Water inconsistently soft

**wiz561** · 04-02-2011, 06:05 AM

Hi,

I have a kind of goofy problem and don't know where else to turn to. I've tried a few other forums and so far, my issue hasn't been resolved.

I have a Fleck 2510 64k softener that I installed myself. I have extremely hard water. Testing from a home test kit gave me the following info...

- Hardness: 425 ppm
- No iron
- 2 people in the home now.

When we received the softener, it was suppose to be set for all of our info. I'm assuming it was. Since it's just two people here and we don't use much water, it took a few weeks for it to count down from '21k' on the dial. I noticed that after about a week or so, the water stopped being 'soft'. It's not to the point where it leaves the dishes white in the dishwasher, but the soap doesn't sud. I didn't think much of it, then a week later and the dishwasher started making the dishes white. I checked the dial and there was about 12k left before regen. Just for kicks, I did a manual regen, and a day or two later, everything was back to normal. BTW, it takes a day or two for the water in the hot water heater to become soft, that's why the gap. I've been playing around with the "people dial" to dial it down. I'm attempting for it to do a regen every week, but it still seems to have this issue where the soap doesn't sud as much, which leads me to believe that the water is becoming hard.

For my setup, I have the mains going into a FlowMax 20 micron filter, which is then connected to the water softener, and then out to the faucets. I use Morton's Solar Salt but that's becoming harder and harder to find around here, so I think I may switch to System Saver II. I check the brine tank just about every other week, and it has never run out of salt....or even come half-way empty. I have the drain line connected to the softener by way of a 1/2" plastic tubing, which gets drained out by running vertically up to a drain, which is about 5' of length.

I was wondering if anybody has any suggestions on where to go from here. Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated!!! Thanks in advance!

**LLigetfa** · 04-02-2011, 06:40 AM

Originally Posted by wiz561

Just for kicks, I did a manual regen, and a day or two later, everything was back to normal. BTW, it takes a day or two for the water in the hot water heater to become soft, that's why the gap.
...
For my setup, I have the mains going into a FlowMax 20 micron filter, which is then connected to the water softener, and then out to the faucets.

Ja, once the hot water tank is full of hard water, it takes a while to get soft water again since it mixes and dilutes. Best to not run out of soft water.

If the prefilter restricts flow too much, it can prevent a good regen. If there is a way you can gauge how much flow you have during a regen, try to determine if it is adequate.

**Akpsdvan** · 04-02-2011, 11:11 AM

Really The people dial?
The worst thing that Fleck ever did, any number of service calls are because of that..

Moving the hardness from ppm to grains , I move it up just a little to 26grains
If your salt setting is at 12 to 15 then you should be getting 45k.
Now the 26 divided into the 45 equals out to just under 1700 gallons.
With 2 in the house I would set the meter at 1500 gallons.
That number of gallons depending on your use could go out to 12 days between regens.

**wiz561** · 04-02-2011, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by Akpsdvan

Really The people dial?
The worst thing that Fleck ever did, any number of service calls are because of that..

Moving the hardness from ppm to grains , I move it up just a little to 26grains
If your salt setting is at 12 to 15 then you should be getting 45k.
Now the 26 divided into the 45 equals out to just under 1700 gallons.
With 2 in the house I would set the meter at 1500 gallons.
That number of gallons depending on your use could go out to 12 days between regens.

>Really The people dial?

Yeah, I call it "The People Dial", but as far as I know, there's only one adjustment that can be made on this dial. I basically line up the dot with the number "x100" on the dial. When I said '12' in the original post, the little white dot is lined up with the '12' on the dial, and I assume that it means 12,000 gallons before regeneration.

I have a few questions about where you got the number for...

> If your salt setting is at 12 to 15 then you should be getting 45k.

I can pretty much understand the rest of what you said, but how do you know that the dot set to '12' means 45k?

Thank you very much for the response and the information. It sounds like I should lower it '10', but I'd still be interested to know how you came up with that number.

Thanks again!!

**Akpsdvan** · 04-02-2011, 03:47 PM

Each number on the wheel is X100 unless you have a longer run meter and not 0-21.

The dot needs to be lined up with 15 which would be 1500 gallons.

45k is the capacity of the unit .. 22000 grains of removal per 1 cubic foot of resin with 6-7lbs of salt each regeneration.

each lbs of salt will give the resin a grain capacity, much like the alternator charging the battery for your auto...... you use the battery to power things in side the auto.. then the alternator charges the battery so that you can use those items.
A battery has X number of cold crank amps... power to start the auto... I have a diesel and it has 2 with a large cold crank because of the size of the engine and that there are glow plugs that are used in the winter... so the power needs are high..

Most will use 6lbs per cubic foot of resin and use 21000 grains capacity.
You have 2 cubic foot or 42000 grains capacity... now if you are using 8lbs per cubic then say 45000grains capacity and as water is used with the 26 grains then that 45 starts to go down to 0
If you divide the 26 in to 45000 and then subtract another 150 gallon+/- that would be where the meter should be set..

**wiz561** · 04-03-2011, 04:57 AM

Thanks for the response and information. I had to read it about 5 times, but I think I'm starting to understand it now. A couple more questions...

- When I bought it, I bought a "Fleck 2510 3/4 Inch Meter On Demand Control Valve Water Softener 64000 Grain Capacity". Why are you using "45000 grain capacity" instead of the 64000?
- I dumped in 2 cubic feet of resin. Should I have used more?
- By having the softener regen too soon, is the only thing you're hurting is your wallet because you're buying more salt?

Thanks again for the great information!!

**Akpsdvan** · 04-03-2011, 09:56 AM

The number that is often used, the max capacity is a little miss leading.. just because units have a max does not mean that it should be used to that or pushed to that number.

The best point on the curve for the resin is 6lbs and 21000 grains.... you can add more salt but after this point the curve goes almost flat.... so why add more if one is not going to get more out of the extra?

The 64k is the max salt setting of 12lbs per cubic...... that is the most that the resin is going to hold.

**wiz561** · 04-17-2011, 12:19 PM

I just wanted to say thank you again for your help. I adjusted it and it's been about two weeks, and so far, the water has been consistently softer. So, thanks for all of your information and help.