Water softener help

[Noob]

My water softener is not making soft water consistently. I changed the media out thinking that was the problem. I’ve called tech support several times only to be told that my settings are all good. I thought maybe I wasn’t keeping enough salt in the tank even after adding more salt nothing has changed. Can not enough salt in the brine tank cause hard water? I’m not if the system is even using salt to be honest. My system is set up for 6200 gallons per cycle. It seems I’ll start out with soft water and end up with hard water half way through the cycle. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[AnalyticWash]

My water softener is not making soft water consistently. I changed the media out thinking that was the problem. I’ve called tech support several times only to be told that my settings are all good. I thought maybe I wasn’t keeping enough salt in the tank even after adding more salt nothing has changed. Can not enough salt in the brine tank cause hard water? I’m not if the system is even using salt to be honest. My system is set up for 6200 gallons per cycle. It seems I’ll start out with soft water and end up with hard water half way through the cycle. Anybody have any suggestions?

It seems to me it is doing its job if it starts soft and ends up hard. Have you tried a shorter (less gallon) cycle?

How hard is the water from the city?

I assume you verified your regen cycle is set up correctly?

 

[Noob]

The techs have verified the settings several times over the phone. I’ve never had a problem until recently. I always had soft water throughout the entire cycle.
My volume has been up lately but that shouldn’t impact my gallons per cycle should it?

 

[PEI]

Do you have one head or two in your system.

We had a two head system in which head A didn't allow enough water back into the brine tank to fully recharge Tank B. Head B did allow enough water back into the brine tank to fully recharge Tank A. Whenever the wash was on Tank A we had 0 grains of hardness and when it was on Tank B we had 7 grains of hardness. This site has 9-12 grains coming from the city.

 

[Mchas]

6200 gallons seems like a lot. How many grains hard is your water? How big are your tanks?

FWIW, mine are set to around 3,000 gallons, with around 15 grains hard.

 

[Buckeye Hydro]

Some good comments above.

Start by determining the Total Compensated Hardness in your raw feedwater. To calculate your Total Compensated Hardness you'll need to know:

• Total Hardness (or the amount of Calcium and Magnesium)
• Iron
• Manganese

Next, determine the diameter and height of your mineral tank(s). There should be a sticker about shin high on the tank that gives you this info. Or you can actually measure the diameter and height. With this info re your tank, we can tell you how much new resin you should have put in the tank. Compare that to how much you actually put in each tank.

Determine what salting your valve is set at. This setting determines how much water is pushed into the brine tank at the end of the regen cycle.

With this info, we can determine the capacity of your softener in grains.

I suspect either the hardness of your feedwater changed, or when you put new resin in the tank you didn't put in enough resin.

Russ

 

[Noob]

After spending all day on the phone yesterday I believe we got the issue diagnosed. I took the heads apart, took the injectors out, cleaned out the brine tank a couple of times, ran several regen cycles. We finally figured out that the float in the brine take is only intermittently working which made it very hard to diagnose. It would fill and draw intermittently. Got a new one ordered and bypassed the float until then. Hopefully this takes care of it. Thanks guys!

 

[Buckeye Hydro]

Are you talking about the air check valve? The float valve should only be set as a fail safe to prevent over filling.