Water Softeners and Air Filtration Systems - Water smells like plastic

I bought a GE water softener (#GXSF27B00) off of ebay about three years ago. It appears to be unused. I only recently had the time to install it. Up until then it was sitting in my laundry room.

After installation, for the first few minutes, the water that came out of my faucets had a brown color to it and eventually ran clear. Then the water had a very heavy ordor of plastic or some such material. I thought that it would subside after running water through it for a few days, but it didn't. I have even regenerated four or five times. Nothing helps. I used copper pipe to plumb the softener, not PVC.

Could the resin be bad or deteriorated?
I would appreciate any help with this matter.

Thanks,
Richard42

Is there anything about your water that should be taken into consideration? If not, I'd look to the softener as to the cause of the problem. I would think based on your findings that it was previously in service before sitting in your garage for the last 3 years.

Post any additional updates as you discover them. Thanks.

Art

I have a similar situation. I bought a BRAND NEW Sears water softener (38K grain Genius II) on sale about 4 years ago and just installed it last weekend and I have a pronounced "fiberglass resin" smell to my water. If I bypass the softener, the water doesn't have this smell, so it's definitely coming from the softener. I think it's coming from the resin tank, which is made of fiberglass. I tried running it through several cycles and used bleach to sanitize it as stated in the manual, but so far, no luck. I read elsewhere on the web (a boating website) that vinegar will get rid of the fiberglass smell.
I called the place that I bought my pump/tank from and he said it shouldn't harm the resin bed as they also use citric acid in softeners periodically. I'm going to give it a try tonight.....stay tuned.

Well, I tried flushing the resin bed with 1 gallon of white vinegar and I thought that it seemed to reduce the odor, but my wife doesn't agree. I called Ecowater and spoke with someone from Customer Support and they've never heard of the problem.

The softeners that were stood for a year or so before they were installed would indeed leach out a small burst of deep yellowish colour until the water shortly became clear.

This is normal for new water softeners where the brand new softener resin in the mineral tank has residual colour that is a by-product of the manufacturing process, but it is harmless once rinsed through.

The fibreglass walls of the mineral tank do not actually come into contact with the water.

Depending on the construction of the tank it will almost certainly have a polyethylene inner liner shell upon which the fibre glass is wound onto and which creates the water seal up to the neck of the vessel.

If the tank is a Pentair Structural vessel or Park vessel, marked somewhere on the side of the vessel, it will be of high quality with a polyethylene inner liner that is inert and without imparting taste to the water.

If the tank is of a lower grade manufacture, it may have an inner liner shell of a poorer grade plastic, that has an adverse reaction to the dry softener resin that was allowed to sit in the tank dry for an extended period before it was installed.

The residue of plastics is one of the easiest things to detect by taste or smell in the finest particle concentrations as low as parts per billon and do take some time to flush out before they are not so noticeable.