Culligan Water Softener Shaking/Vibrating Loudly

[pkblomquist]

We have a Culligan Mark 59 Aqua Sensor water softener system. It runs once a day at 530 in the morning. When we get up and use our water the unit (the box on top with all the controls) shakes considerably and makes a very loud noise throughout the house. Once we have run some water for a little while it stops and we don't notice it throughout the day. We have company coming soon and are hoping to solve this problem before they arrive (the unit is in a room right next to where they will be sleeping). Any thoughts on what may be causing this? Kristin

[Gary Slusser]

You may be using water while it is in regeneration. You can change the time it regenerates, or lie to teh clock to change the time of regeneration.

Or the time of day may be wrong.

[kuderville]

So, it should only be making this noise if we are using water when it is cycling? How long should this process be taking? We have a Mark 59. Is there a service that should be done to these systems? We bought our house and this was already installed. There are no manuals and we have never had one of these before.

[Gary Slusser]

It shouldn't be regenerating while you are using water, so check and change the time of day if it is off or lie to the clock if you can't change the time of regeneration. If you use water during a regeneration, you get hard water raw water past the softener. The normal time for a regeneration to start is 2 AM.

Usually it takes about 1 hr 15-30 minutes to get done but the valve may show 3 hrs until it shows you the regeneration is done.

This noise is not normal but water pressure that is too high can cause it, or using water during a regeneration can cause it. A bad solenoid valve, IIRC, a model 59 has two, can cause chattering.

[master plumber mark]

Gary, just wondering about this fellows situation...

should that unit be re-generating every single day????

I dont think that any unit should regenerate every day unless you are drinking festering swamp water

I would like to ask how much salt this fellow is pissing down the drain every month???

I have noticed that Culligan of Indiana likes to sell and deliver salt to people and they like to set the units to
regenerate every night...



I recently re-set a 80 year old ladys unit to regenerate
about once a week instead of every night like culligan had her set up to do....she was useing almost 5 bags of salt per month.... and she was on tame city water.


I dont like seeing anyone getting taken by culligan..

[Gary Slusser]

Mark, it depends on the size of the unit, how much capacity is needed and the salt dose that requires but no softener should normally be sized or set up to regenerate every night. I've seen and heard of Culligan and some others do that too. They can do it and get away with it because the customer doesn't know how to set up their softener and they listen to, and trust, the salt selling company guys to do it.

This morning I sold a 6.0 cuft softener to a master plumber in AR doing a 135 seat steak house and it needs 104K for a service run of 4-5 days on variable reserve. Usually I go for 8 days but that capacity would require an unaffordable size that probably would channel easily with their 3 gpm dish washer usage that they use about 3 times an hour from 11 AM to 9 PM 7 days a week. And yes, you know I used a Clack valve. He couldn't believe my delivered price, but he was comparing to a local dealer (4.0 cuft!) and a supply house. Both were using the SFR of the control valve and telling him that was the SFR of the softener. Their softener would end up regenerating like every other night and use more salt on a weekly or monthly basis. And that's normally how people end up using much more salt than they should.