Fleck 5810 SXT brine draw going down drain?

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Fullbeerd

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I've had the 5810 for a couple months. Things were good right after install. Now I have hard water. There's plenty of salt in the tank so I ran a cycle to make sure the brine was being draw. It does draw out, but the whole time it's drawing water is coming out of the drain pipe, which makes me think the brine isn't even going into the tank, but is going down the drain. Is this possible? If so, what's the cause and fix?

On a related/not-related note, there's always been a hissing noise during the brain draw. It's like air is leaking. Is that normal, maybe related? Do I have a bad control unit?
 

Reach4

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Water is always going down the drain. There will be a sound during brine draw, even if the brine is gone, but I don't expect that sound to come from within the brine tank.

Brine should be drawn for about the firs 15 minutes into a BD cycle, but the water comes from the drain, and a sound happens, for the full BD cycle.

If you have a leak, and if your brine tubing is translucent, you may see bubbles. You would see air from faucets too if air was being sucked in.

If that sound seems noticeable, it must scare the heck out of you when the backwash first starts.:eek:

If water is high, your water may be harder than you originally programmed. Or there could be a problem, making the softener not regenerate properly.
 

Fullbeerd

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Good to know. I was hoping that was the issue. I'm stumped. The water pre and post softener is showing the same hardness level. There's plenty of salt in the tank, the brine seems to be drawing, and the bypass valves are in the correct position (not bypassing the system). Any ideas?
 

Bannerman

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Manually advance the controller to Brine Draw and taste the water flowing to drain. The drain water should not almost immediately taste salty if there is not an internal leak within the softener.

The most common cause for an internal leak is a missing or damaged 'O' ring surrounding the riser tube where the riser tube connects to the valve. If there is leakage at that location, hard water entering at the top of the tank will 'short circuit' to the outlet port of the softener.

For softening to take place, all incoming hard water will need to flow through the resin bed where hardness is removed. With no internal leak, water will flow through the entire resin bed to the bottom of the tank where the softened water will then flow up the riser tube to the softener outlet port to your fixtures.

During regeneration, the brine will follow the same path through the resin but instead of flowing to your fixtures, it will be discharged to drain after contact with the resin.

If you find the drain water is immediately salty, remove the control valve from the tank and replace and lube the O ring situated within the valve's riser tube socket.
 
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Fullbeerd

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I finally got around to doing some more troubleshooting. I disconnected the system. The water inside the resin tank tested at the same hardness as the non-treated water. Also, I tasted the water being drained during the brine draw and it is very salty. The O ring you are referring to is not the ring between the control valve and the tank, correct?
 

Reach4

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What diameter is your distributor tube (long pipe to the bottom of the tank)? 35mm (1.378), 1.315, or 1.05. I think Bannerman is talking about the o-ring around the top of the distributor tube. See items 19..23 in your parts diagrams.
 

ditttohead

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Here is a short video describing the riser on the 7000. The 5810 has a third option, the 1.32" (same size as 1" PVC Pipe).

 

Bannerman

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The water inside the resin tank tested at the same hardness as the non-treated water.
That is because the water within the top portion of the tank has not yet been conditioned. As explained, softened water will flow up the riser tube from the bottom of the tank.

I tasted the water being drained during the brine draw and it is very salty.
It is normal for the drain flow to taste salty during Brine Draw, but it should take a few minutes to become salty after the controller is advanced to the Brine Draw position. You did not specify when you tasted the drain flow, only sometime during BD.
 
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