Water heater problem/water softner?

I have well water and hard water. I replaced my old softner with a new Water-Right system almost a year ago. I never had a problem with white (salt?) buildup in my hot water tank before. I now have buildup above the water heater drain cock and cannot drain the tank of water or buildup. I am concerned that the buildup will eventually cover the bottom electric water heater element. The setting on the softner is 9 and the actual hardness is 11. Any idea about what is happening?

What brand of softner do you have????

Water-Right

1943chief said:

I have well water and hard water. I replaced my old softner with a new Water-Right system almost a year ago. I never had a problem with white (salt?) buildup in my hot water tank before. I now have buildup above the water heater drain cock and cannot drain the tank of water or buildup. I am concerned that the buildup will eventually cover the bottom electric water heater element. The setting on the softner is 9 and the actual hardness is 11. Any idea about what is happening?

Click to expand...

This build up could be hard water scale from when the old softener wasn't working and the new softener's soft water is dissolving it.

Or you still don't have 0 gpg soft water out of the new softener.

When you say the softener is 9 and actua hardness is 11.... does that mean 9 gpg of hardness and you actually have 11 gpg hard water?

If so, that is wrong and you need to reprogram the softener because it will never give you the required 0 gpg soft water. And that will cause hardness scale to build up in the water heater.

You will also have to do two manual regenerations at the max salt dose lbs for the volume of resin you have, back to back with no water use during or between them or the softener will never work right until you do.

So what size softener in cuft of resin do you have? OR what size tank or K of capacity did they call it?

maybe he should get a HydroPath

forgive me lord, that were'nt nice

If you can take a digital pic of the softner head and post it...

water heater problem/ water softner?

OK Gary, this is a Water-Right, Impression Series, IM1054ME, it has a control head on top of the water conditioner cylinder and a seperate brine tank. To answer your question, the actual hardness is 11 gpg, and I have now reset the system to 11 gpg. About 6 months before changing the softener, I replaced the old hot water tank, so the problem of the buildup probably started when the new softner was installed. I really appreciate your help.

water heater problem/ water softner?

Sorry, Gary. I had to dig out the booklet and find the info. It says my model has 1.5 cu.ft. of media. Thanks

Since the hardness wasn't set right and the additional hardness was being removed but that capacity was not being regenerated so...

Change the salt dose to 23 lbs and do 2 manual regenerations back to back with no water use during or between them and then change the salt dose back to what it was.

This will regeneratre all the resin back to the max of 45K and should prevent hardness getting through the bed and causing your water heater problem.

Thanks Gary, I'll give it a try.

softener

All the softener setting does is control when the softener thinks it should regenerate. It has NOTHING to do with the hardness or softness of the water. If, and unless, the control tries to be too precise then the last water prior to the regeneration WILL be unsoftened, but up until that time the softener will be performing to its maximum potential.