Odd Taste from Water Softener

I recently ran out of Brita water filters and started drinking un-filtered water. I noticed that the unfiltered water tasted terrible. Kind of metalic with an after-taste. I asked our neighbors if they had noticed a bad taste in their water, but they had not. After a bit of trouble shooting I narrowed the problem to the water softener. If I bypass the water softener the water tastes fine.

I know that water softeners can make water taste different, but this seems really bad; nearly undrinkable. Any ideas on causes or solutions?

The water softener was serviced about 2 years ago and was in good shape. Everything that I can see seems normal (water levels and salt levels).

Thanks for your help.

Taste is quite subjective, the vast majority of folks with a softener never notice any difference in the taste of their water. You could use a 1/4 cup of non scented bleach in a gallon of water poured down into the water in the salt tank and do a manual regeneration to sanitize the softener. You could clean the salt tank first.

Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

Thanks for the tips Gary. I'll try them out and see if we get any improvement.