Where Is The Air in My Pipes Coming From!?

[sarnone]

It appears that I have quite the plumbing conundrum on our hands! My wife and I recently moved into a new house (year and half ago) and since, we've slowly been updating our plumbing system. We're on a well system that includes an acid neutralizer, water softener and a whole house filter. In order from the well, it's pressure tank, AN, WS, filter and water heater. Since we've lived here we've replaced the pressure tank, had the AN rebedded, replaced the water filter and water heater. We've now had air in our pipes for approximately the last 6 months and we can't figure out why! If memory serves us correctly, this air started to occur around the same time that we had the filter and water heater replaced. When I say the filter replaced, they repiped with cpvc and replaced the entire filter housing. The only other thing that took place during this time was I added new calcite to the AN. I don't think I did anything incorrectly. The only thing I might have messed up was I forgot to unplug the fleck head when I put the head into backwash to relieve the pressure. I realized it after a minute or two and then unplugged it.

During this 6 month time period we've had 3 different plumbers come out to figure out what's going on and they gave us 3 different answers. The first plumber opened our well cap and checked to make sure it wasn't the pitless adapter and also checked to make sure it wasn't losing any water when under pressure. He was dead set on us having a leak in the pipe going from the well to the house. He insisted that nothing in our house was introducing air into the system. With a $4500 quote, we decided we wanted to trouble shoot before we spent that much money on what he called, "a hunch". The first thing we did is bypass the AN. The air was still there. The second thing we did was bypass the water softener. The AIR WAS GONE! We bypassed it on two different occasions for about a week at time and the air completely disappeared. Once we put the softener back in service, the air would be reintroduced after about 3-4 days. We called a company that works on these specific softeners (Ecowater systems softener) and they insisted that there is no way that air is being introduced from the softener, neutralizer, etc and that it was something with our well pump. I'm obviously not an expert on these things but I have a hard time understanding how/why it would be the well pump when we can eliminate the problem by bypassing our water softener. If it is in fact the well pump, why aren't we getting air in the system when the softener is bypassed?

About 5 days ago I decided I was going to do some maintenance on the water heater and decided to drain/flush the tank. I obviously shut off the water going to the tank, drained the tank, etc. When I reopened the water line to fill the tank, the air pressure went back into the system instead of out the drain valve. I'll admit that I forgot to open up hot water faucet before refilling the tank so this might have something to do with this. However I would think that when I open the water that the air would travel out the drain valve and not back into the system. I literally saw air travel through the filter and heard it go into the softener tank. What would cause this to happen? Regardless, I purged all the air out of the system and did a regeneration on the softener to get the air out of the tank. We went 3 full days without any air and then this morning, I woke up and air was back in the pipes. The AN went through a backwash last night but the softener didn't. Is it a coincidence that this backwashed last night and now we have air in the pipes or do you think it might have something to do with it.

Looking forward to everyones thoughts and Ideas

 

[Reach4]

During this 6 month time period we've had 3 different plumbers come out to figure out what's going on and they gave us 3 different answers. The first plumber opened our well cap and checked to make sure it wasn't the pitless adapter and also checked to make sure it wasn't losing any water when under pressure. He was dead set on us having a leak in the pipe going from the well to the house. He insisted that nothing in our house was introducing air into the system. With a $4500 quote, we decided we wanted to trouble shoot before we spent that much money on what he called, "a hunch". The first thing we did is bypass the AN. The air was still there. The second thing we did was bypass the water softener. The AIR WAS GONE! We bypassed it on two different occasions for about a week at time and the air completely disappeared. Once we put the softener back in service, the air would be reintroduced after about 3-4 days.

The classic causes of water being introduced by a softener during regeneration are

1. failed air check valve at the bottom of the brine tank.
2. leak in the brine line on the way to the air check valve. The leak would be small enough to not let a lot of water out, but air goes through smaller cracks.

To confirm this, watch for when the softener regenerates, and see if you can correlated the air to the morning after regen.

 

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[sarnone]

The classic causes of water being introduced by a softener during regeneration are

1. failed air check valve at the bottom of the brine tank.
2. leak in the brine line on the way to the air check valve. The leak would be small enough to not let a lot of water out, but air goes through smaller cracks.

To confirm this, watch for when the softener regenerates, and see if you can correlated the air to the morning after regen.

I brought up both of these issues to the company that works on these Ecowater systems softeners and they said it was a nonissue. He also mentioned that if air was being introduced during the regeneration, that the air would be released during the backwash cycle. Additionally, since draining our water heater, (4 days ago) we haven't had an issue until this morning. The softener didn't regenerate but the AN back washed. I forgot to mention something that might be worth mentioning. We typically only experience air in the pipes first thing in the morning when we flush the toilet or get a shower. It happens occasionally when we return home from work but not near as noticeable as first thing each morning.

 

[Reach4]

The softener didn't regenerate but the AN back washed.

That's a major discovery. I had presumed the AN did not backwash. If this correlates to AN backwash, then the valve may programmed wrong.

What valve controller do you have on the AN?

Another thing to consider is to just put a plug/cap on the port that would have gone to the brine tank for a softener.

 

[sarnone]

The head on the AN is a Fleck 5600 set to backwash every 4 days.

 

[Reach4]

I think the piston on that unit (backwash only for filter) would be the one that has black on top instead of white or blue.

If you have the black piston, which I expect, I would think that would limit any attempt to draw air. I don't know if sucking air would indicate a need for replacing the piston and seals.

In your 5600 service manual, see part 52 on page 12. That shows a 1/2 NPT adapter that has a barbed connection for connecting to the brine tank for softener operation. In filter operation, I would expect that to be plugged. See what you have there.