I have a Fleck 5600sxt which is about 6 years old. About a year ago it starting having an issue with the Rapid Rinse portion of the regeneration, but other than that everything seems to be working fine. The regen time is at 2am, and the symptom is that the next morning all of the 2nd story bathrooms have air in the pipes. (Main floor has minor sputtering sometimes too, but not always, and softener is in the basement.) After some troubleshooting I determined that the pressure drop only happens during the rapid rinse cycle.
Here's my theory:
I think Rapid Rinse is similar to In Service except the drain valve is open. I think somehow during Rapid Rinse the input flow from the main is getting impeded. I have a Moen Flow auto-shutoff valve just after the main water meter, and I think when I first got it installed, during RR I thought I saw around 6-10 gpm of flow on the app. But now, during RR, the app shows about 0.5 gpm. I also have pressure gauges on either side of the softener and I can see it staying at around 60psi on the input side, but on the output side, as soon as RR begins the pressure falls down to about 10 psi quickly, and slowly goes to 0 over the next 5-10 minutes. As soon as RR is over the pressure on the output side of the softener goes right back up to 60 again. So, during RR, I think the drain valve is open which allows 5-10 gpm to flow out, but only 0.5 gpm is coming in, so the water in the rest of the house is "falling down" and out the drain due to gravity.
I'm guessing that I could replace the control valve and the problem would go away, but I'm wondering if there might be a more inexpensive fix. Does it make sense that the way the valve changes positions, that something could block the input flow during RR but not In-Service?
In the meantime, since there doesn't appear to be any other issue with the softener, could I completely skip the RR step? If there is some benefit to having the RR, could I skip it and then open the closest toilet flapper for a few minutes after regen is done?
Here's my theory:
I think Rapid Rinse is similar to In Service except the drain valve is open. I think somehow during Rapid Rinse the input flow from the main is getting impeded. I have a Moen Flow auto-shutoff valve just after the main water meter, and I think when I first got it installed, during RR I thought I saw around 6-10 gpm of flow on the app. But now, during RR, the app shows about 0.5 gpm. I also have pressure gauges on either side of the softener and I can see it staying at around 60psi on the input side, but on the output side, as soon as RR begins the pressure falls down to about 10 psi quickly, and slowly goes to 0 over the next 5-10 minutes. As soon as RR is over the pressure on the output side of the softener goes right back up to 60 again. So, during RR, I think the drain valve is open which allows 5-10 gpm to flow out, but only 0.5 gpm is coming in, so the water in the rest of the house is "falling down" and out the drain due to gravity.
I'm guessing that I could replace the control valve and the problem would go away, but I'm wondering if there might be a more inexpensive fix. Does it make sense that the way the valve changes positions, that something could block the input flow during RR but not In-Service?
In the meantime, since there doesn't appear to be any other issue with the softener, could I completely skip the RR step? If there is some benefit to having the RR, could I skip it and then open the closest toilet flapper for a few minutes after regen is done?
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