Bodie01
New Member
Hoping for some advice as to whether we should purchase a new softener or repair the existing one. My husband and I just purchased our home in April and while the water softener was working we experienced iron and sulfur issues. We had an Aquasana 500,000 Gallon Whole Home Well Water Rhino system w/UV and whole home Iron filter installed. The iron staining and sulfur smell were immediately gone after installation (yay!). At this point we had very soft water with no staining and no sulfur smell, the only problem was that the water had a slight salty taste at times. We contacted a local Well/Water Treatment company to have them come out and service the softener. As this is our first experience with well water or a softener neither of us had any clue. To my dismay there are only a few companies in our area and getting someone to come out here AND seem the slightest bit trustworthy has been a real struggle. The current softener (Fleck 5600 timered and 10x35 tank) was installed in 2009. When initially contacting the person that installed it they immediately tried to convince me we needed to not only dig a new deep water well, (well just drilled in 2009 by the same person) but also get a whole home RO system. This person seems like a total crook and I would like to steer completely clear. Another company I called said they would try to come out the same week, didn't come out till two and half weeks later and on that visit just looked over the system and said they could COME OUT LATER and clean the salt tank, make sure the meter was set correctly and show my husband and I how everything works. The only problem was they couldn't give me an exact date/time of when they could come out, just that they would call that day. During this whole time we were not adding any salt to the tank because I thought they would just have to dump it all out and the company could be coming out any day. Once we were approaching 5+ weeks of me calling and them stating we will try this week over and over, not to mention we no longer had soft water, I said forget it and called Culligan. (I should mention that after the fact of not adding salt someone has told me that could ruin the softener, which may have happened) The Culligan representative promptly came out however, they simply (at first) took a brief look at the system, didn't explain anything and then came inside to tell me the softener was not functioning at all and started to explain their models they could sell me. I told the Culligan representative that the purpose of having him come out was not to sell me one of their systems but to service my existing system and I wanted to know exactly what was wrong with it. Upon saying this he told me that the manual timered valve was set to backwash at 2am but that the clock was off....."so can you show me how to reset that?" I asked. We then walked outside and he walked me through this. From his observation the resin is bad because there appeared to be iron in the salt tank. By the time he came there was no salt in the tank at all and I explained that we hadn't added any salt for over a month but prior to that the water had the distinct slippery feel of softened water we just didn't like the slight salty taste. Over the phone the Culligan representative that I set the appointment up with said it would be highly unlikely that new resin would be needed on a system only 6 years old. The Culligan representative also stated we should replace the Fleck control because he couldn't turn the wheel to manually regenerate so that component was bad. I said I would like a quote for the repairs and he called a few days later with an amount of $750-$800 (I believe this doesn't include the $150 service fee).
Following the Culligan visit, my husband and I cleaned out the salt tank, removing any iron deposits and filled the tank with salt pellets. We had to go out of town for two weeks and are now looking to either replace or repair the softener. I was just reading that if the tank is using salt at a normal rate but you have no soft water, the resin bed has probably become saturated with iron deposits or been damaged by chlorine and can no longer be regenerated by the brine. If it isn't using much or any salt, the problem is most likely a bad valve head, meaning the resin bed isn't getting recharged with brine water at all. I just checked the salt tank today and it looks like none of the salt has been used at all. Should we 1) Only replace the Fleck valve head (I would like to convert to metered valve) and clean the resin beds using iron removing chemicals? 2) Replace Fleck valve head and resin beds? 3) purchase a completely new system?
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or advice and will gladly provide more information if needed.
Following the Culligan visit, my husband and I cleaned out the salt tank, removing any iron deposits and filled the tank with salt pellets. We had to go out of town for two weeks and are now looking to either replace or repair the softener. I was just reading that if the tank is using salt at a normal rate but you have no soft water, the resin bed has probably become saturated with iron deposits or been damaged by chlorine and can no longer be regenerated by the brine. If it isn't using much or any salt, the problem is most likely a bad valve head, meaning the resin bed isn't getting recharged with brine water at all. I just checked the salt tank today and it looks like none of the salt has been used at all. Should we 1) Only replace the Fleck valve head (I would like to convert to metered valve) and clean the resin beds using iron removing chemicals? 2) Replace Fleck valve head and resin beds? 3) purchase a completely new system?
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or advice and will gladly provide more information if needed.