Brown water right after softener regeneration

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diitto

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Hi, Bought a new home in July 2014 so about two years old. Never had a water softener before but we moved to a region where they were recommended so we bought the one the builder was supplying, a Puronics Hydronex water softener (Puronics.com). In May, 2015, one neighbor with the exact same softener asked me if I had seen brown water in a toilet or a sink that would go away after a few flushes or running the tap. I said no but just weeks later I saw it in a toilet as well. I now know of at least four other homeowners who own this same softener who have seen the brown water at times. I posted on a local retirement community blog (where we live) and several folks led me to believe it was just old pipes in town that would occasionally chunk off a bit of iron or something... Anyway, I've since come to learn that, on my system, the time between regenerations of the filter media is precisely the same as the time when the brown water shows up. So after a regeneration, or maybe during it (??), we get a slug of brown water that gets into our home piping.

My unit is similar if not identical (salt container looks a bit different?) to this one.

http://www.puronics.com/product-details.php?PID=7

I was told by the company, Puronics, that they didn't know what might be causing the brown water (they weren't terribly helpful) but they did say the top component, about 3 pounds of carbon should be changed every 12-18 months. This unit has not had that done and it is now 24 months old. First time I noticed brown water was when the system was about 10 months old.

The plumbing company that installed (and sevices) this unit is coming out next week to service this and a water purifier we have under the kitchen sink. I intend to question them about this brown water. I know they are currently in the process of changing the filter media for one other homeowner (of the four I know about) with this same issue. Some have suggested perhaps that media has become contaminated in some way???

What might be causing this brown water during or just after the regeneration process??? Or what intelligent questions might someone suggest for me to ask this plumbing company next week???

thanks...
 

Reach4

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Is that water rust-colored?
http://www.softenerparts.com/Clack_WS1_Valve_Parts_s/45.htm has a link to download a controller manual. I am wondering if maybe a rinse or backwash cycle shouldn't be longer. Or maybe the flow rate during backwash is low. During the backwash cycle (early in the regeneration) you could time how long it takes to get a measured amount of flow. Compare that to what the backwash flow should be. Your service guy might do this stuff or better. I am not a pro.
 

diitto

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Hi, If I can figure out how to upload this pic file, I will show the color. But no, I would not say it is rust colored but more like someone dumped a cup of coffee or a certain amount of coke into a toilet. Just a carmel colored brown...

And thanks for the link to the controller... My controller looks identical to the leftmost one of several I see when I click on that link. Thanks for that... My manual from Puronics is very minimal and I think there must be many more settings that I don't know how to access... I will download and read the controller manual..

Here is a picture of the brown water... Takes maybe four flushes at 1.6 gallons/flush to get the water clear again... Seems to happen every time the softener regenerates...

thoughts??? thanks..

IMG_5109.JPG
 

Bannerman

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With the carbon and resin mixed in the same tank, I suspect the carbon is being broken or ground into finer particles by the action of the resin during back wash. Due to low back wash velocity, the carbon 'fines' are not being flushed to drain but are precipitating through the softener resin while the resin bed is expanded during the brine phase of the regeneration cycle. Once initial service water flow resumes following regeneration, some carbon fines located near the bottom of the resin bed are then being flushed into the household water distribution system.

Mixing media within a single tank is generally not recommended as each media type has unique back wash requirements. While softener resin is relatively light weight and doesn't require high back wash velocity, GAC (granular activated carbon) would require substantially higher velocity. The addition of silver to the GAC would further increase the backwash velocity requirement.

As the small amount (3 lbs) of GAC in the softener resin tank would provide little benefit in filtering out contaminants, you may wish to consider removing the carbon from the softener and not replacing it. If you want to remove chlorine, chloramine or other contaminants, consider adding a separate back washing carbon filter similar in size to the water softener.
 
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Hi, Bought a new home in July 2014 so about two years old. Never had a water softener before but we moved to a region where they were recommended so we bought the one the builder was supplying, a Puronics Hydronex water softener (Puronics.com). In May, 2015, one neighbor with the exact same softener asked me if I had seen brown water in a toilet or a sink that would go away after a few flushes or running the tap. I said no but just weeks later I saw it in a toilet as well. I now know of at least four other homeowners who own this same softener who have seen the brown water at times. I posted on a local retirement community blog (where we live) and several folks led me to believe it was just old pipes in town that would occasionally chunk off a bit of iron or something... Anyway, I've since come to learn that, on my system, the time between regenerations of the filter media is precisely the same as the time when the brown water shows up. So after a regeneration, or maybe during it (??), we get a slug of brown water that gets into our home piping.

My unit is similar if not identical (salt container looks a bit different?) to this one.

http://www.puronics.com/product-details.php?PID=7

I was told by the company, Puronics, that they didn't know what might be causing the brown water (they weren't terribly helpful) but they did say the top component, about 3 pounds of carbon should be changed every 12-18 months. This unit has not had that done and it is now 24 months old. First time I noticed brown water was when the system was about 10 months old.

The plumbing company that installed (and sevices) this unit is coming out next week to service this and a water purifier we have under the kitchen sink. I intend to question them about this brown water. I know they are currently in the process of changing the filter media for one other homeowner (of the four I know about) with this same issue. Some have suggested perhaps that media has become contaminated in some way???

What might be causing this brown water during or just after the regeneration process??? Or what intelligent questions might someone suggest for me to ask this plumbing company next week???

thanks...

Knowing the water chemistry would help us provide assistance. If you are on a community well supply this could very well be oxidized iron (thats what it looks like to me). This is a very common problem on water supplies like this. A whole house sediment pre-filter (4"x 10" or 20" Big Blue housing) would help remove the oxidized iron. Because this iron is oxidized it settles to the bottom of the water softener during regular service. During regeneration the backwash cycle reverses the flow of water in the softener tank to lift/loosen the resin bed and flush the gravel bed at the bottom of tank. All the oxidized iron that has settled to the bottom of the tank gets stirred up and rusty, dirty cloudy water will show up immediately after a regeneration for a day or so. Your system requires 5gpm to backwash properly. Your softener valve is a Clack WS1 cycle sequence valve and has programming features to add an additional backwash before final rinse so this may be a feature you might want to add. If the water supply is being chlorinated that is what is oxidizing the iron so a filtration system before the water softener is imperative. The BB housing will help but a more practical solution would be a backwashing filter before the softener to remove oxidized iron and chlorine. Clack makes a backwashing valve. Use it on the same 10x54 tank with a mix of KDF (neutralizes the chlorine, 10lbs max) at the bottom and Zeosorb (impervious to chlorine 1.25 cu ft) filter media. Have this backwash every 2-3 days and set it at 500 gallons also with a 15min backwash and second 5min BW, with a final 4 min rinse cycle. If you add this system I would suggest a rebed of the water softener with new resin.

The first thing you need to do is give your water softener several 3-4 manual regenerations to help remove the oxidized iron. Your municipality will have a water report on-line for your water supply. Please let us know the water chemistry.

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Reach4

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You could go into setup mode, and write down each current value. Just keep poking Next so that you don't make changes at this point.

Post what you wrote down.

"When stepping through a procedure if no buttons are pressed within five minutes the display returns to a normal user display. "
 
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diitto

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Hi, Thanks for the detailed responses. The manual I received from Puronics offers ONLY one setup procedure for programming (Next + Up pressed simultaneously) which puts you in what I know see is called USER PROGRAMMING and that offers only the following, and this is how our softener is currently set,

Hardness = 10 gpg (171 PPM)
Days to Regen = 20
Time of Regen = 2 AM

and that's it. Now I KNEW there must be a lot more but the entire (quite thin) manual simply doesn't offer that info to the homeowner. I was guessing there must be some other combination of buttons presses to get into the more detailed set up mode and I just now did a google search on what you told me above regarding what my softener valve is (Clack WS1) and that got me to a much more detailed manual that another water company put out (likely Clack does too) that says,

To Enter System Programming Hold Next + DOWN simultaneously for FIVE SECONDS, then release

That I just learned a few minutes ago. I capitalize the FIVE SECONDS to ask if you really need to do that??? I ask because on the User Programming my small Puronics manual says to hold Next + Up together for THREE SECONDS but I notice when I press those two buttons, you enter the User Programming mode instantly, not after some three seconds..

So on the Next + Down, should I expect the same, an instant change to a programming mode or do I need to hold the buttons for 5 seconds as it says???

Then my even bigger question is if I decide to get into that mode (I don't want to screw anything up before the folks are coming out next Wednesday at which time I am certainly going to have THEM show me all this setup stuff) can I just write down the settings and keep hitting NEXT until I get through all of them and return to the normal mode???

Regarding water chemistry, yes, this is community well water, several wells in fact that I'm told are blended together to provide water for the area. The latest info I could find (2013-2014) showed the measured water HARDNESS to be 77.2 PPM (hmmm, doesn't even seem to be all that hard as it says 60 PPM is considered to be "slightly hard" and 120 PPM is considered to be "moderately hard". And they have my softener set to soften water anticipated to be 10 gpg (171 PPM). Might that be set too high???

And the Iron level is HIGH, measured at 643 PPB (part per billion) against what they say is a "Secondary Maximum Contaminant Level" of 300 PPB. A note says "Secondary MCLs are set to protect the odor, taste, and appearance of drinking water." A further note says, "Iron was found at levels that exceed the secondary MCL. The Iron MCL was set to protect you against unpleasant aesthetic affects such as color, taste, odor and the staining of plumbing fixtures (e.g., tubs and sinks), and clothing while washing. Violating this MCL does not pose a risk to public health."

I did speak with this same plumbing company (the guys who installed this Puronics water softener when the house was built along with an under sink RO purifier we bought at the same time) a year ago about adding a Whole House Pre-Filter and I think at the time even mentioned the "Big Blue" as one of you mentioned above. I was asking about that at the time NOT about the brown water but instead because some times we get a whiff of an odor from this water. He suggested such a filter MIGHT (but with no guarantees) get rid of any smell. His price was reasonable but he scared me off at the time because he told me I might suffer a little bit in water pressure in the house. I tried later to get clarification but was unsuccessful at tracking him down and I let that option drift away though I didn't forget about it... It will again be on next week's agenda. We already have a long delay getting hot water out of our kitchen sink and we just wouldn't want that to get any longer. Any ideas how much one of these Big Blue pre-filters might knock down our in home water pressure??? We do have a pressure regulator at the very front end that I think is set to like 60 PSI??? Maybe we could have them turn that up a bit to compensate for a loss through a Pre-Filter??? Yes??? No??? Or might that be a dangerous thing to do as this house is all PEX plastic tubing. Wouldn't want to create a leak or break somewhere???

Thoughts??? thanks again for the detailed responses above...
 

Reach4

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So on the Next + Down, should I expect the same, an instant change to a programming mode or do I need to hold the buttons for 5 seconds as it says???
I have never touched a Clack softener.

They only told you how to do the user stuff because that is all they expected you to do yourself.

From my understanding, once you get into the programming mode, if you just press Next several times, you will only look at a sequence of values and not be in danger of changing anything. If you get tired, walk away, and it will revert to normal operation after 5 minutes. If you don't get the same interpretation from the manual, then don't do what you feel too uneasy with. Feeling somewhat uneasy is good; it will keep you from pressing the arrow buttons to change settings.

I am not a pro. I don't think there is a likelihood of something going wrong. However I certainly cannot guarantee it. But if you did mess it up, the company could set it right during a service call, which would cost. But you are not going to destroy the unit, I don't think...
 

diitto

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thanks... Yes, I'm pretty sure I could go do the Next + Down and simply walk through all that is there by continuing to hit Next. But I'm pretty sure I will just wait till next Wednesday when the company that installed the system is coming out to maintain all our water stuff and answer all my questions (though they don't yet know that last part). We will walk through settings at that time or at least have them tell me I can do so on my own without harm. thanks for your help...
 

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Oh, and about whether the water supply is chlorinated, I believe it is. I should know but in fact I don't for sure... That was mentioned above as a parameter that would lead to oxidization of the Iron. What I can say is just down the street from our home is one of the water wells. One can look through a big chain link gate and hear big pumps, see a big pipe coming up out of the ground and very near it is a big tank that if I recall said "sodium hyperchlorite" which I think is basically bleach??? Anyway, that I surely see down at one of the well sites... That's all I know to say, however, about chlorination.

Also, some time back, for grins, I bought two sets of water test kits (general stuff which included Iron). I used one kit on softened water from a bathroom faucet and the other identical kit on the non-softened but purified (sediment, two carbon and RO) water at a purified water spigot at our kitchen sink.

Both water samples showed ZERO (dip in water, compare colors deal) for Iron. I took snapshots of all the "dip test strip and watch for color change" results for everything EXCEPT copper and iron. Wish now I had captured those as well. But all I can say is my notes on both clearly say result was ZERO. Copper and Iron were the first two tests I did and I think I moved along and had already tossed those test strips when I decided to start grabbing pictures with my phone. ZERO iron likely makes sense for the RO/carbon filtered water but for the bathroom water that only went through the water softener and no other filter??? Especially with the water report showing lots of iron in the water feed???

Anyway, just reporting... thanks...
 
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Oh, and about whether the water supply is chlorinated, I believe it is. I should know but in fact I don't for sure... That was mentioned above as a parameter that would lead to oxidization of the Iron. What I can say is just down the street from our home is one of the water wells. One can look through a big chain link gate and hear big pumps, see a big pipe coming up out of the ground and very near it is a big tank that if I recall said "sodium hyperchlorite" which I think is basically bleach??? Anyway, that I surely see down at one of the well sites... That's all I know to say, however, about chlorination.

Also, some time back, for grins, I bought two sets of water test kits (general stuff which included Iron). I used one kit on softened water from a bathroom faucet and the other identical kit on the non-softened but purified (sediment, two carbon and RO) water at a purified water spigot at our kitchen sink.

Both water samples showed ZERO (dip in water, compare colors deal) for Iron. I took snapshots of all the "dip test strip and watch for color change" results for everything EXCEPT copper and iron. Wish now I had captured those as well. But all I can say is my notes on both clearly say result was ZERO. Copper and Iron were the first two tests I did and I think I moved along and had already tossed those test strips when I decided to start grabbing pictures with my phone. ZERO iron likely makes sense for the RO/carbon filtered water but for the bathroom water that only went through the water softener and no other filter??? Especially with the water report showing lots of iron in the water feed???

Anyway, just reporting... thanks...

Those "zero" test results for iron are pretty typical with these community wells. The problems arise when they flush the water mains and in summer with high water usage causing oxidation of iron. And all of sudden you have Brown Water! The BB filter will reduce the incoming pressure somewhat (thats how a filter system works) but you have plenty of incoming pressure so I don't see a problem until the filter starts to get clogged. I would check it monthly for a couple months. Generally you would change these filters every 2-3 months or immediately after they flush the hydrants. Your iron shows about .6 ppm which is relatively low but again all this iron appears to be oxidized. Water softeners only remove clear water (ferrous) iron so some type of filter system here is necessary. The BB housing with a 10-20 micron filter will help a lot. Is it going to remove 100% of the iron? No. The best choice for this application would be the backwashing system I mentioned.

Clack manuals are available here. You will have to determine which board version you have E1 or C1 for programming. Next and Up sets hardness, day overide and regen time. Next and Down sets all other parameters, bw, brine refill (pre or post), brine draw time, second bw, final rinse. When you hold Up and Down simultaneously (3 seconds) it gets you into all the history of regenerations and water usage. I would set the initial BW at at least 10 min. these really are THE best valves in the industry at this point. Far superior to anything out there. No I'm not going to argue with all the Fleck guy's!

About taking so long for hot water at the kitchen. You can run a gravity fed re-circulation line from the furthest hot water line back to the bottom of the water heater (boiler drain area), with a check valve, this will cause the cold/tepid water to re-circulate back to the water heater and make the time getting hot water much shorter.

Hope this helps.
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Since your water supply feeds multiple homes, a disinfectant will generally be required. Chlorine is cheap and effective.

Although the raw water emerging from the well may contain an amount of ferrous iron (clear), chlorine will cause that iron to be oxidized thereby changing it to ferric iron (solid rust particles) which maybe easily filtered out. Normally these solid particles will precipitate out prior to the home but that will be dependent on the distribution configuration and your location in that system.

Although you refer to the colour as 'brown', I sense that the colour is actually 'black' as you refer to the colour of coffee or coke which seems to be supported by your photo. A black colour implies fine carbon particles are entering your plumbing system. As prior posters have experienced similar when their softeners also contained a mixture of carbon, my recommendations to you are similar to those previously offered.

If the black/brown water is occurring in the community system, you should expect to see similar in water samples obtained before your softener unit. If the discolouration is only occasional such as a result of the periodic flushing of water mains, you should not experience brown/black water after every regeneration cycle.
 
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Reach4

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I would measure the residual chlorine. You would like to have a little chlorine left in the water by the time it reaches you, but not much. It starts at a higher level, and gets consumed as it is doing its job on the way to you. The fact that you get a test and use it does not commit you to doing something more. If things do seem out of norms, you might only need to tell your water company, and they will probably act.

Pentair R151076 looks interesting and cheap. It is intended mainly for pools, but it seems to indicate free chlorine levels down to 0.3 ppm (300 ppb). If the indicated level is low, I would try my test on distilled water as well as my sample water to make sure that I can identify the difference. As a bonus, that kit also measure pH. There are also low range test strips that measure free chlorine down to 0.25. http://www.lamotte.com/en/drinking-water/test-strips/2964lr-g.html The strips would be easier. http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/publications_pages/chlorineresidual.pdf

If the chlorine levels are higher than maybe 2.0, you could consider a chlorine removal technique, such as that backwashing GAC filter before your softener. Otherwise I would put in one or two Pentek Big Blue 20x4.5 filter housings for whole house filtering. That would go before the softener. If you did not really need it, the cartridges should last a year or more. The So you would feel better. If you have to change them more frequently, you know you really needed that. I would make my only cartridge the PENTEK DGD-5005-20 (or similar) initially, or use that as the first of two. Based on what that catches, you could adjust your next cartridge buy.
 
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diitto

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Hi, So yesterday the local plumbing company that has the contract to install these Puronics water softeners in newly built homes (for homeowners who choose to have such installed as part of the home build) in this 3000 home retirement community, came out to service our water systems (Puronics, hot water tank and under kitchen sink water purifier) told me the following. The guy, Justin, said they have installed hundreds of this exact same system and only folks in one neighborhood (mine) are having this brown water issue. There are many wells that the builder has installed in the area with one of them about three blocks from our home. Justin doesn't know but his guess is this local neighborhood is connected to one specific well, likely this nearby one but we don't know for sure, and he speculates that the brown material is in the well, in the source water, not something fouling within the Puronics or anything like that.

He contends that the carbon layer inside the Puronics is trapping this brown material and when it does it's full regeneration cycle, some or all of it is getting flushed out into our home water. One question I failed to ask is why there isn't some setting we could employ that would make sure all this brown stuff gets flushed down the drain on the wall right next to the water softener during the backwash/regen/whatever(??) cycle??? As you can likely tell I know almost nothing about what the regen process really does other than it ends up flushing away all the trapped calcium and magnesium (hardness) off the filter media so that media is now prepared to start trapping more +2 valence minerals. But clearly there must not be some magic bullet setting or he would have employed that.

He went on to say folks like my neighbor across the street never see brown water because they have a Culligan softener which has filter media (beads) ONLY and no carbon filter to trap this brown stuff. So only folks with this Puronics or anothers similar softener which I guess we could say is really a softener/filter will see this brown stuff come in the house when the system regenerates once every 20 days (my settings).

He offered two possible solutions, (1), to remove the media in our Puronics and redo it with new media BUT leaving out the carbon layer completely. One of you guys suggested that in a previous post. Or (2), doing the above but also adding a front end, whole home carbon filter on the wall right before the Puronics to capture the brown stuff and whatever else before you even get to the Puronics. Something like a Big Blue he suggested??? If I simply do (1) then I might get rid of the every 20 days "in your face" toilet full of brown water but that says the brown stuff and whatever else the carbon might be catching is going to be coming in, likely invisibly, all the time. If I do (2), I would both catch the unwanted material in the front end carbon filter (right???) and also avoid the every 20 days of a shock when you look in a toilet. By the way, the amount of brown water isn't much as it takes three to four flushes of a 1.6 gpf toilet to get the water back to nice and clear, to the eye anyway.

When he was here one year ago and before I was all over this brown water deal, I also mentioned that once in a while, the water has a slight odor. At that time, for that reason, he suggested the same whole home carbon filter as a possible but not guaranteed solution to the water smell. The only reason I didn't go ahead with that a year ago is he said it "might reduce our home water pressure a tad". I wasn't sure what that meant and the smell has actually been gone for quite a while now so I held off. Yesterday, he said the drop in pressure wouldn't even be noticeable plus we have a pressure regulator set to 60 PSI right now which he said perhaps we could bump a tad if there was any flow related issues.

He did, by the way, make two small changes yesterday. One, he upped the hardness setting from 10 to 12 (171 ppm to 205 ppm) meaning I guess the source water is now deemed to be a bit harder than they thought a year ago. And two, at my request and with his concurrence (though I didn't get the impression it would help any brown water problem) he changed the "backwash cycle" from "normal" to "longer". He did not know how long "normal" and "longer" were but guessed that they were something like 6 and 10 minutes respectively???

So, you folks have really helped me and I truly appreciate the help.. Could you now read what I've said above and comment??? Including can anyone answer why there appears to be no setting that can say "flush, flush, and flush some more (automatically) before letting this water into the home"??? See an earlier post above for a picture of the brown water in a toilet.

thanks... bob
 

Reach4

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I would record the current settings, and lets look at those. What I anticipate is then suggesting increasing the backwash and/or rinse times. But looking and posting that data is a nice safe initial step. Looking at those settings and changing the settings is free.

I would try to catch a sample of the brown water in a jar. Set the jar on a quiet window sill. See if the color settles to the bottom and how long it takes to settle. See what it looks like on the bottom... or does the water stay cloudy... That will tell you useful info. When you dip an empty straw to the bottom and release your finger, do you get particles you can see onto a plate? or are the particles small like if you were putting some weak filtered coffee on the plate?

If you pour some of the colored water through a coffee filter, does the color go through the filter to the jar below, or does the filter retain pretty much all of the color?

I think we don't know if the brown is originating inside of your unit, or is just being caught inside and is being ineffectively flushed out. A filter before the softener is not going to help if the color originates inside of the softener.

A 1 or 1.5 cubic ft of GAC at the front end will not affect the pressure in your house noticeably. GAC will address smells, and will mechanically filter down to maybe 5 microns. The backwashing cleans the media, but the media will eventually need replacing. It might be every 3 to 5 years. This is a significant expense and takes space. Note that if your tanks are outside, they should be covered to not let light in. Otherwise stuff can grow in there if the chlorine level is not high enough. A GAC tank removes chlorine. So even the softener could be a growth place where it was not before after GAC, although I see yours has a metal cover. Good thing for an outside unit.

A big blue sediment filter may or may not affect the pressure a lot. I would have a pressure gauge installed after such a filter to see what the pressure out of the filter is. That can tell you if you have a suitable cartridge or if the cartridge needs changing. A 20x4.5 housing full of filter and water is heavy. There will be a bit of spillage. A 10x4.5 weighs about half as much but filters half as much, and it has twice the backpressure Locate a big cartridge filter where you can carry easily rather than where you will need to handle it at arms length. There are many cartridges made in the 4.5 diameter.

You could have both a backwashing GAC filter followed by a BB filter. The GAC takes care of the big stuff and dissolved gasses. The Big Blue takes out the small particles. In my opinion, putting in a big filter cartridge that stays clean was not a waste; it turned out to be a quality control measure that turned up clean.

Be sure your outside spigots that are used for lawn watering are served from pipes before your filtering.
 
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ditttohead

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Sounds like Justin did the right thing and his advice and explanation make sense. Especially with the Puronics design. The Puronics system is one of the few Carbon/Softener combo systems that actually work. Most companies simply blend in the carbon into the resin which creates an amalgam. The Puronics carbon stays on top of the resin. It acts as an efficient chlorine reduced and sediment reducer. Changing the backwash from short to long should correct the problem.

Adding a Carbon backwashing system ahead of your unit would be the best solution, you will not notice any pressure loss. Technically there will be a slight pressure loss, but in my nearly 30 years, nobody has complained yet
 

diitto

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Good feedback all, thanks... I will grab some the next time I see it. And do the tests you suggested. Also, if I wanted to send off a sample of water to be tested sometime, is there some especially good place??? We live in Northern California.

And I need to and intend to do some studying on what types of water filters are best for what we might want to do. Sounds like a pretty complex topic.

Regarding current settings, here you go..

First the only three settings, other than setting time/date, that a normal "user" can access. Note that anything in " " or all CAPS below is flashing (obviously changeable). Those three basic settings are,

Set Hardness "12"
Set regen day "20"
Set time regen "2 am"

Note that last year he left our house with the Hardness set to 10 (171 ppm) and this year he upped it to 12 (205).

Then this next group are commands that one can only access if given the UNLOCK code for the board. I asked him to give it to me yesterday and he did so. Note, all I'm willing to do at this time is access the list and punch through them using NEXT. I would assume since SOFTENING was flashing that I could use up/down to access some other features (??) but again, I must crawl first. So here is the list of current settings in the "gotta have the unlock code" list.

Set SOFTENING
Set capacity "27.0" x 1000
Set regen lbs "9.0"
Set LONGER backwash
Set regen AUTO gal
Set regen PRE fill
Set regen DN brine
Set time regen NORMAL

Before yesterday, the backwash HAD been set to NORMAL and after he and I talked a bit yesterday, he agreed to change the backwash time to LONGER as you see above. He did not know what those times were but he guessed NORMAL was maybe 6 minutes and LONGER was maybe 10 minutes??? Be admitted those were guesses on his part. I have the Puonics manual but trust me, it has almost no useful information in it. Shows more info about exploded views of the Clack valve than anything about settings.

Thoughts??? thanks... bob
 

Bannerman

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Suggest initiating a manual regeneration cycle just before you go to bed tonight. Depending on when regeneration is next due to occur, the cycle tonight will hopefully provide an additional backwash sooner than usual. Now with the longer BW setting, it should be a good indication if the brown water issue will be reduced or resolved.
 

ditttohead

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I have received some samples from your area, I am fairly certain your problem will resolve itself fairly quickly. The longer backwash cycle should help. It is rare that a long backwash is needed but in your area we do see regular "slugs" of sediment and some accompanying ferric iron. The carbon bed in your softener acts as a good filter, but the low backwash rate of the unit may have some difficulty purging this out. The sediment is heavier than the backwash. In a traditional softener, this debris simply passes through the media and into your house but it is doing it all the time, not concentrated after the regeneration.

If it continues, have your water guy install a post BB sediment filter. Either 1 or 5 micron will be fine.
 
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