Water Softener Tank Brine level

Justalurker,

Actually the 32,000 unit is a little too large based on our water usage. With the unit set at 26 gpg and set for a 20% reserve capacity, the available gallons before regeneration is 984 gallons, and that lasts us between 12 to 14 days. I originally had my unit set for a 14 day over ride, and sometimes the unit would force a regeneration due to our not using 984 gallons within the 14 day window (I have since set our unit for a 10 day over ride which still did not help).

You can look at the SFR (service flow rate) for the various grain size units, and you will see very little difference in their SFR ratings. The SFR for my unit is 8.50 gpm, and I am lucky to get 6 gpm from a non restricted faucet that bypasses the water softener so the 8.5 gpm rating is more than adequate.

Originally the unit worked just fine, but then I started to notice a loss in softness before we reached the regeneration point, and that is when I noticed the water level was higher in the well compared with the water level where the salt sits which indicates a physical barrier between the well and the salt (bottom of well blocked from sucking water from around the salt). Due to this blockage, I only suck up the water in the well and run out of brine before the end of the brine cycle and therefore I am not able to fully regenerate my resin.

Bottom line is that the salt bridge and mush is the problem, not the size of the softener.

Don

Don,

When I say undersized I am not referring to the hardness removal capacity but the service flow rate.

The limiting factor to the SFR in any softener is the SFR of that specific volume of resin ultimately limited to the SFR of the control valve and then the connecting plumbing.

According to Purolite, a major resin manufacturer, the SFR of 1 cu ft of C100 resin is 5 gpm not 8.5 gpm. If the SFR of your plumbing and/or fixtures exceeds 5 gpm then hardness can leak through.

1 cu ft of resin regenerated with 6 lbs/cu ft of salt yields approx 21,000 grains of hardness removal. That figure factored by water use by two people is a regeneration at about 6 days which is just about right.

Looks like you are using about 15 lbs/cu ft of salt and that is very inefficient and a waste of salt and a longer period between regenerations than optimal.

My advice was based on the assumption of a properly operating softener.

But, I defer to your expertise. Sorry I couldn't help.

Justalurker,

I just checked my shower flow rate, and it comes in at 1.8 gpm which is way below the SFR values that you mention. Looks like all shower heads must now be designed to have a flow rate of 2.2 gpm or less.

Don

Yea, shower heads are restricted a lot and are never used to measure SFR. If your SFR was 1.8gpm then you'd have no water anywhere in the house when you flushed a toilet.

FYI, you can go into the diagnostic part of the 5600SXT display and it will show the max flow rate it has monitored but that will be including any restriction the resin volume and/or control valve introduce.

To measure the SFR correctly you need to put the softener on bypass and then...

Justalurker,

Yep, I will go back and check my peak flow rate using the diagnostics section of my controller, but as I previously mentioned leak through of hardness has not been our problem, but rather loss of hardness before the start of the regeneration cycle (and that is when I noticed that the water level in my well had risen above the water just outside the well wall where the salt sits).

I just checked a bunch of water softener sizing routines, and almost all of them show that a 32,000 grain unit is a reasonable size for a two person household when dealing with a hardness value of 26 gpg, and you will see numerous 32,000 to 35,000 grain units that use 1 cu-ft of resin. Using a reserve capacity of 20 percent (which is what I am currently using) causes the system to operate at 25,600 grains per regeneration cycle.

Based on the national average of 75 gallons of water per person per day, and 26 gpg, the unit would process 3900 grains per day. The unit would therefore regenerate (25,600 grains)/(3900 grains per day) = 6.6 days which is just about an ideal situation. Typically the goal is to size for regeneration every 7 days. Turns out my wife and I use half of the national average per day (our total water usage is less than 70 gallons of water per day, and therefore we typically approach 14 days between regeneration unless I set my day override to less than 14 days (I now have it set to 10 days).

I am now just keeping approximately 12 pounds of salt in my salt tank (will just dump approximately 12 pounds of salt or less after every regeneration cycle), and will keep you posted on my results. I suspect this will solve my original problem of hardness loss before start of regen, and if it does I will then decide how to proceed. I am certainly not going to load the salt tank up with salt. I had been running with it half full, and this did not help the situation.

Don

Again, I defer to your expertise.

Don, yes your softener sounds as if it may be undersized but no one can tell you what size you need without more info.

It may also be that it simply is not set up correctly.

A softener is sized based on the hardness, iron and manganese and then, the number of permanent family members and bathrooms and the type of fixtures in them. Which gets to your peak demand flow rate that the softener must be able to treat.

The softener's constant SFR (service flow rating) gpm is dictated by the cuft volume of resin in the tank. Every time the SFR gpm is exceeded, the softener can not remove all the hardness.

Which sounds as if that is your hard water problem before the unit regenerates. Or you've left it run low or out of salt and it hasn't regenerated properly once or more often.

What do you have the salt dose set at in lbs or minutes?

What K of capacity do you have it set to?

What if any reserve percentage etc. is it set for?

What does Qualitywaterforless say about this? Did they size the softener for you?

Did they tell you how to set it up (program it)?

As to your salt tank problem. If you are using solar crystal salt, there should be no build up in the tank. You get mush with pellet or block type salt, not solar crystal; it totally dissolves.

You want to be careful using hot water on the plastic parts in the salt tank, and the salt tank itself. Plastics and hot water do not mix well.

Another thing, this idea of adding salt just so some is above the water level... you'll be adding salt quite frequently but, many softeners do not have more than 2-3" of water in the bottom of the salt tank between regenerations.

Your big box brands are like that and there are others like those I sell. They also use softened water to make brine with, I'm not sure your 5600SXT does both. It's called Pre brined, the brine make up water is added at the time of the regeneration and used during that regeneration. Not added at the end of a regeneration to sit there for a few days or a week until the next regeneration like most softeners do.

Pre brined keeps your salt tank cleaner and there is none of this once a year disconnecting and dumping the salt tank to clean it out silliness, unless you use pellet or block salt... and especially potassium chloride salt. Which if you use potassium chloride, it requires a higher salt dose in many cases because at higher salt efficiency settings, it is not as good/efficient as regular sodium chloride. And it costs 2-4 times as much for the same size bag, if you can find it. Regular solar crystal salt looks like 1/4 x 3/8" gravel sized pieces or course solar salt is like 1/2" x 3/4" crushed rock pieces.

For some reason I missed page 2 before I replied.

The SFR given by most web sites is not the constant SFR gpm of the softener. It is the max gpm that causes a 15 psi pressure loss across the softener IF you run the gpm they use. I.E 14 gpm@ 15 psi. They drop the 15 psi part and therefore mislead their customers. The peak demand flow rate of your house must be less than the constant SFR gpm of the volume of resin you have. And justalurker, actually Steve Silverman from Edgewood NM, is a customer of mine. He pretends to know softeners and is giving you what he knows. But the problem is he doesn't know enough. He bought a correctly sized softener from me using a Clack WS-1 control valve in Jul 2004. We were fine until I disagreed with him about the use of potassium chloride, that he uses, and causes him to clean the tank annually. And as you see now, he gets testy.

What gpm/cuft you use from the spec sheet of the resin is based on what the treated water is used for and they usually are for commercial, not residential.

The volume of resin dictates the constant SFR gpm of the softener, it also dictates the size of the tank that is used and the size of the tank used dictates the control valve that can be used on that size softener or filter tank.

The SFR of the valve only tells us what size tank it can be used on and if it can backwash whatever mineral we are using. Your 5600 can be used on up to a 12" dia tank (2.0 cuft) for a softener and a 10" tank (1.5 cuft) for a filter. Larger than either size softener or filter tank and the valve is being misapplied; and many web sites do that.

A softener should be regenerated on average every 7-9 days. The vast majority of households use 60 gals/person/day. I do not agree with using a percentage as the reserve, use a day's worth of capacity.

You can not use your meter gpm to come up with your peak demand of the house unless it records the highest gpm run through the valve and you have used it for a couple months. And even then that is only the max gpm run through the softener in that period of time; seasonal differences will not be recorded yet.

You've been had by the web site you bought from and the others you used for research. Try the sizing page on my site.

Your softener isn't working right and IMO it is not set up correctly or sized correctly for both salt efficiency and constant SFR.

The bottom line... Yes it has something to do with not regenerating right but from what you've said, you haven't been able to 'adjusted' it to work right since you installed it 9 months ago. To start over do two manual regenerations one right after the other with no water use between them, at the max salt dose of 15 lbs each. The best way is to do one late in the evening and the next as you go to bed. Then program the valve correctly and see how it goes. If the salt tank problem is gone and the thing still give s you hard water before the next regeneration, you have a problem, such as a water leak or, it isn't sucking brine correctly or, an undersized softener for your household peak demand gpm. That is the max gm run through the softener at any one time.

Correct sizing of a softener is an important an issue but more important is the size of the softener seller's head.

As often as mail order and internet softener sellers misinform shoppers one begins to learn the ins and outs in self-defense.

There's nothing about a softener or correct sizing that can't be learned but reading everything and then believing the common denominator is as bad as believing a softener huckster in the first place.

The real information is out there but not on any softener seller's web site... you have to look for it.

Don,

There are two people in my home and our water runs between 26-30 grains. Very similar to your water conditions and water usage.

I am salting an an efficient rate using KCl (potassium chloride) and the softener presently in service is a 1.5 cu ft twin tank unit (.75 cu ft resin in each resin tank) .

I have had three different 1.5 cu ft single resin tank units and one 1 cu ft unit in service at the same salt dose per cu ft using about one bag of KCl per month with all regenerating between 6-8 days.

My water is "0" hard until regeneration but the 1 cu ft softener does have hardness leak through at times of greater water usage.

My recommendation of annually cleaning the brine tank is a PM step based on over ten years of personal experience with my own and other people's softeners. One could always wait till there is a salt problem then treat the symptom. I guess it's a matter of whether you want to control the service and repair cycle of your softener or be at the mercy of Murphy's Law.

And, hot tap from a faucet water slowly poured down the brine well is super for dissolving any solidified salts and will not harm anything down the brine well... well unless your hot tap water is 212 degrees, then I wouldn't

Wow, sorry this has gotten so far of track. My softener worked just fine after I installed it. The problem started when I noticed it was no longer working properly (about 5 months after installation), and that is when I noticed that the water level in the well was now sitting at a level higher than the water level where the salt sits (which is physically impossible if their is no blockage at the bottom of the well where water can flow between the well and the area surrounding the salt). My problem has nothing to do with the size of my unit in regards to the volume of resin and how it relates to SFR. The problem is blockage where the brine that the salt is sitting in can flow from the salt side of the well into the well to be pulled up from the well into the resin tank. I will drop posting here since this has gone so far off track. My issue/concern that I was complaining about was mush and bridging (at least I thought it was).

Sorry,
Don

actually I think it is possible for the water in the well to be higher than in the tank. the specific gravity of the brine is more than the "plain water" in the well. As far as sludge and bridging, I tell my customers to fill the salt box with 3-4 bags of salt, but then let the salt run down to like 1 inch before adding 3-4 bags again. This will stop the 1 foot of sludge/ mush that you are talking about. Bridging could still be an issue but not as likely.

Joethewaterguy,

Yes, you hit the nail on the head regarding the specific gravity issue (since the water is not continuously circulated). I stumbled on that fact this morning when I went and sampled some water about 12 inches above the top of my 12 pounds of salt sitting in the salt tank. I taste tested the water at the top of the water line, and it had very little to no salt taste versus the water sitting right above the salt. (Very interesting, and I had wondered if this would happen).

Do you have any comments regarding solar salt to help avoid mush?

Thanks,
Don

solar salt is definately better, the crystals seem to hold together better than pellets

Joethewaterguy (and gang),

OK, it does in fact look like I have another problem (not just mush). Sorry for prior comments.

I run a 60 minute Brine cycle, but I have noticed that I start sucking air from the brine tank 22 minutes into the 60 minute cycle. I then look into the salt tank at this 22 minute point and see that the water level in the well is at the very bottom of the well (with no water visible above the 120 pounds of salt that I now have in the salt bin). The water level was just above the salt prior to the start of this regeneration cycle. I am surprised that I have used up all of my brine within the first 22 minutes of the 60 minute brine cycle (cycle where brine is regenerating the resin).

At the 22 minute point the salt content coming out of the discharge drain was very high based on taste, but at the 40 minute point the salt content is greatly reduced based on taste which confirms I have run out of brine way before the end of the 60 minute brine cycle.

I can also see that I have air in the brine uptake line that goes to the resin tank after the 22 minute point, and there is no longer any fluid flowing in this line (massive pockets of stationary air visible in the uptake line with no fluid passing by the pockets of air).

I wonder what the typical time is before all of the brine is used?

I can't find the specs on flow rate for the 5600SXT, and wonder if anyone knows what they might be?

Don

the brine cycle is probably a brine draw/ rinse cycle. it continues to rinse after the brine is drawn from the salt tank. clean the valve in the well, it shouldn't suck air

View Profile Joethewaterguy,

When I said it sucked air, I mean it had pulled all the water out of the brine tank, and the only thing left to suck was air at the 20 minute point.

Don

The brine line shouldn't suck air. Industry standard softeners are usually supplied with Fleck 2310 safety float brine pickups which have an air check valve in them. There's a little ball in them that prevents sucking air at the end of the brine draw when they are working properly.

Salt can solidify in them and hang the little ball.

like I said, clean the valve...lol

Don, I'm not an engineer but, IMO, unless you were looking at the water level in the salt tank and brine well as the refill water was added, due to gravity, and unless done in a vacuum, the specific gravity of a fluid has nothing to do with the level of the fluid in two chambers of the same atmospheric tank unless there is a flow problem between the two chambers.

Fresh water floats on the heavier fully saturated brine water until it dissolves salt to become heavier and fall to the bottom of the brine tank mixing both together to become equally saturated. This usually takes two hours. Temperature has an effect on that; especially with the use of potassium chloride and temp fluctuations causes it to recrystallize into a solid mass in the bottom of the salt tank. Because of that, Justalurker has his salt tank up on a piece of wood, and usually suggests others do the same to prevent that. And still has to clean his salt tank every year with hot water.

You had a blockage preventing flow from the brine well into the the other part of the salt tank. There should be slits or holes in the bottom few inches of the brine well and, the bottom of the well should not be on the bottom of the tank.

Your softener wasn't working right for some time before you noticed it.

Your 60 minute brine draw/slow rinse cycle is a bit long for your size softener IMO but, you didn't answer any of my questions so I can't get into that now. We want the brine out of the salt tank in the first 10-20 minutes of the cycle, then the rinse runs until the end of the cycle to flush the brine through the resin and out to drain. Then there is a Rapid rinse (backwash) and then Final rinse to pack the bed for Service.

The SFR of the 5600 in any of its versions is 21 gpm. You can find the spec sheet on www.fleckcontrols.com.