I need some help figuring out why my Fleck 7000 water softener isn't working. The issue I'm having is hard water, it's like my system has zero softening capacity.
This is a 7 year old Fleck 7000 SXT On Demand 48,000 Grain Water Softener I purchased from Discount Water Softeners in 2015. I noticed the hard water breakthrough this fall, and chose to rebed the resin with 1.5 cubic feet of Aldex 10% crosslink resin from Discount Water Softeners. I did the rebed on November 5, 2022.
BLFC: 0.125 GPM
DLFC: 2.4 GPM
Injector: #00 (Violet)
That fixed the issue for a few weeks, but by the beginning of December I noticed the hard water was back. We put up with the hard water through December, but now I have some time to attempt a repair. Apparently the resin bed wasn't the real issue. Before I pay a bunch more money buying parts, I figured it's time to ask for some help.
My system was using some salt, so I didn't initially think it was a brine draw issue. That's why I did the resin replacement. Now that I'm troubleshooting it, I think the brine draw is MUCH lower flow than it should be.
My brine tank has been very full of brine lately, so I think it's refilling more than it's pulling in. Today I did a manual regen and noticed that I only drew down about 1" of the brine from my normal brine tank. The tank is about 14"x15", so I think that was close to 1 gallon of brine over the course of 60 minutes. That seems like way too little Brine Draw. My BD stage is set to 60 minutes.
After that I did another manual regen and used a bucket to measure the brine draw flow rate. I measured that it sucked 1 quart of brine in 8 minutes. By my calculations, that would be 1 gallon every 32 minutes, or 0.03125 Gal/min. My system has a Violet Injector Assembly, the #00 size. As I read the manual, I think that Injector should have a Brine Draw of about 0.18 GPM, and it looks flat from 40-120 psi. Although the measurements may be slightly off, this seems very low.
My well regulates pressure from 40-60 psi, and the softener is within 3 feet of the well pressure tank. I have a 20" Big Blue filter with a DGD2501 filter before the softener that was just replaced on November 5. Pressure should be very good, and whole house pressure/flow has never been a problem.
Currently my BD stage has been set to 60 minutes, so if I'm right about the 0.18 GPM I should be able to pull about 10.8 gallons of brine into the tank.
Tonight I took the valve apart after measuring the brine flow with my bucket method and I didn't see anything abnormal. Some slight rust on the injector assembly and filter, but it was easily cleaned with water and a soft toothbrush. Blowing through the screen and injector showed both were free flowing and not blocked.
The DLFC was removed and it looked very clean. I blew through it as well and it was very easy. It's a 2.4 GPM DLFC. I even removed the existing drain tube and replaced it with a very short section of brand new clear tubing to verify there were no blockages. That didn't seem to help anything. There is a very full, steady stream of flow out the drain tube when regenerating.
The only thing I didn't fully disassemble is the main valve because I don't have a tool to reassemble. I did pull the main piston out, but left all of the seals & spacers in.
After re-assembly, the small amount of suction I had initially is apparently gone. I don't think I'm getting any brine draw now. Whatever is wrong I'm just making it worse, not better. Any thoughts? I don't feel any suction now during Brine Draw when I remove the Brine line and put my finger there.
My guess is that I should replace the Injector Assembly & Screen. I think that is the source of the suction for Brine Draw. Any thoughts? Am I completely off here? Maybe I should put a new O-ring on the BLFC to make sure there's no air leak there?
Thanks for the help, and apologies for the super long post.
This is a 7 year old Fleck 7000 SXT On Demand 48,000 Grain Water Softener I purchased from Discount Water Softeners in 2015. I noticed the hard water breakthrough this fall, and chose to rebed the resin with 1.5 cubic feet of Aldex 10% crosslink resin from Discount Water Softeners. I did the rebed on November 5, 2022.
BLFC: 0.125 GPM
DLFC: 2.4 GPM
Injector: #00 (Violet)
That fixed the issue for a few weeks, but by the beginning of December I noticed the hard water was back. We put up with the hard water through December, but now I have some time to attempt a repair. Apparently the resin bed wasn't the real issue. Before I pay a bunch more money buying parts, I figured it's time to ask for some help.
My system was using some salt, so I didn't initially think it was a brine draw issue. That's why I did the resin replacement. Now that I'm troubleshooting it, I think the brine draw is MUCH lower flow than it should be.
My brine tank has been very full of brine lately, so I think it's refilling more than it's pulling in. Today I did a manual regen and noticed that I only drew down about 1" of the brine from my normal brine tank. The tank is about 14"x15", so I think that was close to 1 gallon of brine over the course of 60 minutes. That seems like way too little Brine Draw. My BD stage is set to 60 minutes.
After that I did another manual regen and used a bucket to measure the brine draw flow rate. I measured that it sucked 1 quart of brine in 8 minutes. By my calculations, that would be 1 gallon every 32 minutes, or 0.03125 Gal/min. My system has a Violet Injector Assembly, the #00 size. As I read the manual, I think that Injector should have a Brine Draw of about 0.18 GPM, and it looks flat from 40-120 psi. Although the measurements may be slightly off, this seems very low.
My well regulates pressure from 40-60 psi, and the softener is within 3 feet of the well pressure tank. I have a 20" Big Blue filter with a DGD2501 filter before the softener that was just replaced on November 5. Pressure should be very good, and whole house pressure/flow has never been a problem.
Currently my BD stage has been set to 60 minutes, so if I'm right about the 0.18 GPM I should be able to pull about 10.8 gallons of brine into the tank.
Tonight I took the valve apart after measuring the brine flow with my bucket method and I didn't see anything abnormal. Some slight rust on the injector assembly and filter, but it was easily cleaned with water and a soft toothbrush. Blowing through the screen and injector showed both were free flowing and not blocked.
The DLFC was removed and it looked very clean. I blew through it as well and it was very easy. It's a 2.4 GPM DLFC. I even removed the existing drain tube and replaced it with a very short section of brand new clear tubing to verify there were no blockages. That didn't seem to help anything. There is a very full, steady stream of flow out the drain tube when regenerating.
The only thing I didn't fully disassemble is the main valve because I don't have a tool to reassemble. I did pull the main piston out, but left all of the seals & spacers in.
After re-assembly, the small amount of suction I had initially is apparently gone. I don't think I'm getting any brine draw now. Whatever is wrong I'm just making it worse, not better. Any thoughts? I don't feel any suction now during Brine Draw when I remove the Brine line and put my finger there.
My guess is that I should replace the Injector Assembly & Screen. I think that is the source of the suction for Brine Draw. Any thoughts? Am I completely off here? Maybe I should put a new O-ring on the BLFC to make sure there's no air leak there?
Thanks for the help, and apologies for the super long post.