Newly Installed Water Softner/RO

**Greeny56** · 10-23-2011, 07:18 PM

I just had a new Powerline Water Softner and a Kinetico R5 RO system installed. Since that time (One week), I have found my ice maker taking longer to make ice, and the ice is hollow and smaller in size. I have also had a problem with the washing machine where I cannot get cold wash/rinse water to load the washer. If I change it over to warm, I get hot water to load the washer which tells me the cold water is not loading. The cold faucet in the washtub right beside the washer works just fine. It feeds right off the same line as the washer. My wife also have had a lot of sediment in the bath tub tonight which was sand-like and brown in color. Can anyone tell me what my installers should have done before leaving my house or have told me before they left?

**water solutions** · 10-23-2011, 07:22 PM

Check the washer's cold water line. There may be a screen there and it could be plugged.
Do you have a fridge filter? Take it out and see if water pressure increases.

**Greeny56** · 10-23-2011, 07:59 PM

I will take the cold water line off and let it run into the washtub and see if it runs normally. I don't believe I have a fridge filter, but will recheck the line where the installer screwed it in for any kinks. Thanks for the reply.

**LLigetfa** · 10-23-2011, 08:58 PM

Is the Kinetico R5 RO a POU or whole house system? If POU, and if plumbed into the ice maker, you probably will need to remove the filter in the ice maker to allow more flow since a POU RO has very low pressure.

**rjh2o** · 10-24-2011, 06:10 PM

By your description of sediment in tub and no cold water to washer it sounds like you have RESIN in your lines from water softener. I would by-pass the softener immediately and run the tub again to see if water is clears. Check the rest of the faucets in the home also. If resin (small round, brownish/gold colored beads) are present take off all the aerators, run all faucets to clear, leave softener on by-pass and call company. A Kinetico K5 RO is a POU reverse osmosis system. It may be plugged with resin or your fridge may have a filter that is restricting the flow of water from RO, this will cause hollow ice cubes because of lack of water supply. The location of the RO tank will affect the water pressure / supply to fridge also. If it is located in basement this is a common problem and be resolved with a delivery pump or larger tank.
RJ

**Greeny56** · 10-25-2011, 11:12 AM

Water in the tub is now running clear. I suspect that the brown sandish residue was sediment left in the line to the tub that was was washed out once the softner was installed. As to the ice maker, I had previously removed the fridge filter so that it was not running a redundant filter. My ice maker requires 30-120 psi of water pressure and the RO supplies 35-120 psi of pressure so I think that is not a problem. I also turned down the cool level so as to freeze the ice quicker and once we backed off taking ice too often, the ice maker started to fill. I still have not solved the pulsating water and noise I get when using the ice water paddle. My wife swears she hears the pulsating noise coming from the basement which is most likely the RO system. Thanks to all who responded with answers.

**bill marsh** · 08-29-2012, 07:15 PM

There is a selonid on the refrig. that needs x amount of pressure to open so ice cubes can form. You should have been told that by the Knetico rep. Not sure if removing the refrig. filter will help but worth a try. A pump can be added after the RO storage tank to add more pressure. Should be about $100. You also should get a sediment filter if you find it in the washing machine screen.

**Greeny56** · 05-16-2013, 11:51 AM

Been a while since I have been on here so I will just update everyone to how things are going with this softener system. I am still getting the red ring around my toilets and yesterday I delivered samples of my cold and hot water to the installers. They called me today and told me that my cold water sample is clear but my hot water sample shows hardness and iron traces. My question is this. If my water is running through the softener tank before it goes through the hot water heater how can it show traces of hardness and iron, but my cold water not show it. Am I missing something? Once again I brought up the snafu of the installer putting the system lines in backwards during the initial install and getting resin through my lines so that we were getting resin in our bath water and clogging up my washer filter. They stated that when the installer returned he checked the complete system to include the resin tank. Wrong answer. I was down there the whole time he redid the lines and he never took the top off the resin tank to check it. Tech is coming out Monday and we will be going round and round about this lie the installer told. I want the whole system gone through and I should not expect a bill for this.

**ditttohead** · 05-16-2013, 02:27 PM

Hard water and iron in the hot water tank but not the cold water lines is a good indicator of a system capacity problem. The hot water tank will "tattle" if the softener runs out of capacity, it acts like a dilution tank and takes a little while to become fully soft again. The cold water will be exactly what the softener is at the moment.

If the system was installed backwards, the valve must be removed and the media inspected for loss, especially if you got any resin in the house lines. Removing the head takes a few minutes and is not a difficult item that should be debated or argued, they should simply do it.

Good luck.

**Greeny56** · 05-17-2013, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by ditttohead

Hard water and iron in the hot water tank but not the cold water lines is a good indicator of a system capacity problem. The hot water tank will "tattle" if the softener runs out of capacity, it acts like a dilution tank and takes a little while to become fully soft again. The cold water will be exactly what the softener is at the moment.

If the system was installed backwards, the valve must be removed and the media inspected for loss, especially if you got any resin in the house lines. Removing the head takes a few minutes and is not a difficult item that should be debated or argued, they should simply do it.

Good luck.

Well, the company called today and the tech being sent out is the same idiot that installed it backwards and then told the company that after he reinstalled it correctly he checked it out completely and it was good to go. I am going to light a fire under his a** when he gets here.

**ditttohead** · 05-17-2013, 04:46 PM

What color is the tank? The "natural" color tanks, you can see into them without removing the head. That is the only thing i like about the natural tanks, otherwise, they are the ugliest tanks we have.

Keep us posted, and when he removes the head, give us an accurate measurement.

In theory, the media should be 2/3 up the tank with 1/3 empty.