Losing my resin out the drain hose.

[Gary Slusser]

Also make sure your aeration water level isn't allowing the pump to suck air. The freezing temps may have frozen something in the aerator and the water level was drawn down too far until the well pump was able to deliver water to refill the aerator.

[eldyfig]

I will when I get some time off, maybe Tuesday. Can I save the resin that is piled up on the ground? Can it be rinsed out?

What do you think about those measurements? At what point, after I fix this problem, would my resin level be considered too low?

Gary, that could be a possibility with the freezing temps we have been having. It has been in the low to mid 60s during the day and dropping to about 28 at night.

[Akpsdvan]

You might be able to save some of the resin, might be able to rinse it and get the dirt and what not out of it...

If the resin level is below 17" from the top of the inside of the tank that would be To Low.. and you would need to add some resin to bring it to that 17" from the top..

One way around getting that tank heated.. make some kind of temp box around it.. and a 60Watt light... leave the light on and it will make a heat pocket in the temp box.

here there are small boxes.. 4'x4'x5' that have insulation and a 60watt light going 24/7 and there is enough heat to keep it from freezing even when the temps out side get down to -10F...

[Gary Slusser]

Gary, that could be a possibility with the freezing temps we have been having. It has been in the low to mid 60s during the day and dropping to about 28 at night.

Resin that dries out may break when you try to use it and the pieces will be backwashed out of the tank. Freezing is OK as long as the resin is allowed to thaw naturally. Wash it off good and try it.

[eldyfig]

Well, I still haven't had a day off. I work 12 hour shifts and live 45 minutes from work. That doesn't leave much time for house work. There does seem to be good news though. The softener regenerated the other day and no resin came out. This makes me think my distributor tube is ok. I will be off this weekend. I will get to check it out more.

[eldyfig]

Ok, another update. I didn't lose any resin during the last regen was because the drain was plugged with resin from the preceding regen. So I go ahead and pull the rubber orifice out of the drain port so the resin there can be rinsed out during a backwash. I manually started a regen. The backwash started fine and the water coming out the drian port was clear for about 15 seconds. However, before I was able to get the orifice back in, a bunch of resin shot out of the drain. I cut the water off to the softener, rinsed the drain port, reinstalled the orifice and drain hose and then turned the water back on to continue the backwash. At this point, no more resin was coming out. The backwash continued without incident.

I now only have approximately 17" of resin in the tank and 24" of headroom. I think I am just going to open the softener, dump whatever is in there, and inspect the distributor tube. I guess I will start looking for some resin. Any suggestions?

[Akpsdvan]

Sounds like the distributor tube is good.

With no flow control or rubber orifice you will get the resin flowing out like you did..

With 24 inches of head space you are missing 7-8 inches of resin or about .25 cubic foot of the needed resin for the full capacity of that unit.

Most likely that unit has a full one cubic foot , so getting any thing orther than a full cubic will be a challenge but can be done... or you could remove all that is there save the gravel and put a new bag in the tank with the end of the distributor pluged so that no resin or gravel goes down that tube.

How old is the system? there was no iron or very little?

[eldyfig]

The system is only 3 years old. How do I tell if there was iron? There is some iron in the water from the well. I also noticed a little of the resin was black.

[Akpsdvan]

Iron around here stains orange to red..

Culligan resin if memory is right is black...

3 year old system , the resin should still be good for many a year to come... look to find some one that will sell you a 1/2 cubic so that you have a little extra for later down the road..