water softener question

LFmenagerie · #1 07/07/10, 07:20 AM

We have very hard well water with so much iron that it will stain everything - sinks, tub, toilet, clothing, hair, dishes, etc., not to mention the strong iron taste. We bought our house about eight years ago with a functioning water softener. I just add salt when it gets low and I have never let it run out. The softener has a little LCD screen that shows a percentage of charge and it normally recharges automatically at about 90 to 95%. I set the time for recharging at 2:00 AM so it never interferes with normal water usage. Now, even when the display says zero or 10% the water is very hard. I have manually set it to recharge a couple of times in the last week or so and still no change.
My question: are there ways to trouble shoot or repair water softeners or are we just going to have to bite-the-bullet and buy a new one.
TIA Tom

cfabe · #2 07/07/10, 07:45 AM

Well I'm not an expert on softeners, I just installed our first one last week. But I did discover that with high iron water, you can foul the resin in the softener over time. They make a "rust remover" salt that has an extra ingredient to help clear the iron out of the softener, but I'm not sure if it will recover fouled resin. I believe there is also a treatment designed for recovering iron fouled resin. So, no I don't think you need to replace the unit. At worst, you'd have to replace the resin. My new softener also has a setting for high-iron water which does some sort of extra flush in the recharge cycle. If yours has that feature, turn it on.

If you have very high iron, you may need to install a separate iron filter. The softeners I was looking at were rated at what was the max ppm of iron they could handle. They ranged from 1-5 ppm iron max. Above that you have to go with a separate iron filter.

watcher · #3 07/07/10, 09:10 AM

You might want to clean it out. Some times the salt will 'bridge over" in the machine and causes problems.

Darren · #4 07/07/10, 12:58 PM

Cfabe mentioned a possible problem. You might want to have your water tested for Iron, both ferrous and ferric, to see if the water softener has what it takes to do the job. In many cases a greensand filter will remove the iron by itself meaning you don't have to use a water softener and buy salt forever.

You need the water test results before anyone can provide a solution. Water can change over the years. Your raw water may not be the same as when you first installed the water softner.

If the resin beads are fouled to the point they need attention beyond a simple back wash, that's another issue.

rancher1913 · #5 07/07/10, 07:31 PM

you need a prefilter to get rid of the iron and it sounds like your resin bed is exhausted. you will need to get the resin cleaner or replace the resin. make sure that you still have about 2/3 of your tank full of resin, sometimes over time the resin will "leave" the system and need replaced. if your not good a fixing things you might want to get a serviceperson out. one thing to check before you get to far is when the unit is in the brine draw stage is it removing the water from the brine tank, also check the discharge water after the brine draw and it sould taste very salty if its working right.

plowjockey · #6 07/07/10, 08:19 PM

We have very high iron and use a softener with no prefilter for at least 6 years, with our kid's taking showers long enough to fill a swimming pool. Our worked fine until I let it run out of salt (but that is another story). Had to tear into the input and clean iron off of the meter sensor.

First off, find a manual somewhere for troubleshooting for your model. The way a water softener works, is really quite simple, but you need specifics.

Most newer softeners work by "demand" where they measure how much water actually passes through the softener. When it gets to a certain point, it will then regenerate at the time you have selected (2am) and reset to measure until the next time.

Our model does not display "percentages", so I can't tell you what that means, but a manual probably could. That may be the water metering amount.

Resin problems usually do not happen overnight, so personally, I would rule that out, if the water went from "ok" to hard, quickly. Also, is the salt still disappearing? A good way to tell if the unit is at least regenerating. If you have bad rust stains, it sounds like the unit is not working at all.

If you cannot run a manual cycle, you may have problems with the timer unit. (start a manual cycle and verify that it runs through completely) Some timers cost over 1/2 of the price of a new softener, so you may have to weight whether it may be better to just replace it. Same with replacement resin, which costs about $150 and up.

Find an operations manual first and see what's what. It should have troubleshooting steps also.

Have fun.

deb · #7 07/07/10, 08:30 PM

We rented a house with a well and the iron content of the water was very high. We rented a water softener that was made to deal with high iron and got special "iron out" salt for it as well. It worked great and we didn't have a prefilter.

I wouldn't assume your softener is dead. I would call a company that services water softeners and have them test your water first. After you get the results have them look at your current softener and get a repair quote. Testing water and repair quotes are free here, but you might want to ask before you make an appt.

Deb
in wi

LFmenagerie · #8 07/08/10, 07:35 AM

Thank you to everyone that helped shed some light on my softener issues. I'm pretty confident that we won't have to replace it now. The $1000 - $2000 to replace it would have hit the budget harder than we really want to deal with right now.
I also talked to my BIL and he said he has a similar model of the same brand to deal with his very high iron water also. He is coming over in the next couple of days to help me take it apart and give it a good cleaning. He also recommended that I pick up a product called Iron Out to help clean the parts and then to add to the brine tank periodically to help prevent the build-up of iron deposits.
Thanks again, Tom

Darren · #9 07/08/10, 08:01 AM

Iron Out is a form of oxalic acid. Make sure that any parts of your water softener that contain drinking water are well flushed before drinking any of the water after it's been cleaned with Iron Out. It's great at removing iron stains. Not good on metal parts. It's mildly corrosive.

Wolf mom · #10 07/08/10, 09:41 AM

Yuppers, I'd go with having your well checked. If it's old or metal piping was used, it may be rusting out.

I really dislike water softeners for the amount of salts they dump into the environment. If you don't drink it - why would you think fish & plants would?

I have a well with really hard water. No iron though. I just have a Berkey water filter set up for drinking & my coffee pot.

jross · #11 07/08/10, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darren

Iron Out is a form of oxalic acid. Make sure that any parts of your water softener that contain drinking water are well flushed before drinking any of the water after it's been cleaned with Iron Out. It's great at removing iron stains. Not good on metal parts. It's mildly corrosive.

Iron out does work, but heed the advice in flushing the softener. Bypass it before treating. After cleaning ours and contacting Cargill regarding iron fouling it was recommended we use one bag of rust remover salt for each 3 bags of potassium chloride which is what we use instead of sodium chloride. It costs twice as much though. We bought it first at Lowe's for $8.00 per bag. Lowes no longer carried it, so we went to Agway at $13.00 per bag, then Agway raised their prices to $19.00 per bag, so we got it at Tractor Supply which opened a store near us for $9.00 per bag. Tractor Supply now sells it for $18.75 per bag and Agway's price? $44.95 per bag! Makes Tractor Supply look like a bargain.