water softener help?

[mberryrfd]

Our softener has been a problem since we moved in. I think I have a lot of it now working but I still copuld use a bit of help.
It appears to have a 50 gal brine tank How much salt should be in it?
does the canister filter need to be changed every so often?
And what gets me the most at what time of day should it be doing its draining and rinsing.
If it matters the only thing I can find is its name it is a Alamo brand softener. I have searched the net and cant find a manual for it.
I always wondered why we had bamboo growing next to the pump house last night I found out why .What I thought was a leak is the rinse drain. which explains how the bamboo is able to grow.
Yesterday I added salt and today I here EEEWWWW to much salt the water taste like salt.
And what is the real difference between the salt the the potassium ( I think this is what the other stuff is called ) should I be using
Thanks

[halfpint]

We keep our salt in the softener fairly full. When empty, it takes about 3-4 50lb bags to fill it. We have ours set to rinse at night about 2-3 AM, as that is when we are least likely to be running water as you are not supposed to have any water running during the rinse cycle.

We have a Culligan, they recommend that you not drink the water unless the salt has been filtered out of it - so we have a reverse osmosis filter on our kitchen sink. You could also purchase one of those pitcher type filters that you pour water in and it filters through, or maybe one of the ones that you attach to the faucet itself might work to take the salt out.

I'm not sure of the difference between salts, around here there seem to be granules, pellets and something like red-out - which is supposed to be good for getting the iron out if you have that problem. We like the granules as they seem to last longer than the pellets.
Dawn

[mberryrfd]

I added 4 40lb bags of salt and it only filled the brine half way
in the past ive only added 2 at a time and no one complained of the taste

[ckncrazy]

With mine I notice the salt taste for a few days. I think after a while it works all the loose salt dust out and the taste goes away. I usually fill mine full with the rust inhibator salt. Mine also rinses down at about 300 am.

JAKE

[Alice In TX/MO]

I'd call around and find a service man.

Ours cycles at 2:00 AM, once a week.

If someone flushes a toilet in the night when it's cycling, you may get salty water in the morning. If that happens, I wash a load of laundry, and that gets the salty water out of the lines.

[Alex]

You must get the directions or get a service man to tell you how to operate it and have him/her check the unit over to make sure it is working correctly.

Our brine tank is 15 gallons, with 10 gallons of salt water mixture in it. We put 8lbs into the tank each back wash, and keep that level of salt, in the bottom of the tank. We have the smallest size water softener available -- we don't have too much water use.

You need to regenerate the softener every so often, and that depends on the house water use: number of people, showers, washing loads, etc. The service person will give you an idea and then you can adjust the time interval between back washes and regenerations. If the water starts to feel a little too hard, then decrease the backwash interval.

You need to change upstream or downstream filters on a regular basis -- depends on your conditions.

The best idea is to get the operating instructions or call a service person. All of our water softeners and water quality are different. It is difficult to advise you. There is no set or correct answer, except a locally correct answer, with a particular type of softener.

You need to figure this out for yourself.

You should be able to drink your water, if it tests OK for impurities, etc..

Best of luck,

Alex