Water Softener Installation Problems Fleck2510SE

I'll report back when I get some time under my belt with this system.
Its all working well now. I"m not happy about the size brine tank I bought because I think having a salt tray is irrelevent when you pump the thing full to nearly the oveflow.

Its looking like I use about 3100 gallons in 9 days so I'm not using as much water as I had thought. I set my brine refill to 8 minutes and that is still slightly long and still just do hit the overflow stop before the time is up.

My largest problem now is fairly good drips at my unions that I cant get to stop no matter how tight I make the joints. I sweated copper unions (connections) to my new pump (and also at the softener that dont leak at all). I may have to bite the bullit and remove the dripping ones and try replacing them. I just hate to get the torch out again and with water in the lines its even tougher.

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A salt grid allows nothing but water under it, without one, your water level in the tank would rise higher than with one and you barely have enough space for the water now! IOWs, you need a larger grid than you have, but without either the salt tank couldn't work at anywhere your salt dose setting.

18gpg * 360 gals/day at 60*6 people= 6480 grains used/day. 3100 gals * 18 gpg = 55800 total grains between regenerations in a 2.0 cuft softener! A 2.0' of regular mesh resin gets 60K @ 30 lbs of salt. You are using 56K and your salt dose has to be roughly 27 lbs or you don't get 56k.

IIRC you are using 12 minutes of refill @ .5gpm (1.5lbs/minute) = 6 gallons * 3 lbs/gal = 18 lbs, proving you are not getting 56K of regenerated capacity.

When the bed is totally exhausted, and it will be soon, if you're lucky you might be getting 36k (now with 18 lbs) although I doubt it and your water should be hard well before you reach 3-4 days after a regeneration.

Your water should go hard in about another week if it takes that long. You also do not have any reserve in your settings.

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OK, after one month using my new 64K softener. I adjusted the brined to 8 minutes and that just fills the tanks without overflowing. I set the default regen to 14 days and the gallons to 3126.

I think we push 10 days to use 3000 gallons (some weekends two kids go to their dads so this may account for the reduction). Anyway, we have yet to run into hard water with the settings I have so far. So either the hardness is less than tested, or the iron safety factor really overdid it.

The only real problem I have now is that our BUNN coffee maker overflows the grounds when using soft water so I have to buy spring water from the store for coffee (until I get my RO system in place). This is a known issue with soft water and the better/fresher the coffee the worse the problem.
Also, the kids all say they hate the new water and wont drink it (more store bought water). Just shoot me now cause I just cant win!!!

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kb9nvh wrote:

The only real problem I have now is that our BUNN coffee maker overflows the grounds when using soft water so I have to buy spring water from the store for coffee (until I get my RO system in place). This is a known issue with soft water and the better/fresher the coffee the worse the problem.

Call Bunn @ 800-352-2866 and ask for a special sprayhead and a de-scaling tool. They'll send them to you for free and use a coarser grind of coffee with soft water.

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Actually did get the new sprayhead and descaler. No scale was present (that I could tel) and I still overflow. I guess a courser grind would do the trick but then I would start using alot more expensive coffee per caraf full.

Funny how soft water can make such a difference but it really does. I"m told (by my chemistry friends) that all the sodium carbinates in the soft water make it a better surfactant (which seems to me would make it go through the grounds better) but what do I know..LOL

justalurker wrote:

kb9nvh wrote:
The only real problem I have now is that our BUNN coffee maker overflows the grounds when using soft water so I have to buy spring water from the store for coffee (until I get my RO system in place). This is a known issue with soft water and the better/fresher the coffee the worse the problem.

Call Bunn @ 800-352-2866 and ask for a special sprayhead and a de-scaling tool. They'll send them to you for free and use a coarser grind of coffee with soft water.

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I take it Quality Water Treatment (QWT), Jeremy is it, didn't give you any help with the programming... To prevent confusion, I'm Quality Water Associates. So to prevent me from feeling guilty I'll help...

The 3125 gals you are programmed for, * 20 gpg= 62.5k, so the salt dose has to be set @ 30 lbs for 60k, and then you won't get over 60k. Any less salt lbs and you are going to get hardness and iron through the bed, unless the iron and hardness figures are lower than .6 and 18 gpg. 3125/360 gals on average for a 6 person family = 8.6 days, not 14 etc.. Your 8 mins * 1.5 lbs/min of brine refill = 12 lbs. In a 2.0 cuft of regular mesh resin, 12 lbs gets you 40k of capacity. IOWs, the math is saying your settings aren't right.

The explanation/info behind all that is on the sizing chart page on my web site.

The times of each cycle position are factory defaults. I'd change them to; backwash 6 minutes, brine draw for 45, any second backwash (rapid rinse on a Fleck) 6 mins and final rinse for 4. Brine refill should be 8 mins @ 1.5lbs/min=12 lbs (and 40k of capacity).

If you get hardness leakage, or leave it run out of salt, you need to do two back to back regens with 30 lbs each with as little water use between them as possible, if any.

Your salt tank is too small for more than 12 lbs of salt without grid extension legs or a larger tank; or keep less salt in it. As long as there is undissolved salt under the water at the end of 2 hours after brine refill completion, it's enough salt for regeneration.

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Thanks Gary,

The 3125 gals you are programmed for, * 20 gpg= 62.5k, so the salt dose has to be set @ 30 lbs for 60k, and then you won't get over 60k.
Any less salt lbs and you are going to get hardness and iron through the bed, unless the iron and hardness figures are lower than .6 and 18 gpg.
**My iron is 0.06 so I guess is so low to be inconsequential.***
**Instead of 20 maybe I should be using 18**

3125/360 gals on average for a 6 person family = 8.6 days, not 14 etc..
***I'm thinking we are using less water than anticipated. When set to 10 days We still had like 700 gallons to go**

Your 8 mins * 1.5 lbs/min of brine refill = 12 lbs. In a 2.0 cuft of regular mesh resin, 12 lbs gets you 40k of capacity. IOWs, the math is saying your settings aren't right.
**OK, so maybe it recycled early the first time (10 days and kept me well above full depletion. So, if I just treat my softener like its a 40K unit and recycle accordingly my brine tank is OK size?? ***

The explanation/info behind all that is on the sizing chart page on my web site.

The times of each cycle position are factory defaults. I'd change them to; backwash 6 minutes, brine draw for 45, any second backwash (rapid rinse on a Fleck) 6 mins and final rinse for 4. Brine refill should be 8 mins @ 1.5lbs/min=12 lbs (and 40k of capacity).
**I'll check into this, I dont remember the factory defaults but that was what they were set to and what was recommended by QW treatment.***

If you get hardness leakage, or leave it run out of salt, you need to do two back to back regens with 30 lbs each with as little water use between them as possible, if any.
**As of today I've gone from 3125 gallons to go to now about 100 gallon to go before regen. I'm pretty sure I"m past 10 days (I dont know for sure, wish the programmer would list it out "days left". No sign of hard water at all. I just took a shower and still slippery.***

Your salt tank is too small for more than 12 lbs of salt without grid extension legs or a larger tank; or keep less salt in it. As long as there is undissolved salt under the water at the end of 2 hours after brine refill completion, it's enough salt for regeneration.
**I'll see how this all goes and maybe get a larger brine tank if it seems to be a problem, right now, it seems like its keeping up with demand..maybe I didn't need such a large softener after all.

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kb9nvh wrote:

Instead of 20 maybe I should be using 18

That's compensated hardness.

kb9nvh wrote:

I'm thinking we are using less water than anticipated. When set to 10 days We still had like 700 gallons to go

Possibly or, Fleck uses 75 gal/person/day as their default... I use 60 and rarely is that wrong.

kb9nvh wrote:

OK, so maybe it recycled early the first time (10 days and kept me well above full depletion. So, if I just treat my softener like its a 40K unit and recycle accordingly my brine tank is OK size??

You have is set at 12 lbs now...

kb9nvh wrote:

I'll check into this, I dont remember the factory defaults but that was what they were set to and what was recommended by QW treatment.

I've sold Fleck for 20 years, trust me, all control valves are initially programmed to factory defaults and without digging out or looking up a .pdf file version of a manual, those are the default settings. QWT didn't set them, they had their supplier ship the unit to you and suppliers usually do not do any programming because us dealers would have to provide the supplier all your info or the data. That takes too much time and would raise the price of the equipment. DIYers do the programming but... QWT, Ohio Pure Water and many others don't give their customers the data.

kb9nvh wrote:

As of today I've gone from 3125 gallons to go to now about 100 gallon to go before regen. I'm pretty sure I"m past 10 days (I dont know for sure, wish the programmer would list it out "days left". No sign of hard water at all. I just took a shower and still slippery.

If you don't change the settings, let us know how it works in another month.

kb9nvh wrote:

I'll see how this all goes and maybe get a larger brine tank if it seemto be a problem, right now, it seems like its keeping up with demand..maybe I didn't need such a large softener after all.

If you program it as I've told you, it will get you by but really it's smaller than optimal for a family of 6 and 20 gpg hardness.

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OK, I finally got a hardness tester and after a few months of running with the wrong settings i end up with hard water by the time I get to 3125gallons.

So, I either have to get a larger brine tank or reduce my gallons until regeneration to get soft water at all times.

I'm pretty pissed the guy sold me a salt tank that was too small to regenerated my 64K unit. but I guess you can argue that I am supposed to regenerated more often. In any case, having too much brine allows you the leeway to decide how to set up your softener.

Bottom line is, I guess according to your figures, I need to adjust the gallons until regeneration as if I had a 40K unit (not 64K) because I dont have enough salt dose to regen the entire 64K.

I'm regening now and will be checking over the month to see where I stand with hardness. I'll probably end up getting a larger brine tank (adding 100 bucks to the cost of my setup that I could have avoided if I had picked a better reseller.

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kb9nvh wrote:

OK, I finally got a hardness tester and after a few months of running with the wrong settings i end up with hard water by the time I get to 3125gallons.

How many days between regenerations as the softener is set now?

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I changed it to 2250 gallons now instead of 3125 aa before...
default is 13 days I think.....if not enough gallons are used.

Water was hard tonight and I let it regen with the salt dose available in my small tank as I have been. I was tempted to regen twice to recharge the whole tank but I think that using jus the dose I have now will be more realistic for the future if I dont get a large brine tank.

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kb9nvh wrote:

OK, I finally got a hardness tester and after a few months of running with the wrong settings i end up with hard water by the time I get to 3125gallons.

I see my prediction of a month missed by two weeks unless it took that long for you to buy a test kit and get back to us.

kb9nvh wrote:

So, I either have to get a larger brine tank or reduce my gallons until regeneration to get soft water at all times.

That tells me you still do not understand how to correctly set up your softener.

kb9nvh wrote:

I'm pretty pissed the guy sold me a salt tank that was too small to regenerated my 64K unit. but I guess you can argue that I am supposed to regenerated more often. In any case, having too much brine allows you the leeway to decide how to set up your softener.

Your problem has nothing to do with the size of your salt tank.

And you should not want to set your capacity at 60K, that will use the most salt that the softener can which gives you the worst salt efficiency.

kb9nvh wrote:

Bottom line is, I guess according to your figures, I need to adjust the gallons until regeneration as if I had a 40K unit (not 64K) because I dont have enough salt dose to regen the entire 64K.

The capacity is adjustable in all softeners.

Thereby the K of capacity depends on the cuft volume and type of resin used AND THE SALT DOSE setting in lbs.

It's like your fuel mileage in your car, it has nothing to do with the size of the gas tank OR HOW MANY GALLONS OF GAS YOU BUY EACH WEEK! OR, how many days you go between buying gas.

If you had a 1.25 cuft (40k) softener, you would have to program it for the max 40k at the max salt dose of 15lbs per cuft foot to get 40K (18.75lbs). And then you would get the same terrible salt efficiency as 60k in a 2.0 cuft softener gets you (2k/lb). Do you want to buy the max amount of salt or the least?

You can't get 64k with 2.0 cuft of regular mesh resin, the max is 60K and it takes 30lbs of salt to get 60K. Why are you not getting that or not believing me? And how's that working for you!

You bought an undersized softener for your family size and water hardness at least. Maybe the SFR the number of bathrooms and type of fixtures in the house requires is wrong too. So now make it as salt efficient as possible and get on with your life.

kb9nvh wrote:

I'm regening now and will be checking over the month to see where I stand with hardness. I'll probably end up getting a larger brine tank (adding 100 bucks to the cost of my setup that I could have avoided if I had picked a better reseller.

You don't need a larger brine tank.

You need to go back through this thread and set up the control valve as I have shown you. Then do two back to back regenerations at the MAX salt dose of 30lbs each. You may have to take some salt out of the brine tank to get 10 gallons of water in it without overflowing it on the floor.

Yes you bought from the wrong folks but how they and Ohio Pure Water etc. size softeners is the norm for 99% of local and online dealers because they do not get into the salt efficiency settings while the few that get into the SFR get it wrong.

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****I see my prediction of a month missed by two weeks unless it took that long for you to buy a test kit and get back to us.

Its just taken me this long to get back...I've suspected I've been into hard water before I reached by gallon setting for a few cycles now.

*****That tells me you still do not understand how to correctly set up your softener.

As far as not understanding the problem...well, I do understand that to optimise salt usage that you cant plan on recharging the entire resin tank (in other words, you should regen prior to exhausting my 60 grains and if I do try and use up the 60 grains I will get punch through and not have completely soft water). My statement of getting a larger salt tank was to give me the option of using that kind of salt dose if I desire.
Although, I will admit my feel for the problem probably isn't what it should be as I haven't wanted to think about this until it became obvious it was a problem. I will go back and reread the thread and make your settings that you recomended (that I did not do before).

I would seem that reducing my gallons between recharge would solve this problem (figuring the gallons on something less than what my 15lbs os salt charge will handle).

I have one question....You say to do a double recharge at 30lbs/salt and I"m assuming you're attempting to get my resin back to a fully recharged state (rather than semi charged as my 15lb recharge would do).
With my small brine tank I would have to remove salt to get the max of liquid available for the charge...Can I just do three recharges or 4 to get to where I need to be?

Also, I seems that, unless i get the salt dose right I will constantly be chasing my tail until it get to the same place I'm at now, with hard water punch through. So the idea is to always use slightly more salt than what was removed during the softening process. Right? And always recharge when calculations show you have used up maybe 20 grains less than your specified capacity (60 grains in my case).

I'll go back and reread the thread and make your suggested settings tonight.

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kb9nvh wrote:

I have one question....You say to do a double recharge at 30lbs/salt and I"m assuming you're attempting to get my resin back to a fully recharged state (rather than semi charged as my 15lb recharge would do).

Yes they regenerate all of the resin fully; to the softener's max 60K of capacity.

kb9nvh wrote:

With my small brine tank I would have to remove salt to get the max of liquid available for the charge...Can I just do three recharges or 4 to get to where I need to be?

Yes remove salt and water into a bucket and pour the water off back into the tank. No 3-4 regens will not work. It has to be two at the maximum salt dose for the volume of resin.

kb9nvh wrote:

... So the idea is to always use slightly more salt than what was removed during the softening process. Right? And always recharge when calculations show you have used up maybe 20 grains less than your specified capacity (60 grains in my case).

No. Not really.

Your softener has max 60K grains of capacity when fully regenerated with 30 lbs of salt. You set it to use 12bs. and get 40K between regenerations. There is still 20K of capacity left in the bed when we regenerate it. That's how we can use only 12 lbs of salt instead of 30 lbs. It's like having a 20 gal fuel tank and filling up when the dash gauge shows a 1/4 tank left. You didn't use waste or lose the 5 gals still in the tank; you only have to buy 15 gallons instead of 20 plus gallons to restart a stalled fuel injected engine out along the highway.

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OK, using your gas analogy...
Your tank of gas holds 100 gallons is good for 100 miles,
You always fill up when you reach 70 miles.
When you fill up you only need 70 gallons instead of the full 100.

Now if you get poorer gas milage during one trip you might use more than 70 gallons and if this continued then you would eventually use up all your gas since you are only adding back 70 gallons and you used more than that. If you get better milage then you will go the other way so its sounds like a balancing act (chassing the tail scenerio where you either catch the tail or you never do).

Anyway, I think I understand the problem and why you start with a full charge (full tank of gas). thanks..I'll update this thread when I get more news.

Quote:

No. Not really.

Your softener has max 60K grains of capacity when fully regenerated with 30 lbs of salt. You set it to use 12bs. and get 40K between regenerations. There is still 20K of capacity left in the bed when we regenerate it. That's how we can use only 12 lbs of salt instead of 30 lbs. It's like having a 20 gal fuel tank and filling up when the dash gauge shows a 1/4 tank left. You didn't use waste or lose the 5 gals still in the tank; you only have to buy 15 gallons instead of 20 plus gallons to restart a stalled fuel injected engine out along the highway.

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kb9nvh wrote:

OK, using your gas analogy...
Your tank of gas holds 100 gallons is good for 100 miles,
You always fill up when you reach 70 miles.
When you fill up you only need 70 gallons instead of the full 100.

Now if you get poorer gas milage during one trip you might use more than 70 gallons and if this continued then you would eventually use up all your gas since you are only adding back 70 gallons and you used more than that. If you get better milage then you will go the other way so its sounds like a balancing act (chassing the tail scenerio where you either catch the tail or you never do).

Anyway, I think I understand the problem and why you start with a full charge (full tank of gas). thanks..I'll update this thread when I get more news.

You are getting only 1 mpg and that is terrible fuel mileage :wink: but... with a softener, we use an averaged K of capacity (40 in your case), we don't get it right down into the nitty gritty area as in your gas analogy. And instead of using miles driven, use gallons used. In a softener we use a service run of a number of gallons and then if enough gallons have not been used in the number of days, fill up anyway (calendar override). Either way we know how many lbs of salt will be used in a given time frame.

Instead of fixating on miles, figure that to go back'n forth to work on a weekly basis it takes you an average of X gallons and you fill up every Sat afternoon regardless of what the gauge on your dash says.

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OK, Garry, dont yell at me but here's what I did...

I did NOT regenerate the softener with 2X 30lb iterations. From a state of depletion I allowed the softener to recharge with its normal max of 12lbs (I think that how many pounds you said the max was for my small brine tank). I then watched my water usage until I hit hard water. I might have gotten some punch through prior but I was able to go 2200 gallons before I was into hard water.

I set my settings according to your previous suggestions except I only have a final rinse (no rapid rinse) so I set it to 8 min. And I did two recharges in a row (too lazy to dig salt out of the brine tank to do the 30lb thing). I set my gallons to 2100 and my default to 10 days.

******************************
The times of each cycle position are factory defaults. I'd change them to; backwash 6 minutes, brine draw for 45, any second backwash (rapid rinse on a Fleck) 6 mins and final rinse for 4. Brine refill should be 8 mins @ 1.5lbs/min=12 lbs (and 40k of capacity).
**I'll check into this, I dont remember the factory defaults but that was what they were set to and what was recommended by QW treatment.
***********************

My thinking is that I dont have my entire tank recharged yet (but one day whan I get the time I'll do the 30lbs of brine thing). From my testing I should not run out of soft water now. What do you think and what problems will I have not following your exact instructions?

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My guess, you will get hard water breakthrough sooner this time. Then you should do three manual regenerations at 30 lbs each.

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Could you expand on the need for three iterations of 30 lbs of salt to get the 60 grain softener fully back to a recharged state (previously you stated that two recharges would be enough to get it back to fully recharged after it was completely depleted).

1) The brine draw is set for 45 min...does the brine "soak" time allow for the salt to react more fully (since all the brine is pulled from the brine tank way before this time)?

2) Is the need for so many 30lb recharges (three) required due to the inherent inefficiancies of the recharge process? ( ie of the 30lbs of salt a certain percentage is always wasted)?

My thoughts are that since, in my last experiment, I started with the worst case (fully discharged system) and then allowed a normal recharge (12lbs of salt), the "gallons" at which I hit hard water should be pretty much the salt efficiency of my limited brine (12lbs) source. I don't think my punch through was excessive but my feeling is that it only occurred during the last 100 gallons or so.

I do appreciate your taking the time to help me understand how this all works....and I know its probably aggravating that I'm not just following your direction but I really wanted to see the results of my last experiment.

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kb9nvh wrote:

Could you expand on the need for three iterations of 30 lbs of salt to get the 60 grain softener fully back to a recharged state (previously you stated that two recharges would be enough to get it back to fully recharged after it was completely depleted).

I didn't say your resin was going to be "completely depleted", that is your assumption. You have hardness breakthrough.

kb9nvh wrote:

1) The brine draw is set for 45 min...does the brine "soak" time allow for the salt to react more fully (since all the brine is pulled from the brine tank way before this time)?

No, it doesn't work that way.

kb9nvh wrote:

2) Is the need for so many 30lb recharges (three) required due to the inherent inefficiancies of the recharge process? ( ie of the 30lbs of salt a certain percentage is always wasted)?

No, it has nothing to do with "inefficiencies" of any kind.

kb9nvh wrote:

My thoughts are that since, in my last experiment, I started with the worst case (fully discharged system) and then allowed a normal recharge (12lbs of salt), the "gallons" at which I hit hard water should be pretty much the salt efficiency of my limited brine (12lbs) source. I don't think my punch through was excessive but my feeling is that it only occurred during the last 100 gallons or so.

Your thoughts are assumptions, they are incorrect, when in a hole and not wanting to be there, stop digging. lol A softener should always produce 0 gpg soft water. When it doesn't, something is wrong. Yes you got hard water the last so many gallons, that is wrong, this time you should get hard water sooner than last time. And until you do the 2 manual 30 lb regens, you will get hard water sooner than the time before. And soon you will have to do 3 manual 30 lb regenerations.

kb9nvh wrote:

I do appreciate your taking the time to help me understand how this all works....and I know its probably aggravating that I'm not just following your direction but I really wanted to see the results of my last experiment.

That's because you don't rust me. So now you've done it your way, how's that working for you?

I can't teach you how this all works in posts. The folks you bought from should have taught you before you bought; that's what I do for my customers. They didn't, so you either keep going on your assumptions or do what I suggest you do. Example, I never knew how planes flew until I went to become a pilot... I did know that planes flew, so I listened to the theory of flight and eventually passed the tests based on what they told me and I flew planes. As to what allows a plane to fly, it is still called 'the theory of flight' but, since they do, what do I care as to how it happens?

Your softener works until it gives you hard water before it regenerates, so fix it and it will work properly unless you exceed the SFR of the volume of resin you have. The longer you take to fix it, the more salt it will require for you to get to the fix; 60 lbs now and if you keep playing around, the fix will cost you another 90 lbs. plus you live with the hard water while it isn't working properly.

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Water Softener Installation Problems Fleck2510SE

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