Strange water pressure drop with Rainsoft softner

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Hi Folks,

Had a strange thing happen today, while putting clothes in the washing machine my water pressure dropped by more than half instantly. I watched it happen. (thought I had a pipe burst!)

A little history, I just installed an older Rainsoft softener (am744ct) about 3 weeks ago and it's been working great, the 14 day mechanical timer keeps good time, it's regenerating without problem (twice weekly), until today everything has been working fine. I have 5 micron sediment filters (newly replaced) before the softener. I bypassed the softener leaving the sediment filters in the loop and the pressure is back to normal.

I pulled the softener from my step mothers house when she sold it, she's had the softener since it was new in 97. We're on well water and the water is extremely hard so i decided to give the softener a try...

Sorry for the long winded explanation, this is my first softener so I've got a bit of a learning curve. What would cause such a drastic drop in pressure so quickly? Maybe a valve? The nearest Rainsoft dealer is a couple hundred miles away so i thought I'd try fixing before calling them...

Thanks in advance for any help!

Charles

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Was the old softener ever laid on it's side?
Are you sure the inlet and outlet are hooked up correctly?

Can you post or email a picture of the system and the installation?

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Thanks for the quick reply, I did put these units on thier side when I transported them, incoming and out are hooked up correctly. Here's a couple quick snapshots of my plumbing job:

http://www.ctcdesign.com/images/int_images/wf1.jpg

http://www.ctcdesign.com/images/int_images/wf2.jpg

The drain goes under the house about 20 feet then back into the garage under a sink and hooked to the p-trap.

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Nice looking installation.

Are you going into the QRS carbon tank first?

Is the flex copper pipe leading to the house or coming from the street?

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H2O_MAN wrote:

Nice looking installation.

Thank You!

it goes: well --> sediment filters --> softener --> QRS carbon--> house

The flex pipe goes to the house...

Thanks!

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coog wrote:

H2O_MAN wrote:
Nice looking installation.

Thank You!

it goes: well --> sediment filters --> softener --> QRS carbon--> house

The flex pipe goes to the house...

Thanks!

OK, I believe the softener is plumbed backwards...

The inlet on a RainSoft brass valve enters in the middle
of the valve and the outlet exits the left side of the valve.

HTH ~

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DOH!! Is there a problem running into the QSR first?

The easiest fix would be to flip the QSR 180 degrees so it's not plumbed backwards then reverse the pipes under the house, I ran under the house in pex with sharkbites so easy to swap the in and out from house plumbing.

I hope i didn't damage the softener!

Thanks H2O_MAN!

Charles

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Putting the QRS carbon in the #1 position is not a problem.

I would slowly, step-by-step walk the softener into fast
rinse and unplug the valve before I run water to it again.
This will/should flush any stuck resin out of the valve to the drain.

Once you confirm unrestricted flow, plug the valve in, set the time and let it finish it's normal cycle.

Let us know how it goes ~

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I think I've really done a job on this, when i pulled the union between the QSR and softener apart resin came pouring out of the pipe.

I unscrewed the top from the QSR and it looks to be filled to the top with resin. I think there was 6 or 7 inches of space in there which equates to alot of resin in the QSR Embarrassed

Should I consider rebedding the QSR with new carbon or just take out as much resin as possible and call it good? H2O_MAN, can you PM me a price for new carbon shipped to 80648 if you think I need it.

Also that's quite a bit of resin now missing from the softner, do i need to address that also?

Thanks for all the help, I feel like a total moron now...

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PM sent ~

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All done, pressure is restored Very Happy

Hopefully some of the resin will now feed back into the softener tank...

Thank you so much for your help H2O_MAN!

Charles

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coog wrote:

All done, pressure is restored Hopefully some of the resin will now feed back into the softener tank...

Thank you so much for your help H2O_MAN!

Charles

I'm glad things worked out for you Charles!
It was my pleasure to help.

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Strange water pressure drop with Rainsoft softner

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