It's been a bit and I haven't heard back and was wondering; have I been violating poor forum etiquette (if that's a thing) or if I've been posting/asking dumb things, maybe everyone is busy and haven't had time, or that you have already told me what I need to know. So I went with the last option. (btw, I am grateful for the info and time you have put in this and other threads and appreciate the value you provide here. )
I still didn't have actual 'facts' about my resin, so last night I replaced it with 2.5 ft3 of 8%. (thanks for the comment
@Reach4) 1.25 ft3 in each tank and reapplied the settings Bannerman provided. (
@Bannerman Thanks again.)
I was concerned it would be a difficult messy job but it ended up fairly simple. I grabbed a kitchen chair and an empty garbage can of similar height with a bag in it. Putting my hand in the mouth of the tank I dumped it over into the garbage can. (The tank was too heavy for me to lift full.) As the can was filling up, I used my other hand to lift the bottom as vertical as I could. Once the can was almost full I set the tank bottom on the chair and stood the tank up. Since the resin settles quickly, I used a pot to "ladle" the water back into the tank (conveniently enough I had a large 'resin funnel' on hand.) Once the water was all back in the tank, I swished it around and I turned it upside down in the garbage can/bag. I could hear and feel the resin fall to the opening and the glugging of air back into tank seems to mix things up nicely. I only had to put the water back in 5 times! When a bag was mostly full of resin, I ladled the water back into the tank, tied off the bag, carried the can to the garbage and dumped out the bag. I attached a pic of the tank without resin. (I didn't say 'clean tank' as it has rust stains....)
While I had the water off, I drained my hot water tank again and checked over the head unit. This time I found a chunk of plastic obstructing the hole in the drain flow washer. It was oddly shaped and big enough it didn't fit into the hole. I am thinking this is what has been causing the seemingly random results I have been having.
For reference, Bannerman posted this video in another thread and it was a great help to work on the head unit:
Hopefully our hard water issues have been resolved.
Thanks again!