copied/pasted Clack's text from their web site into their web site, along with the Clack warranty info but... You do not get to work with any control valve manufacturer for warranty; it goes dealer, his supplier and THEN the supplier only goes to the manufacturer IF the supplier can't identify the problem or IF it is a warranty problem or not. Fleck is in Brookfield WI. Clack is in Windsor WI. The supplier is a contracted distributor of the manufacturer.

The pictured control valve on the model you mention is of a Fleck 6700 control valve and the by pass is a SS Fleck used on the 5600, 6600 and 6700 control valves.

Clack's water treatment/control valve page.
http://www.clackcorp.com/water.htm

From Quality Water Treatment's prosoft control valve page...
http://www.qualitywatertreatment.com/water_softeners_prosoft_cs1.htm

Pictures of the Fleck 6700 softeners called the proflo CS-1 EE.
http://www.qualitywatertreatment.com/water_softeners_prosoft_cs1.htm#40

Warranty...
http://www.qualitywatertreatment.com/warranty_clack.htm
 

SemiHandyRon

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How are you dealing with the clorine? My understanding is that while there are softener beads that may be clorine resistant, none are clorine proof. How good is your pressure and flow rate? I think both are a benefit to a good bed shake-up and thorough regen. Since I have an iron filter that uses a micronizer, my pressure and flow rate are less than ideal. I will periodically override the pressure switch, taking it up to 80 PSI to shake-up the bed during a backwash when I start to notice diminished capacity.

Chlorine is only 1.2 ppm here per the city water official report. My own tests read less than that. But in any case, I have had a big blue filter for the life of the unit except the past six months. The wife kept complaining about the result of no chlorine: greater prevalance of "that pink bacteria" that necessitates more frequent cleaning of toilet bowls, etc. City water pressure is good: at least 50 psi. The only problem I ever noticed with the pressure dropping too low I traced to a defective big blue filter: for some reason a lot of the granulated carbon got outside the filter. Once I took out the defective filter, the pressure went back to normal.
 

SemiHandyRon

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Sounds like the city ran some thing through the water line and your place was hit by what was clearing out of the city water lines.
Normally the city lets people know that they are going to do line cleaning, when that happens if the softener is put in bypass that will save the resin from getting all that junk that might come in.
If you only know of a month, then maybe a large big blue filter before the softener that only gets the filter in the time frame that the city is doing the cleaning.

I am not sure if the Culligan tank could take another control valve..

Wow...cannot confirm or deny anything the city might have done. On the big blue, see previous post. Thanks for the reply; you've given me something to think about!
 

SemiHandyRon

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50 PSI static or at what GPM? With the GPM required for the backwash, do you still see 50 PSI after Big Blue during the backwash? Where is the pressure guage?

<red face> Well...I don't have a pressure gauge. I have a Watts Pressure Regulator model N35B that came preset at 50 PSI, which I have cranked up to its limit of 75 PSI. Thus my conclusions about adequate pressure is subjective: it "seems" fine no mater what we're doing. I wondered if the backwash wasn't sufficient, so recently I ran three regeneration cycles in back-to-back succession. No change: still no softening.
 

Akpsdvan

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Was brine removed from the brine tank?
Was salt used?

There are a few reasons why no soft water, bypass not right, a seal in the seal pack assembly out of position and letting untreated cross into the treated side, and the distributor tube out of the valve body and there letting water cross.
The later most likely will have some resin either in the drain or into the house lines.

A car going down the road with a blue cloud is because of a ring that is bad? true or false?
Same thing for the main seal pack and piston assembly.
 

LLigetfa

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<red face> Well...I don't have a pressure gauge...
I bought a second gauge to cut into the line after my iron filter when I was having too much pressure loss but I never got around to installing it. What I did was to run GPM tests at several points in the system to determine where the source of the loss of flow was. The line between the aeration tank and iron filter was clogged which reduced the ability to backwash the iron filter to the point it caked up the media. The softener downstream suffered a similar fate partially due to the reduced flow rate.

I've since cleared the line and do periodic flow measurements to ensure it doesn't happen again.
 

SemiHandyRon

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Was brine removed from the brine tank?
Was salt used?

There are a few reasons why no soft water, bypass not right, a seal in the seal pack assembly out of position and letting untreated cross into the treated side, and the distributor tube out of the valve body and there letting water cross.
The later most likely will have some resin either in the drain or into the house lines.

A car going down the road with a blue cloud is because of a ring that is bad? true or false?
Same thing for the main seal pack and piston assembly.

Yep--salt was being used up at the normal rate with each recharge.

Something inside the valve body went wrong once before: the unit would reach the end of the recharge cycle, but water kept running down the drain. Eventually, a little "call service" light would illuminate. The first few times I could tap the valve body in various ways, something would shake back into place, and the unit would recover. It got to the point, however, when this procedure would no longer work. So I called Culligan repair. The guy took a look and said it would cost $300 to fix. Seeing the shocked look on my face, he immediately stressed that the repair cost was set by corporate. The part he put in looked like it should cost about $5. I told myself, "The next time something major like this happens, I'm ditching this unit and Culligan." This same valve problem began reasserting itself last month, although this may or may not be tied to the "no longer softens" problem.
 
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Akpsdvan

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Most likely one of the seals is out of place or cut so that water is passing where it should not be passing ,, ie either to the drain or from the untreated side to the treated side inside the valve body.

There is not a valve that has some kind of challenge... different valves have different items that can give a challenge depending on the water that the unit is treating.
 

SemiHandyRon

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There is not a valve that has some kind of challenge... different valves have different items that can give a challenge depending on the water that the unit is treating.

Yep--things break down. I just object to a repair bill that amounts to almost half the cost of a new softener.

Now investigating Fleck 2510SXT 40K units. Prices at qualitywaterforless.com and ohiopurewater.com are nearly identical. Anyone have good/bad experiences with either?
 

Akpsdvan

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2510 in any form is a work horse that will last and last.
The 2510 was one of the Culligan valves in the 70's , it was brass and called Mark 49...
A lot of the parts on the 2510 are on other fleck valves.
 

SemiHandyRon

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2510 in any form is a work horse that will last and last.

Good stuff! Proceeding. I might be back here in a panic when I mess things up. But I installed by own RO system and emergency backup sump pump OK, so I give myself a 78% chance of doing everything right.
 
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