Water Softeners and Air Filtration Systems - Stumped... softener putting out hard water

Equipment: 40k grain capacity, Fleck 7000 valve, fine mesh resin, and some sort of Best Value Hardware store generic iron out salt. All of which is less than 3 months old. (purchased from discountwatersofteners.com)

I'm on a well, source water is somewhere around 500-600ppm hardness, or 35 grains per gallon, plus about 1ppm iron. I have my fleck 7000 set to metered-delayed, 36k capacity, 45grains of hardness, etc. I have tested every valve position; backwash, brine rinse, rapid rinse, brine fill, etc. All modes appear to be functioning correctly. There is a nice brine solution in my brine tank, but the salt level doesn't appear to have changed in 3 months.

Well I was getting soft water for a while, and I know it was regenerating because the rubber hose popped out of my drain a few times, spraying water on my basement floor. All the stains on my stainless dishwasher went away, my dishes were getting clean, my toilets stayed white... And so on.

Well we had a power outage, and after that point, back to hard water. It was after this point that I checked all the programming and tested every valve position, only to find that all of them WORK, but I still have hard water. I have gone through all the troubleshooting in my manual, the Fleck 7000 appears to be working correctly, the bypass is closed, I KNOW the system is regenerating, I know the brine rinse cycle is pulling in brine solution, but its still not producing soft water.

How could this be possible? The water is passing through the ion exchanger immediately after a regeneration, but no soft water?? Is there any way my resin might have been washed away?? Any other things I should check for?

Could there be an issue with my brine tank? The salt level seems unchanged, but I don't know for sure. I can see water down there, and it tastes salty. Also, the resin tank draws water from the brine tank during the proper cycle.

With your capacity setting of 36K you should be using about 19 pounds of salt for each regeneration. 19 pounds of salt at 3 pounds per gallon of water will require 6+ gallons of water for each brine refill. If the level of the salt hasn't changed since the install it obviously isn't drawing brine and unless the overflow float in the tank is activated by a high water level it isn't putting water in the brine tank either.

With 4 people in the household, assuming 60 gpd per person and using your 45 grain setting then the unit should be regenerating every 3 days. (240 gal x 45 grains =10,800 grains per day and 36,000 grains capacity less a safety factor should give you a regeneration every three days. So 30 regenerations in 3 months at 19 pounds of salt per regeneration = 570 pounds of salt used to date. Obviously that isn't happening.

So how did you go about determining that it was working?

What is the size of your brine line flow control (BLFC)? There should be a sticker on the valve with this information. How many minutes do you have the valve set up for for brine refill?

Typically units are shipped with a .5 gpm BLFC so to get 6 gallons of water your brine refill would be 12 minutes.

Thanks for the reply!

With 4 people in the household, assuming 60 gpd per person and using your 45 grain setting then the unit should be regenerating every 3 days. (240 gal x 45 grains =10,800 grains per day and 36,000 grains capacity less a safety factor should give you a regeneration every three days. So 30 regenerations in 3 months at 19 pounds of salt per regeneration = 570 pounds of salt used to date. Obviously that isn't happening.

I'll start with this part; The calculation I used to determine softener size was 60gpd x 2 people in the house x 45gpg (between 35-40gpg harness and 1ppm iron) x 7 days = 37,800 grains per week. So it should be regenerating once per week roughly, and it seems to do that.

With your capacity setting of 36K you should be using about 19 pounds of salt for each regeneration. 19 pounds of salt at 3 pounds per gallon of water will require 6+ gallons of water for each brine refill. If the level of the salt hasn't changed since the install it obviously isn't drawing brine and unless the overflow float in the tank is activated by a high water level it isn't putting water in the brine tank either.

19 pounds of salt per regeneration? Definitely not doing that... (how did you calculate that number btw?)

It IS drawing brine during the brine rinse valve position. I could clearly see water movement from the brine tank to the resin tank. But obviously since the salt level isn't decreasing, its someone managing to not create a brine solution in the brine tank... Which again baffles me because the water in the brine tank is very salty. :confused:

So how did you go about determining that it was working?

Well, after I installed it and did a manual regeneration and programmed it, it was unquestionably producing soft water for at least a couple weeks. Our water has 1ppm iron which stains everything and stinks, so its pretty obvious that we all of a sudden had soft water. I have a stainless dishwasher and after two washes, all the nasty hard water stains were gone, and my dishes were finally clean. In addition, I tested the harness at under 100ppm, down from 600-800 ppm. Now the "softened" water tests the same as the non softened lines.

But now that I know that its not using salt like it should, I really don't know when I determined it was not working. We've probably only had this installed for around 2 months, not 3, (can't remember for sure) so I suppose its possible that it softened water until all the resin got dirty and then stopped, since the brine rinse obviously isn't working... And I equated it to when our power went out.

What is the size of your brine line flow control (BLFC)? There should be a sticker on the valve with this information. How many minutes do you have the valve set up for for brine refill?

Typically units are shipped with a .5 gpm BLFC so to get 6 gallons of water your brine refill would be 12 minutes.

That sounds about right... Its a pretty small line and doesn't flow too fast, probably close to .5 gpm. And it runs for exactly 12 minutes, the default setting.

Alright so we know that there is water in the brine tank, and I can see water being pulled into the resin tank during the rinse cycle, as can I see water going into the brine tank during the refill cycle, and finally, the brine solution is salty, yet my salt levels don't decrease and the water isn't being softened at all...

19 pounds of salt per regeneration? Definitely not doing that... (how did you calculate that number btw?)

l...

You have 1.25 cubic feet of resin and you programmed to use it at maximum capacity (40,000) (actually 90%--your safety factor). (By the way this is a very salt inefficient setting--approximately 2000 grains per pound of salt.)

The standard formula to regenerate one cubic foot of resin to maximum capacity is 15 lbs salt/cubic foot (this figure may be adjusted a bit for your fine mesh resin but lets save that for when you get the unit working). So for 1.25 cubic feet it is 19 lbs. If you are actually putting 6 gallons of water in the tank it will dissolve 18 lbs of salt.

So--there is no way you are putting 6 gallons of water in the tank during brine fill and then drawing 6 gallons of brine from the tank during the brine/slow rinse.

You need to figure out which part of the process isn't working.

How deep is the water in the brine tank when the tank has been filled? What is the level after brining and before refill? If you have an 18" brine tank each inch of water depth equals about 1 gallon. Of course if you have filled the tank with salt each gallon will be substantially more than one inch--I don't have a figure because of the many variables.

What I suspect is that either the are not getting proper draw OR the tank is not filling properly(this could occur if the safety float leve is set too low cutting off the fill early).

Inadequate draw is most likely caused by a kinked or blocked line, an air leak, or dirt or an obstruction in the injector (inside the head--you need to disassemble/clean/carefully inspect).

Does your brine tank have a grid plate? Could be the salt is not sitting in the water due to the grid plate.