Clack WS1 maintenance

[Gary Bowling]

I have a Clack WS1 CS 1", 1 cu ft, with a 9"x48" tank. It's been in service for about 10 years and I'm getting ready to take it all apart, replace media, and get it all back like new.

A few years ago, I found a lot of salt in the water after a regen. After fiddling with it and reading for a while I figured out that the injector had gotten clogged. So I purchased a new one and that seemed to solve that problem.

However, in replacing the injector, I saw there was a lot of iron staining inside where the injector is. I was a bit surprised at this given I've had two water tests, one test shows iron of 0.8 mg/L and the other test conducted at a different time of year, shows <0.1 mg/L of iron. Would this be normal given that level of iron? My test was done by the Health Department of Northern Michigan, so I would think it's pretty accurate. Here are the latest test results.
Chloride - 0.96 (0.9 in the other test)
Sulfate - 10.7 (9.3 in the other test)
Nitrate - <0.1 (same)
Flouride - <0.1 (same)
Hardness - 225 (222 in the other test)
Iron - < 0.1 (0.8 in the other test)
Sodium - <5.0 (same)


I'm expecting to find iron staining inside the tank and valve, so I want to clean all that out. My current thought is to use iron out and try to get it all out as best I can. Any recommendations on cleaning the WS1 to get all the iron staining out?

My current WS1 settings are, hardness 21, regen 8 , PrE, P7, 20.0, 7. I need to review all this and make sure I have it set correctly. Any comments or suggestions on the settings would be welcomed.

I am leaning towards using the Liquagen 10% crosslinked media, with gravel in the bottom (15lbs?)

I'm just trying to give as much information as I have, so all the experts here can help ensure that I have a good plan and things set up appropriately. The goal here is to just get the entire system refurbished and back to new so I don't have to worry about it for another 10 years.

Thanks, Gary

 

[Reach4]

Tests were on raw water?

1. Well water? If so, and if you think the resin is iron fouled, I would treat with Iron Out. Iron Out® Rust Stain Remover at Menards® 152 ounce goes a long way.
2. If you put in resin, 15 lbs would be appropriate for a 10 inch tank. For 9 inches, the amount would be less. 15*(9^3)/(10^3)=13.5
I would use 13 lbs.

What is your hardness before and after the softener?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Gary Bowling]

Tests were on raw water?

1. Well water? If so, and if you think the resin is iron fouled, I would treat with Iron Out. Iron Out® Rust Stain Remover at Menards® 152 ounce goes a long way.
2. If you put in resin, 15 lbs would be appropriate for a 10 inch tank. For 9 inches, the amount would be less. 15*(9^3)/(10^3)=13.5
I would use 13 lbs.

What is your hardness before and after the softener?

Yes, well water. Thanks for that, I could give that a try treating with iron out, but with the age of everything I think I'm just going to replace it. It's a good time of year to do that sort of thing and shouldn't be too difficult.

I don't know what the water specs are after the softener, that's a good question, I will collect a sample and send it off to see.

Thanks, Gary

 

[Bannerman]

I will collect a sample and send it off to see

Suggest obtaining a Hach 5B Total Hardness test kit since you are doing your own water softener maintenance and repairs. The Hach 5B will test the hardness of both the raw and softened water.

As your softener's resin is not exposed to chlorine, the lifespan will usually exceed 20 years. While iron will accumulate on plastic resin granules which causes iron fouling, a small amount of dissolved iron will take some time to accumulate and will often be removed with the small amount of acid added to water softener salt containing an iron removal additive, but periodic cleaning with Iron Out or similar is recommended regardless. If your raw well water does contain 0.8 ppm, then that is a significant amount of dissolved iron and more frequent cleaning and a higher salt setting is recomended, particularly if the water pH is >7.0.

 

[Gary Bowling]

Thanks for that. Looked up the Hach 5B kit, I'll order one of those. That will make it faster and easier than sending it off to the health dept. for testing. I'll check out the procedure for adding in some iron out, I recall seeing that some where on here and can search for it. I do use a higher salt setting as my tested hardness is 13 (225 divided by 17) but I'm using a compensated hardness setting of 21 in my WS1 and an increased salt setting of 7 lbs.

Thanks, Gary

 

[ditttohead]

.8 is a high level, a softener will typically take care of it without too much trouble but I would absolutely expect significant build up after a decade

.

 

[Gary Bowling]

.8 is a high level, a softener will typically take care of it without too much trouble but I would absolutely expect significant build up after a decade

.

Thanks for that info, I think at different times of year and possibly during dry/drought times of year, I have more iron. Since the 0.8 number was from a lab and not some sort of home test, I trust that number, and also trust the 0.1 number from a different test from the same lab. I need to do tests during different conditions during the year to understand the max iron content during the year. I wish there was a reliable iron test that could be done at home, but that's ok.

And thanks for the video, that's very helpful. I'm still waiting on a few parts and things to do my rebuild, so it was timely. Looks like most of my parts are going to be delivered next week. I will just soak the softener body in iron out and use things like a toothbrush to try to get it all cleaned out.

G

 

[Skyjumper]

... I wish there was a reliable iron test that could be done at home, but that's ok.
G

check out this thread, info on home iron test from hach... https://terrylove.com/forums/index....of-iron-on-my-softener-and-neutralizer.91635/

 

[Gary Bowling]

check out this thread, info on home iron test from hach... https://terrylove.com/forums/index....of-iron-on-my-softener-and-neutralizer.91635/

Thanks, interesting. A bit pricey, but maybe worth it for a while to see how my iron fluctuates over the year.

G

 

[Gary Bowling]

Question - I've watched a number of youtube videos on replacing media. Some instructions say to fill the resin tank to the top with water prior to putting your valve back on and setting it up. Other videos just show putting the valve back on without filling the resin tank (there is a bit of water in the tank due to washing down the funnel and top).

Does it matter? After placing the distributor tube, gravel, and media, should I fill the tank with water or not?

Thanks, Gary

 

[Bannerman]

The idea is to soak the new media to drive out air. Some media is very porous and air can remain in the pores for considerable time. The trapped air can make the media granules buoyant so they will float initially and so adding water before the valve is installed can result in media loss onto the floor.

The safest method is to install the top screen and valve, fully shut-off the water supply and manually advance the valve to Backwash and remove the power plug to prevent the valve from further advancing. Open the water supply a crack to only allow a trickle of flow so the media tank will slowly fill from the bottom, pushing air upward to flow out through the drain line.

Once flow to the drain is constant water with no air, shut off the water and advance the valve to the service position. If time permits, allow the media to soak for the recommended time such as 48 hrs for carbon media.

The link below has a short writeup on the startup proceedure for a softener or carbon filter, but the same can be used for most media.

https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/37

 

[Gary Bowling]

Excellent info Bannerman, thanks for that!

Gary

 

[Gary Bowling]

I finally received all the parts and did a complete overhaul of my softener today. Everything went very smooth, much better than I anticipated.

I replaced the injector, spacer stack, piston, and regenerant piston. To be honest, I could have gotten by with only replacing the injector. And I could probably have even cleaned that with Iron Out and been fine with the old one. But I had purchased the parts so replaced them anyway.

I replaced the resin with 1 cuft of liquagen 10% crosslinked resin. And also replaced the gravel in the bottom. The distributor tube and top/bottom screens were all pretty easy to clean. Just used a toothbrush and a bit of iron out solution.

Maybe the hardest part of the job was cleaning the gravel for the bottom. Took me many rinses and even washed it with dawn soap a couple of times to get it to run clear.

I live in the country and have plenty of good places to wash out the resin tank and get it all cleaned up, so that wasn't too big of a problem. After getting the tank spotless, reinserting the distributor tube, taping the end, the gravel/resin fill process went very smooth. After filling the tank and putting in some water, I set that aside to clean and rebuild the valve.

Fortunately nothing was "stuck" and everything came apart very easy. So removing all the parts, washing everything up in a solution of Iron Out, and getting the new parts back in was all very easy.

I put everything back together and used the procedure bannerman recommended for filling the tank and putting it back in service. Once back in service, it took me only a few gallons for everything to run clear. Made me a big tall glass of ice water, sat down and took a break. The water was very good!

While I was waiting on parts, I reviewed all the settings. I changed the brine tank fill from "Pre" to "post." I'm not sure why it was set to post. I also tweaked a few other things, but nothing major. Here are my full settings.

Hardness - 19
Regen day - 7
Capacity - 20K
Salt Dose - 7lbs
Backwash - normal auto 0
Fill - Post
Brine - Down

I basically tweaked things to regen every 7 days. I never really like 8 days because I could never remember when it was going to regen. This way it will always regen on the same day unless I run out of water, which is not likely.

This pretty much completes the rework of my softener. I don't expect to have any problems for another 10+ years! Thanks for all the help on this forum. I read a lot of threads preparing for this to make sure it all went well. So there was a lot of help from here, even from people who didn't post to this thread.

Thanks, Gary

 

[Reach4]

Congratulation. Some add IO to the salt. Some add citric acid granuals or liquid phosphoric acid with a wick dispenser.

1. If you have a metering valve, the days is a limit. If you used more water, then the metering would cause regen earlier than every 7 days.

2. Post-brine is more common for sodium salt users. Pre is needed for potassium salt users. With Pre, I don't know for sure if the time you choose is when the brine tank starts filling, but if it is, the actual backwash will start maybe 2 hours later than it did before. The softener is not bypassed during brine fill, but it is during backwash and the other non-fill periods.

3. I wonder how much work it would have been to reclaim the old gravel. Put it in a bucket with resin, and flow water vigorously like panning for gold?

 

[Gary Bowling]

Thanks Reach! Yes, I do think I want to start adding something, maybe res-up, on a regular basis. I want to look into the feeder systems to see how well that works.

Yes, I do have a metering valve and it will regen sooner if it needs to. My experience has been that we rarely ever use up the water prior to regen day, unless we have someone visiting. So that's pretty predictable. Without visitors, I can set it up to generate every Mon morning and know when to add something.

I think mine was set to "Pre" to begin with because I had contemplated using Potassium at one point.

Good question on the gravel. I could have been recovered fairly easily I think. I just didn't know that prior to starting so had i all ready to go, so why not.

Thanks for the help, Gary

 

[Gary Bowling]

I was looking at the res-up just now, with the feeder wick system. Simple and easy to install. At just less than 1 mg/L of iron in my water, probably use the "yellow" wick which puts in about 0.4 oz per day, so I'll get about 2.8 oz per regen. Since it's a wick system, I have no idea how accurate that number is.

Does that seem like the right way to go?

Thanks, Gary