Water softener is not softening

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JDK12

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I have a fleck 48,000 grain unit and a 5800 LXT head. Unfortunately the settings on the 5800 LXT all pretty much automated so I can't change them myself. I can change the capacity of the unit, which is set to 1.5. I turned the hardness up to 25 for the time being and have salt set at 9 lbs.

I don't know if the resin is bad or what else might be going on. The image linked below shows water test strips. One from a water bottle to ensure they are working correctly. The others were from inside the house and 1 from a hose outside that is not supposed to be softened.

I really don't know what to do at this point. When the softener regenerates, it does so without a problem and uses the salt that is in the brine tank.

https://imgur.com/UviupEr
 

Reach4

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I don't know what your picture is showing. Is that a test of the incoming water or the softened water?

I don't see much difference in your test strips. I would get a Hach 5B kit to do your testing. Its method of counting drops until a color change is easier to get a reading I think.
 

JDK12

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I don't know what your picture is showing. Is that a test of the incoming water or the softened water?

I don't see much difference in your test strips. I would get a Hach 5B kit to do your testing. Its method of counting drops until a color change is easier to get a reading I think.
The ones bunched together all came out the same color indicating that the water is hard. One of them is from the unsoftened water outside. The rest in the group are from the "softened" water indicating that the water is hard. The one by itself is from a bottle of water so it has no hardness. Just showing the different colors , I guess not super helpful :/.
 

Reach4

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OK... looking again, I see some subtle differences. The one to the left of the gap looks a little browner than the ones to its left.

Bottled drinking water may be hard. Distilled water is what you would use to compare against.

What is the source of the water? City, well? How long did the softener soften properly?

It may be that the outside faucet is getting the softened water. If you use the fleck plastic bypass, I think you can stop the water by turning only one of the two knobs from normal.
s-l300.jpg
The picture shows the bypass valve in bypass. In service they would be at right angles to what the photo shows.
 

JDK12

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It's city water. I think I may have figured out the problem but will wait until this weekend to take it apart and see. I started the regen process but went right into the brine draw. The drain line goes into the wall in the garage, up into the attic, and back down into the laundry room where it drains. I would say within 60 seconds, the drain water tasted salty which seems right for the amount of flow and distance it needed to travel. Because of this, I'm fairly certain that the riser isn't sealed properly with the head. I'll probably have to take it off and apply some grease to the seals.
 

Reach4

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t's city water. I think I may have figured out the problem but will wait until this weekend to take it apart and see. I started the regen process but went right into the brine draw. The drain line goes into the wall in the garage, up into the attic, and back down into the laundry room where it drains. I would say within 60 seconds, the drain water tasted salty which seems right for the amount of flow and distance it needed to travel. Because of this, I'm fairly certain that the riser isn't sealed properly with the head. I'll probably have to take it off and apply some grease to the seals.
Nice troubleshooting.

It's going to take more than grease I suspect. You could be missing an o-ring and retainer. You could have the wrong diameter distributor tube..
 

JDK12

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I will be working on it this weekend and let you know what I find! When I installed it, I put the plastic basket piece on the bottom of the valve, however, I am reading some places that say it is not needed if you are not hooking it up in reverse. Is this true? Should I just remove the plastic basket?

I appreciate all of your help!
 

Reach4

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will be working on it this weekend and let you know what I find! When I installed it, I put the plastic basket piece on the bottom of the valve, however, I am reading some places that say it is not needed if you are not hooking it up in reverse. Is this true? Should I just remove the plastic basket?
While you probably don't need the basket, it could keep you from losing resin during backwash if the DLFC somehow let too much water flow during backwash. I would leave it.

I see the 5800 softeners use a 1.05 inch OD distributor tube. This is the OD of 3/4 PVC pipe. http://waterpurification.pentair.co...load/en/43350-fleck-5800-valve-rev-f-jl17.pdf The bigger units can use a bigger tube, and get an adapter if using 1.05. So this is not going to be the case of a missing adapter. So a missing or displaced O-ring seems to be what to be looking for.
 

WorthFlorida

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I once pushed the bypass valve to bypass to work on the softener. Unknowingly an o-ring dislodged allowing hard water to mix with the softwater.
The same water softener after a few years of using salt blocks, it would not make soft water. The problem was the resin was coated with iron ions. Two regents with “Iron Out” and a lot of water. It took a few hundred gallons to flush the red iron out. After that the softener worked like new. If you use salt pellets with “system saver”, then it is not an iron contamination problem.
 

Bannerman

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If you use salt pellets with “system saver”, then it is not an iron contamination problem.
JDK12 stated his water is supplied by the city. As such, the water will normally be chlorinated. Chlorine will oxidize ferrous iron, causing it to convert to ferric iron which will settle out or be easily filtered out as solids prior to the softener.

As you indicate an iron fouling problem, it then appears your water source is a private well with no chlorine or other iron removal treatment utilized prior to the softener.
 

WorthFlorida

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JDK12 stated his water is supplied by the city. As such, the water will normally be chlorinated. Chlorine will oxidize ferrous iron, causing it to convert to ferric iron which will settle out or be easily filtered out as solids prior to the softener.
As you indicate an iron fouling problem, it then appears your water source is a private well with no chlorine or other iron removal treatment utilized prior to the softener.

It was city water, Algonquin, Illinois. The east side of the village had red iron problems and around 1983 they upgraded the water treatment and greatly reduced the iron content. My home was on the west side of town on a different well. No iron problems at all but since it took several years for the softner to be affected, the clear water iron was of no problem at anytime. If you look at water softener specs they always mention iron removal of usually 2 or 4 PPM. It's something that you cannot do anything about. The Iron Out chemical oxidized and remove the iron molecules from the resen. I do agree that chlorine will oxidize iron but the chlorine levels are very low and no one had rd iron problems if they didn't have a water softener. But with a hardness of 29 ppm just about everyone did.
 

JDK12

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Ok... so nothing good to report :/. Took it apart and the O-ring is there, but I can't get the stupid plastic basket off to get to it easily. I went ahead and applied grease to all o-rings, put it back together and went straight to brine draw. Still salty taste in about 60 seconds at the drain. Took it apart again took some photos to post here. Right now I have it doing a full regeneration to try the brine draw again.

Any ideas?
https://imgur.com/a/63IG7xL
 

Reach4

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https://terrylove.com/forums/index....ve-the-top-screen-from-a-control-valve.51046/ looks to have useful info.

With most controllers, including the 5800LXT, the top of the distributor tube is even with the top of the tank. Do you have gravel? If so, that can complicate getting the tube back down. If you have no gravel, you can usually force water or air down the tube to part the resin to allow the tube to come back down. Not that I have actually done that...

That bottom view picture sure looks like the O-ring is in a really bad way.

img_1.jpg


You may not need the top basket. Usually the resin does not get that high. If a softener is shipped with the resin preloaded, you need a top basket. I think for years, it was not common to have a top basket.
 
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JDK12

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How in the world do I get the plastic basket off?

Edit: Channel locks worked haha.
 
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Reach4

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OK... not what I was expecting. The photo had a lot of depth of field. I was expecting a distorted O-ring.

What is the diameter (1.05 expected), or could you compare the size to the distributor tube? Alternatively, get a piece of 3/4 pvc, dress the end of any burr, and use that for size.
 

JDK12

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I pulled the one out of the resin tank. I looked up the brand and size and it appears to be 1.05" diameter. I have to push it fairly hard to get it in past the o-ring.

I did notice that any grease I tried to apply to the tub was scraped off by the basket. Wondering if I might have some better luck without it this time. Not sure what else would cause the salt to easily make it to the drain so quick.

Btw, I also check the drain water right at the drain tube off the valve and it tasted salty within seconds. I just wanted to be sure.

7D4O1vGm.jpg
 

Reach4

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That's a tough one. How far down does your distributor tube go? If that was short, that could be bad. What if it was not reaching the o-ring? Yes, unlikely. Yet you have your symptom. O-ring condition and sizing looks good. So looking at what else could cause the symptom.

How long is your distributor tube assembly? The tank is 54, but I don't know what to expect for the inside. Somebody might, so post the length.

You would probably need to put water or air down to push past the resin to the bottom. A youtube video I watched showed a guy supplying air by mouth. I think I would want to sanitize after doing that.
 

ditttohead

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You stated the system went straight into brine draw... did it go to a backwash first? Sounds like you may have a conflict in the programming and the piston type. If your LXT valve is an upflow design then you must have the upflow piston. The upflow piston and downflow piston are significantly different but I have never tries mismatching them to see what the symptoms would be. Can you remove the piston and post a picture of it? I can tell you what piston it is by a photo.
 

JDK12

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This has been such a nightmare... The riser tube is a bit taller than the tank, so it shouldn't be having any issues getting past the o-ring. I had a plumber come out, and he couldn't tell what was wrong. Took the valve into a local water softener place and they put the valve on their tank and it produced soft water.

@dittohead, I manually went straight to the brine draw. It normally does the backwash first.

So far I have paid $45 for the plumber to look at it and $120 for the water softener place to test the valve. They stated that salty water within seconds at the drain line is "normal". At this point, already reaching $200 to try and fix this issue. Wondering at what point I say screw it and just buy a new system.... Maybe sell this one for parts? I feel so lost.
 
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