Water level in brine well higher than in brine tank

[falkhag]

Dear members,
I've been much enjoying the content here, and it was very helpful when I was trying to figure out what to set my salt setting and gallons used prior to regen, as well as other things.

I've been having issues where the soft water runs out too quickly. I usually average around 13 days per regen cycle, but I've been running out in about 3-5 days. The system is pretty new, about 5 months old, and my city water hardness is somewhere between 15-21 gpg (the city gets its water from 2 different sources). I thought that maybe the city water got harder all of a sudden maybe.

I noticed today that the brine level in the brine well (the white cylinder where the float is) is about 2" higher than the brine level in the brine tank. I thought that there were slits along the side of the brine well, so that the brine level should be the same in both the brine well and the brine tank? Is there a clog in the slots or something?

Also, I noticed that there were some salt particles on the bottom of the brine well --- I thought that the brine well was a closed cylinder on the bottom, and open on the top (can be closed with white lid)?

I'll eventually empty it out and clean it and everything, but I was just wondering if you guys could tell me if:

1)the brine level difference is ab(normal)
2) the brine well cylinder is closed off on the bottom -- if so, someone either poured salt into the brine well, or it recrystallized inside the brine well somehow because it was supersaturated?

BTW, I'm also getting probably about 24" of brine water level height after a regen cycle. I think that's all the info, it's a Fleck 5600 Econominder. Thanks in advance,

 

[ditttohead]

It is a strange phenomenon, but yes the water level can be an inch or two higher inside the brine well. I have noticed this regularly for the past 30+ years, but strangely I never really questioned it. 24", what size is your brine tank? What size is your softener?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

It is a strange phenomenon, but yes the water level can be an inch or two higher inside the brine well. I have noticed this regularly for the past 30+ years, but strangely I never really questioned it. 24", what size is your brine tank? What size is your softener?

That surprised me, but thinking about it, saturated brine has a density of 1.2 x water. If we have much less salty water in the brine tube, then the water in the brine tube would sit substantially higher.

 

[LLigetfa]

@Reach4 nailed the physics on it. Outside the well, it will reach maximum saturation since it is in direct contact with the salt. Inside the brine well, the water is not in direct contact so will not be as saturated.

 

[falkhag]

brine tank is the black square that is about 15" width and depth, and it's 35" high. The softener is 55" tall -- not sure what the actual volumes are, and I think I calculated out the resin amount before but don't have it on me right now.

But I thought there were slits in the brine well? I have never emptied it out, so I don't know, but I'm inferring this from pictures. So wouldn't the water level equilibrate? I thought there were slits so that solid salt pellets will not enter the brine well to prevent it from interfering with the float mechanism? Could you guys confirm this for me? Also, is the bottom of the brine well covered as well, so I should not be seeing salt crystals on the bottom of the brine well?

But if you're saying that the 2" difference in water level is normal, I guess it's normal. I tried taking out the tube that goes in<--> out from the brine tank and blowing in and out, and I was able to blow into the brine tank and suck in brine water into my mouth with little exertion -- so then nozzle should not be clogged, right?

Thank you for your answers,

 

[Reach4]

But I thought there were slits in the brine well? I have never emptied it out, so I don't know, but I'm inferring this from pictures. So wouldn't the water level equilibrate?

Salt water is heavier.

There is stratification, although there has been some skepticism that that can occur in the brine tank outside of the brine tube when the salt level is low. https://terrylove.com/forums/index....e-tank-added-two-bags-still-not-enough.88413/ I am considering an experiment on that. Clearly inside of the brine tank is a different situation making stratification more intuitive, plus there is the altitude level difference that proves that one.

 

[LLigetfa]

Clear water enters the brine well during the fill stage. Most of the clear water exits the brine well into the brine tank where it dissolves as much salt as it can which makes it heavier than clear water. Some of the clear water remains in the brine well so it is less dense. Less dense means it is lighter than the saturated brine. The equilibrium is based on weight, hence the difference in height.

As for the debate about stratification, while it happens to some small degree, it is not the problem some make it out to be.

 

[Reach4]

As for the debate about stratification, while it happens to some small degree, it is not the problem some make it out to be.

I recommend that somebody who wants to not fill up the brine tank with salt (for whatever reason), have at least some salt above water.

What would you recommend?

 

[LLigetfa]

I would not make it a habit to keep the level low for a long time but I would not fret over it in the short term. At some point, the crud at the bottom needs to be cleaned out without throwing away a lot of salt. Granted, I have a gravel driveway on which to spread it but for others it may be considered a hazardous waste disposal.

 

[falkhag]

ok, that answered a bunch of my questions. I ended up emptying out the brine tank and cleaning it out and seeing what's going on.

When I did a manual regen, I did see the water level drop(so that should mean that the brine is being sent to the resin no prob)and the water level did rise during the refill cycle. I was a bit surprised to see that there is no grid plate on the bottom. The brine well is closed on the bottom ( except for the horizontal slits on the cylinder wall near the bottom) -- there is about maybe 1.5" gap between the bottom of the brine tank and the bottom of the brine well. The salt crystals inside the brine well I mentioned before, I think were little flakes that entered the brine well from the broken salt pieces in the brine tank, which did not impede the float mechanism.

I looked up whether or not I need a grid plate, and it seems that if my salt is <8lbs, the water level might not reach the salt (if I had a grid plate). After doing a regen at 2AM this morning, I see that the water is about half full, and my salt setting is at 12lbs, so the brine at the bottom of the tank should be salt saturated. 12 lbs x ~3 pounds/gallong = 4 gallons. It looks like the float setting puts in water until the water in the tank is half full, and I would think that the brine would be more than 4 gallons if i have a 17 gallon brine tank (roughly calculated by me) that is half full?

I'm a little concerned about not having a grid plate, maybe the salt could start clogging up the slits in the brine well? I looked online to get one, but the way that the brine well was installed is in the corner, and all the ones i see are on the side, in the middle....

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Reach4]

I looked up whether or not I need a grid plate, and it seems that if my salt is <8lbs, the water level might not reach the salt (if I had a grid plate).

You don't need the grid, but if you had one, you would add enough water during setup to compensate . Even with no grid, you need to start with enough water to allow for the brine draw, plus whatever it takes to bring the water up to the level the brine gets sucked down to.

Each brine fill adds enough water to make the brine to be drawn for the next regen. Some brine remains in the tank between regenerations -- grid or not.

It looks like the float setting puts in water until the water in the tank is half full, and I would think that the brine would be more than 4 gallons if i have a 17 gallon brine tank (roughly calculated by me) that is half full?

Most softeners don't use the float to determine the salt dose, but rather the time and BLFC value lets you program the fill. The safety float should then not play a factor. It is there to keep the brine from overflowing onto the floor if something goes wrong. If your safety float is stopping your flow short, then raise the float. What is this softener valve that your system uses?

I believe you should have some salt above the water to prevent stratification, even if it means raking the existing salt to one side. (I get some semi-objection to that suggestion on occasion). Of course you could just add a lot more salt, but at this point you might want to be able to watch stuff during your diagnostic period.

 

[Bannerman]

A salt grid will be typically utilized when the brine tank is smaller than usually needed for the amount of brine required. Some people want to use a small brine tank because of space limitations, even while it would be best to utilize a larger tank.

As the grid platform keeps the salt elevated above the bottom of the brine tank, the space below the platform will provide additional room for brine that is not displaced by undissolved salt. The use of a salt grid is not conditional on the refill water rising above the grid since salt pellets will fill the beer cup-shaped legs which support the platform. As water will enter the legs, the salt within will dissolve and additional salt will continue to enter from above.

It is also stated that a salt grid may reduce salt bridging. Since the salt above the platform will usually remain dry, it will not have opportunity to partially dissolve. Partially dissolved salt will often bond together and once dried, will create a solid mass that may be suspended between the usually tapered walls of the brine tank.

Since water enters the brine tank within the brine well tube, water will enter the salt from the bottom up so even without a salt grid, the salt in storage above the fluid line will usually remain fairly dry and less likely to begin dissolving. Sometimes it becomes necessary to manually add additional fluid to the brine tank so it is always recommended to pour any additional fluid down inside the brine well so as to keep the dry salt as dry as possible.

Here is a chart that shows recommended minimum brine tank sizes for various resin amounts and salt settings. Compare the capacity of various tank sizes with and without a salt grid.
https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/133

 

[falkhag]

BLFC is 0.25 gpm, 0.75lbs salt/min. Salt setting is 12 lbs, so I guess it is 4 gallons of brine that is injected into the resin, for 16 min (12lbs / 0.75lbs/min)

Softener valve is Fleck 5600 econominder.

Keeping the salt above the water line on the tank sounds do-able if taking into account stratification. The water level comes up about halfway up the tank, and I think I read that it is good to keep the salt level at 3/4 (then let it drop to 1/4, then refill to 3/4), or I could just keep it at 3/4. Like I said before, I'm not sure how much of the tank filled with water + salt is just the brine volume. My tank is 15" square x 35" height, so if it's halfway full of water, I would think that it's way more than 4 gallons. (looking online, it might actually be 14" x 34" = 25 gallons)

Salt bridging is something that I am concerned about -- one of the things I'm doing is to stick with either pellets or flakes (probably flakes because cheaper) once I run out of my pellets.

According to your link, my tank is either 14x14x34 or 15x17x36
0.7 lbs or 0.9 lbs of salt per inch --> I need 12 lbs, so --> I need 17 or 13 inches of brine

But if I add a 5" grid,
it's 1.7 or 2.3 lbs of salt/inch --> 12 lbs, so --> 7 or 5 inches of brine.

a 5" space from having a grid will give me 14 x 14 x 5" = 980 cu in = 4.24 gallons of brine that has ~zero salt pellets taking up volume, which fulfills the 4 gallons I need.

I'm enclosing something I drew up. I don't know where the air check kicks in though and where the nozzle for in/out of brine is, so I'm not sure if a 5" grid will help me or not....?

Thanks so much for all your help -- helping me understand stuff.
2.4 gpm drain flow

 

[Reach4]

According to your link, my tank is either 14x14x34 or 15x17x36
0.7 lbs or 0.9 lbs of salt per inch --> I need 12 lbs, so --> I need 17 or 13 inches of brine

I expect about 12 inches in salt.

When you draw brine, it sucks down to the arrow on the air check valve.

When you refill the brine tank, the fill amount adds to what is there.

Make sure the safety float is high enough.

 

[Bannerman]

I think you are making this more difficult than it needs to be.

I anticipate your unit uses a 10" X 54" tank so it will contain 1.5 ft3 of resin. For 1.5 ft3, 12 lbs of salt will regenerate 36,000 grains.

To calculate the Capacity setting, 36,000 grains / 22 gpg (you said somewhere between 15-21, but we'll use 22 until you actually measure hardness at your location) = 1,636 gallons.

If there are two people each using 60 gallons/day, then subtract 120 gallons Reserve from 1,636 so the Capacity setting will then be 1,516 gallons or the nearest lower amount on the Capacity setting dial.

Fill the brine tank to the top with salt, and add additional salt when the top of the salt drops below the top of the brine in the tank.

Since it seems you may have set too much capacity initially for the amount of salt utilized, then the resin's total capacity (48,000 grains) appears to have been depleted over several months use. (13 days dropping to 3 days)

To regenerate most of the additional depleted capacity, perform a manual regeneration with the settings programmed as above. After the 1st regeneration is complete, wait approx 1.5 hours for sufficient salt to dissolve, then perform a 2nd manual regeneration. The second regeneration could be performed before departing for bed so plenty of softened water will be available when you rise in the morning.

 

[falkhag]

Wow, thanks for the air check valve diagram! that helps a lot.

I calculated 10"x54" = 1.5 cu ft too, which should have 48,000 grains, but I wanted to save on salt and go for efficiency, so I went for 75% regen (36000 grains), therefore using 12 lbs of salt.

I calculated out the hardness by the hardness published for the 2 water sources for my city: During the summer, they buy more water from this other source (60%), and buy less water during winter (40%), so they buy about 50% and use their own 50% on average. And because it was about 50%, I just averaged the two. In 2018, the published hardness was 330 and 254 ppm, and I calculated it to 331 and 256 ppm. So I just took the average = 286 ppm / 17.1 = 17 grains. The 2019 report says it's 329 ppm and 108 ppm. so the average comes out to 13 grains. So since the source water is softer, I should be getting more days between regen cycles, but I'm not, since maybe about 2 weeks ago.

I actually dropped by the water company and got a sample bottle to get the hardness checked. She says I'll get report next week.

I did the calculating the capacity setting too, and I caclulated it out to be 1716 gallons, and this accounted for reserve capacity and everything that you mentioned. Part of how I calculated my reserve capacity was that I made some excel graphs ( enclosed below). And it was VERY consistent, so I just followed it for a long time. I also increased it a little by little bit until I started feeling hardness near the end of that period before it did regen, and then dialed the volume back, and it was fine for a long time at 1825 gallons. It's just that all of a sudden from getting about 10 - 11 days worth (and the corresponding volume of soft water), I started getting like 3 days worth. Hence all my questions.

So you're saying that if the beads are pooped out, you should do 2 consecutive regens to refresh it, right? Yeah, that sounds good. Playing around with the regen settings and cleaning and everything, I ended up doing just that 2 days ago, so if I get hard water too early again, I'll do the manual regen 2x, thanks.


Thanks again for all your inputs.

 

[Bannerman]

Average hardness is not appropriate for programming. The actual hardness needs to be established at your location. Municipal water hardness can vary through the day depending on time of day demands throughout the town, distribution system maintenance and other variables. Although you may have based your calculations on an average of 17 gpg, if the hardness is actually higher when you use the most water, the resin's capacity will be depleted more rapidly than estimated.

A common recommendation with municipal water that is obtained from multiple sources is to test where the softener will be located and then program an additional 2-3 gpg higher than the test result to anticipate occasions when hardness may be higher.

The Capacity setting and the salt amount are directly related. Although you have programmed 36K grains capacity before regeneration is to occur, just because the water remains soft when regeneration is due, does not mean soft water may continue to be drawn until the hardness begins to increase.

Your 1.5 ft3 of resin has a total softening capacity of 48,000 grains but 12 lbs salt will only regenerate 36,000 grains. This means when regeneration is to occur, there should be approx 12,000 grains capacity remaining. Since the process of water softening does not occur instantaneously, the water will need sufficient contact time with resin with sufficient capacity remaining for calcium and Magnesium ions to be exchanged for sodium ions. The capacity remaining when regeneration is due, will help to ensure softening will continue to occur at a reasonable flow rate even as the programmed capacity is almost fully depleted.

 

[falkhag]

Thanks for the info, that was very helpful.
When I said that I dialed it back, I dialed it back to about 1-2 days before I started getting hard water again, for that buffer (when occasionally hardness increases), so I thought I kind of accounted for that, but I'll look at it again.

I should be getting the value of hardness from my faucet pretty soon back from water company, so I can program for 2-3 gpg higher. But I did not consider that the hardness could be different at different times of the day... can I assume that on average per 24 hours, it should be pretty much the same though? Hmnmmm, maybe I should have taken a bunch of samples throughout the day into the same bottle to send off to the lab, to get an average.

Your last paragraph was a bit confusing to me
----- so I have 48k grains, and using 12 lbs salt will regenrate 36k grains worth. So 12K grains have not been regenerated. So if I wait right until all 36k grains worth of resin is depleted before doing a regen, that will not necessarily ensure softened water at a reasonable flow rate, because there is sooooo little active resin left near the end that the hard water is not making good contact or long enough contact to be softened properly. Is that right?

 

[Bannerman]

So 12K grains have not been regenerated. S

When the softener was first installed, almost all 48,000 grains was available and ready for use. 'Almost' as broken and small resin granules produced during manufacturing (fines) will be commonly-flushed to drain during the first few regeneration cycles so the softener capacity will be slightly less than 48K.

Similar to a vehicle's fuel tank that may hold 15 gallons gas, if the tank is full at the start of a trip and 10 gallons is consumed and then the tank is topped-up, the tank will again contain 15 gallons.

When the resin's capacity is regenerated, then all 1.5 ft3 will be available to remove hardness at the highest flow rate for that quantity of resin. The Capacity setting only limits how much of that capacity will be utilized before regeneration is to occur to restore the capacity that had been used.

Since a larger quantity of active resin will support a higher maximum flow rate before hardness leakage will occur, hardness leakage at the highest flow rate will gradually increase as capacity becomes depleted, but most times, the hardness leakage occurring is small, measured as ppm. 17.1 ppm = 1 gpg.

Because the water usage flow patterns for an average family are usually well below the max, the contact time with active resin will usually remain sufficient so hardness leakage will be minor and is typically unnoticeable for most household water usage activities.

 

[falkhag]

Ok I see. So the resin is basically more efficient if it's closer to 100% regenerated -- more beads are available to soften, and also get highest flow rate, with less hardness leakage. So for performance, it's best to keep it 100% regenerated, hypothetically speaking. So if I stick to the 75% regen to save on salt, I should be shooting for 25% active beads remaining before doing another regen to get back to 100%. If I wait until close to 0% active beads before doing a regen, not only am I oscillating between 0% to 75% active resin, but it is also less efficient (less beads available to soften, lower flow rate, more hardness leakage).

So if I understood what you said correctly, I would be using the same amount of salt either way, but I would be more efficient the 25-100% way. OK, i'll go and adjust the gallon capacity accordingly, after I get my water hardness result on Monday. Thank you,