Softener resin escaping

Call the outfit you bought from and make them find out what gpm DLFC should be in it.

When you reset your salt to 4 lbs and get back to service, push the Next button and watch the time instead of the gallons. That way you won't drive yourself nuts with why this'n that. As long as the water is soft, all is well. You can't average the total gallons by x days. And 12 days is way too long and the calendar override should have caused a regen the morning of the 9th day, why didn't it? Set it at AUTO, Normal + on 0 and then day 8.

It doesn't matter how many gallons are used per day, it's the total between regenerations (999), and the calendar override.

The 13000 is the capacity, like it says.

The computer calculates the variable reserve and when to regenerate.

BTW, I am now selling into Canada. I sold the first last week. The guy had to pay Canadian taxes of $149 and a broker fee of $60 or the fee was part of the $149, I forget.

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Call the outfit you bought from and make them find out what gpm DLFC should be in it.

The chap told me that the DLFc was the right one and you said it should be the smaller one. No-one has yet said, and the manual doesn't say, what is the purpose of the DLFC and how to calculate the size needed.

In fact, no-one has info on anything except how to assemble the unit and how to program it. Not with the dealer, not anywhere I can find on the internet (especially a Clack website) that has ANY info on how to program it for individual needs.

Quote:

12 days is way too long and the calendar override should have caused a regen the morning of the 9th day, why didn't it?

It never went 12 days between regens. I tripped it on Jan 12th and it will go again tonight. That's 8 days. It was blinking "Regeneration" today and with a reserve showing at 374gals - as said in my previous post. The calendar overide is set for 8 days.

Quote:

It doesn't matter how many gallons are used per day, it's the total between regenerations (999), and the calendar override.

Yep I'm aware of that and my big post above shows that I'm aware of it too.

Quote:

The 13000 is the capacity, like it says.

But that's a figure *I* have to enter. How do I know what to enter? Is 13.5 correct?

Quote:

The computer calculates the variable reserve and when to regenerate.

You're right there.

Quote:

BTW, I am now selling into Canada. I sold the first last week. The guy had to pay Canadian taxes of $149 and a broker fee of $60 or the fee was part of the $149, I forget.

See if USPS will ship them and Canada Post will charge a flat brokerage fee of $5 - not the big fees that the Fedex/UPS type carriers charge. Everyone pays applicable Provincial taxes no matter who the carrier is. I've done much importing over 30+ years. It could be that the weight and size is too great for normal postal services.

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Zozzie wrote:

Gary Slusser wrote:
Call the outfit you bought from and make them find out what gpm DLFC should be in it.

The chap told me that the DLFc was the right one and you said it should be the smaller one. No-one has yet said, and the manual doesn't say, what is the purpose of the DLFC and how to calculate the size needed.

In fact, no-one has info on anything except how to assemble the unit and how to program it. Not with the dealer, not anywhere I can find on the internet (especially a Clack website) that has ANY info on how to program it for individual needs. Do you know where I can find this info? Why doesn't Clack post it?

Quote:
12 days is way too long and the calendar override should have caused a regen the morning of the 9th day, why didn't it?

It never went 12 days between regens. I tripped it on Jan 12th and it will go again tonight. That's 8 days. It was blinking "Regeneration" today and with a reserve showing at 374gals - as said in my previous post. The calendar overide is set for 8 days.

Quote:
It doesn't matter how many gallons are used per day, it's the total between regenerations (999), and the calendar override.

Yep I'm aware of that and my big post above shows that I'm aware of it too.

Quote:
The 13000 is the capacity, like it says.

But that's a figure *I* have to enter. How do I know what to enter? Is 13.5 correct?

Quote:
The computer calculates the variable reserve and when to regenerate.

You're right there.

Quote:
BTW, I am now selling into Canada. I sold the first last week. The guy had to pay Canadian taxes of $149 and a broker fee of $60 or the fee was part of the $149, I forget.

See if USPS will ship them and Canada Post will charge a flat brokerage fee of $5 - not the big fees that the Fedex/UPS type carriers charge. Everyone pays applicable Provincial taxes no matter who the carrier is. I've done much importing over 30+ years. It could be that the weight and size is too great for normal postal services.

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Zozzie, someone deleted two of my replies to you here, I refuse to type them again. So how's your softener working?

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Zozzie, someone deleted two of my replies to you here, I refuse to type them again. So how's your softener working?

Hi ya G. Where the hell do I begin? I'll try to remember. My calendar helps.

Back around the 20th of Jan you told me to do a super re-gen with 15lbs and I did this and then re-set the salt to 8lbs for the following re-gen. 6 days later, after the 15lb re-gen I could feel our water was harder. It re-gened after 8 days.

I found a local Clack dealer in town (I got my unit mail order, not from him) and talked to him. He offered to test my water and the city water - which was found to be 20 not the 24 that I was told by the city water people. A sample of mine after a re-gen was found to be the magic ZERO!

The Clack dealer told me that they set 1cu ft units to 10lbs of salt so I changed mine to that.

After another 8 days my unit re-generated and I snagged a water sample just before that. I was there today with that sample and it tested at 5 grains. Dohh! So in the 8 days I had gone from zero to 5.

I should add that I'd had it set at 20x1000 grains and that 10lbs of salt.

I'm aware of the max SFR of 1cu ft of resin (I dunno what type I have) and I'd wondered if a max flow had been exceded. I went into the Clack's Diagnostics and ran each tap in the house in turn. The max flow was the laundry tub tap at 6.6gpm. Of course we rarely run this tap wide open and very rarely run two of anything at the same time.

The Clack chap wonders if I really have a cubic foot of resin. Tomorrow I'm going to spin the head off my tank and measure how far down it is. His 9x48 tanks are about 18" down to the resin.

He said that he would set a 1cu ft unit (with our city's 20 grains of hardness and my two-person family at 28x1000 grains and 10lbs of salt.

Sigh.............this is all getting frustrating.

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Zozzie wrote:

msolga wrote:

Obviously I have never experienced really hard water! What causes it - excessive minerals in the water supply?

Even though I "think" I know the answer, with so many experts on this site I wouldn't DARE start WWIII (Water Wars 3) by giving my amateur explanation.

Allow me to fire the first shots in WWIII... soft water delivers the following benefits.

* Water heating efficiencies may be increased by up to 29% with gas and 22% with electricity.
* Pipes don't clog due to mineral buildup increasing the plumbing systems life and performance.
* Soaps and detergents lather better and work more efficiently.
* Many appliances last longer, perform better and stay clean longer.
* Soap residue on clothes is reduced. Clothes look better and last longer.
* Soap scum and hard water spots are reduced - less time cleaning.
* Skin and hair rinse better for a cleaner look and feel. What a relief for dry itchy skin!

Hard water eliminates all of the benefits soft water provides and depending on how hard your water is the issues can be severe.

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H2O_MAN wrote:

Allow me to fire the first shots in WWIII... soft water delivers the following benefits.

* Water heating efficiencies may be increased by up to 29% with gas and 22% with electricity.
* Pipes don't clog due to mineral buildup increasing the plumbing systems life and performance.
* Soaps and detergents lather better and work more efficiently.
* Many appliances last longer, perform better and stay clean longer.
* Soap residue on clothes is reduced. Clothes look better and last longer.
* Soap scum and hard water spots are reduced - less time cleaning.
* Skin and hair rinse better for a cleaner look and feel. What a relief for dry itchy skin!

Hard water eliminates all of the benefits soft water provides and depending on how hard your water is the issues can be severe.

Water_Man, I'm sure, given the track record of this forum, SOMEONE will completely disagree with you. Hopefully, mercifully, the moderators and/or site owners will fire the 3rd, and final, shot in the war.

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Zozzie, let me know what you find after you take the valve off checking the resin level.

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Zozzie wrote:

H2O_MAN wrote:
Allow me to fire the first shots in WWIII... soft water delivers the following benefits.

* Water heating efficiencies may be increased by up to 29% with gas and 22% with electricity.
* Pipes don't clog due to mineral buildup increasing the plumbing systems life and performance.
* Soaps and detergents lather better and work more efficiently.
* Many appliances last longer, perform better and stay clean longer.
* Soap residue on clothes is reduced. Clothes look better and last longer.
* Soap scum and hard water spots are reduced - less time cleaning.
* Skin and hair rinse better for a cleaner look and feel. What a relief for dry itchy skin!

Hard water eliminates all of the benefits soft water provides and depending on how hard your water is the issues can be severe.

Water_Man, I'm sure, given the track record of this forum, SOMEONE will completely disagree with you. Hopefully, mercifully, the moderators and/or site owners will fire the 3rd, and final, shot in the war.

It's hard to disagree with fact, but SOMEONE will try to distort the truth...

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Zozzie, let me know what you find after you take the valve off checking the resin level.

10-4 on that Gary. Momma's doing the laundry right now and she won't let me anywhere near the softener.

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Zozzie, let me know what you find after you take the valve off checking the resin level.

Gary I should have been a detective. For two months or so I've been mess-assing around with settings for my Clack 9x48 I cu ft unit and I've been running out of soft water roughly about 1/2 way through the 8-day re-gen cycle (I'm down to the reserve capacity at about the same time as the 8-day setting). We're low water users (84gpd on average) so there is no way 1cu ft is too small for us. My old Fleck (age 28) was a 2/3cu ft unit.

I was at my local Clack dealer (not where I bought my unit) and ran my troubles past him. He didn't have a solution for me.

I then suggested to him that maybe I didn't have 1cu ft of resin. He scratched his chin and agreed that this may be possible. There could be two reasons for this - 1 cu ft was never PUT in there to begin with or the resin filter/basket just under the valve wasn't in place. He suggested that I spin the head off and check for the basket and for the resin level.

In his showroom translucent resin tanks we could see that the resin was down about 18" from the top. My tank is wrapped black so I'd have to remove the valve and check with a flashlight and measuring tape.

So today I released the tank pressure (hit re-gen) and disconnected everything. I gingerly unscrewed the head and lifted it gently.

NFB!! That means NO Fookin' Basket!! The basket is supposed to be twist-snapped into the bottom of the head. I removed the head and there was the basket - 12" down the pipe and filtering diddly-squat.

I next measured the resin depth. It was 32" down from the top. His resin was 18" down. My resin depth was 14". His was 30".

So..........I have half the volume of resin that I should have. Where's the rest? It's either still back at the mail order store or it's been flushed down my plumbing.

There'll be an interesting phone call made at 9am on Monday morning.

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Zozzie,

Sorry to hear about your situation. Due to the distributor dislocation, your resin may have been washed out during regeneration. It probably has assumed the level by which the force of water pushing it out as neutralized and not much more will be displaced.

That doesn't correct the problem. The distributor needs to be relocated and secured and the appropriate amount of resin returned to the tank.

It is unfortunate and I hope the seller rectifies it at their expense. Maybe they can throw something in to appease you a little.

Good luck and bravo on your problem solving approach.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

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Andy CWS wrote:

Zozzie,
Sorry to hear about your situation. Due to the distributor dislocation, your resin may have been washed out during regeneration. It probably has assumed the level by which the force of water pushing it out as neutralized and not much more will be displaced.
That doesn't correct the problem. The distributor needs to be relocated and secured and the appropriate amount of resin returned to the tank.
It is unfortunate and I hope the seller rectifies it at their expense. Maybe they can throw something in to appease you a little.
Good luck and bravo on your problem solving approach.
Andy Christensen, CWS-II

Thanks Andy. To be honest the knowledge I gained from yesterday's exploration came as a great relief. Now I know what my problem is. All along I've been thinkin that the problem is me. For a couple of months it's been frustrating fiddling around with settings and trying to get soft water for a whole week! I now know that's not possible with 1/2 cu ft of resin.

Until this gets resolved I'll manually regenerate every 4 days and hope the max SFR doesn't get overwhelmed too often.

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Zozzie wrote:

(I'm down to the reserve capacity at about the same time as the 8-day setting).

That's the way it is supposed to work; a regeneration on average every 8 days.

Zozzie wrote:

I was at my local Clack dealer (not where I bought my unit) and ran my troubles past him. He didn't have a solution for me.

You have the wrong size DLFC button in the control valve. That allows much more water trough the resin than it should and that uses capacity and messes up the operation.

Zozzie wrote:

I then suggested to him that maybe I didn't have 1cu ft of resin. In his showroom translucent resin tanks we could see that the resin was down about 18" from the top. So today I released the tank pressure (hit re-gen) and disconnected everything. I gingerly unscrewed the head and lifted it gently.

NFB!! That means NO Fookin' Basket!! The basket is supposed to be twist-snapped into the bottom of the head. I removed the head and there was the basket - 12" down the pipe and filtering diddly-squat.

Most softeners do not come with a top basket.

Zozzie wrote:

I next measured the resin depth. It was 32" down from the top. His resin was 18" down. My resin depth was 14". His was 30".

So..........I have half the volume of resin that I should have. Where's the rest? It's either still back at the mail order store or it's been flushed down my plumbing.

No, it won't be in the plumbing or you would have known that within minutes of putting the softener in service; it went out the drain line.

And it did that because THE WRONG DLFC IS IN THE CONTROL. You get the right one for a 1.0 cuft, and if you don't have a top basket the resin still stays in the tank.

Trust me, that's as they say, gar un teed. If you had high iron, you wouldn't want a top basket.

I'm glad you found the cause, now all you need is a new 1 cuft of resin and the correct DLFC button. Well, a half hour to dump the old and put the new in too. And to put the control in backwash before you put water in the tank.

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Gary Slusser wrote:

That's the way it is supposed to work; a regeneration on average every 8 days.

That and much more I've learned in the past two months.

Quote:

Most softeners do not come with a top basket.

This does but it was where it was able to do NO good - slid 12" down the 1" pipe. If it wasn't intended to be part of the unit I'm sure they would have left it out. I think the twerp that installed it didn't give it the 1/8th turn to lock it in place.

Quote:

......it won't be in the plumbing or you would have known that within minutes of putting the softener in service; it went out the drain line.

When I typed "flushed down my plumbing" I meant it had gone out my drain. There's no resin at any of my faucet filters. I checked most of 'em today. In any case, the water flows DOWN through the top basket during service. It only flows UP through it during Backwash and Upflow Brine cycles. But I guess you already knew that!

Quote:

And it did that because THE WRONG DLFC IS IN THE CONTROL. You get the right one for a 1.0 cuft, and if you don't have a top basket the resin still stays in the tank.

I'll be checking that with the fella tomorrow. Before that I'll check my manual (for the 1000th time). I'll get the media type from him and shoot for the media expansion tables from the manuf.

Quote:

If you had high iron, you wouldn't want a top basket.

My city's water distribution people say we have no iron.

Quote:

I'm glad you found the cause, now all you need is a new 1 cuft of resin and the correct DLFC button. Well, a half hour to dump the old and put the new in too. And to put the control in backwash before you put water in the tank.

Yep I'll be all over that when I get my resin!

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Zozzie wrote:

Quote:
Most softeners do not come with a top basket.

This does but it was where it was able to do NO good - slid 12" down the 1" pipe. If it wasn't intended to be part of the unit I'm sure they would have left it out. I think the twerp that installed it didn't give it the 1/8th turn to lock it in place.

The only reason for it was 'cuz he wasn't installing it. It's only used to keep the DIYers from backwashing resin out the drain. Wink

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Gary Slusser wrote:

Zozzie wrote:
Quote:
Most softeners do not come with a top basket.

This does but it was where it was able to do NO good - slid 12" down the 1" pipe. If it wasn't intended to be part of the unit I'm sure they would have left it out. I think the twerp that installed it didn't give it the 1/8th turn to lock it in place.

The only reason for it was 'cuz he wasn't installing it. It's only used to keep the DIYers from backwashing resin out the drain.

Ahh he tried to idiot-proof it, save me from myself and failed eh? Can't blame him for trying!

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As I've said before, what gpm DLFC should be used won't be in any manual.

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Gary Slusser wrote:

As I've said before, what gpm DLFC should be used won't be in any manual.

Yep you have said that before and you're right, how to calculate the size of the DLFC isn't in my manual. There is a list of sizes and it tells me "To determine which DLFC to use, obtain media bed expansion tables from the media manufacturer, choose a water temp and look up the desired backwash rate per sq ft of bed area (I'm sure I can figure the sq footage of a 9" circle)."

I have the '027' right now.

Anyway I talked to my seller dude this morning and he's sending out a bag of resin. He claims the basket was in place upon assembly. Yessss I'm aware you say the basket isn't needed if the DLFC is sized right - but again, I'm taking advice from three sources - the seller, my local Clackman and yourself. I've got to use my own personal filter (in my noggin) and decide.

The seller and my local Clackman both install upper baskets.

You must admitt Gary that the Internet is a wasteland of info for water softener setup theory and Clack info in particular. I'm sure if I could get all three of you in my utility room there wouldn't be much you would all collectively agree on.

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Zozzie wrote:

Yessss I'm aware you say the basket isn't needed if the DLFC is sized right - but again, I'm taking advice from three sources - the seller, my local Clackman and yourself. I've got to use my own personal filter (in my noggin) and decide.

The seller and my local Clackman both install upper baskets.

You must admitt Gary that the Internet is a wasteland of info for water softener setup theory and Clack info in particular. I'm sure if I could get all three of you in my utility room there wouldn't be much you would all collectively agree on.

Actually what I've been telling you ain't "setup theory" but... your noggin... how do you know your filter is working?

What I've told you about sizing and setting up your softener is not just for one with a Clack valve, it is for all softeners. I think you've been missing that point all along, it's probably a noggin filter thingy. lol

BTW, I may not have mentioned that since 2002 to early in 2003 I have had my suppliers ship a top basket with every softener I've sold online that is going on water with less than 1.0 ppm of ferrous iron. At 1 or over, you don't want a top basket.

Anyway, snap the top basket in its groove and replace the 2.7 gpm with a 1.5 DLFC button (or as close as the choice in the manual) and install it rounded edged hole side toward the control valve.

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Softener resin escaping

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