Used water softener has a LOT of iron in the resin

[snuffbox]

I had a working softener in my rural house that was working OK on well water, and thought it would work great on city water in town. Well I hooked it up and the water is very rusty. It clears after a while, and then gets rusty after it sits for a while. I think I should flush the thing out and try to run some cleaners thought it. I have it on bypass and the little missus is not happy at her lack of soft water.

Is it toast? Thoughts?

[Mike Swearingen]

Just replace the resin. Contact a local water softener company. They should be able to advise you. Easy.
Good Luck!
Mike

[Cass]

They do have resin cleaners you could try and salt made for water with iron in it...it may be worth a try before you have the resin changed...is the timer set right?

[master plumber mark]

You will never get all the little clumps of rust
out of tha tunit unless you relapce the resin or
completely get a new unit

[snuffbox]

Thanks for the replies. I am in Canada and am having trouble finding iron out stuff, I did find some cleaner at home depot which is supposed to help with rust, it has sodium hydrosulfite. I will try it, try to find some rust out.

If that does not work. I will find new resin beads. Thanks again for the help.

[snuffbox]

Thanks for looking that up! The one regen cycle is almost done so I will do a test and see if this stuff has worked, or if I need some dynamite...

[Gary Slusser]

Add 3 gallons of water to the salt tank water.

Wait two hours for that water to dissolve salt.

Put the control valve into a manual regeneration.

Mix a dry measure cup in a gallon plus of warm water in a bucket, don't breath the fumes.

Wait for the valve to get into the Brine Draw/Brining position (it's sucking salt water). Then detach the brine line from the salt tank and stick it in the bucket of solution.

Let it suck the bucket dry and unplug the control valve for 15-20 minutes and then, reattach the brine line to the salt tank and plug the valve in and let it finish back to the Service position on it's own.

That will clean all iron out of the resin bed, the tank, the control valve, injector etc. etc. etc.. It's a much better use of Iron Out or other products than sprinkling it in the salt.

[snuffbox]

Thanks Gary, I will try that method, as Iron Out #1 method did not work within acceptable parameters.

Method #2 tonight when the house is sleeping, then off to buy new beads, failing that...

[snuffbox]

I did the sucking out of the gallon pail thing and it still did not work. It looks a little better, but still smells a little like iron out, so I am going to to another regen cycle. I am thinking this softener is ready for the pasture. The local plumbing company quoted me 300 Cdn (250 US) for new resin. That seems about double what I read on the forums, so I will not go that route.