Brand new Softener was working great not it's not. Any ideas

[jasper7821]

I had a ton of help for everyone here last time when I couldn't get my new softener working and it ended up being the venture cap wasn't screwed on tight and I guess there was no suction so nothing was happening during regeneration.

The water feels hard again and I bought a Hanna digital pH meter and last night it was 2.7 and this morning after regeneration it read 3.2.
Why would it be higher after regeneration?

Don't know if this means anything or not, but when I unscrewed the venturi cap to see if that had anything to do with it I heard air releasing when I unscrewed the cap. Is this normal?

Please help if possible, thanks

[ditttohead]

Are you referring to the Hanna Hardness meter? You say it is a pH meter, this would not be an indicator of hardness at all, and the numbers you are stating would make for some very nasty water.

Honestly, use a Hach 5B test kit.

Check out the link, are you using the Hanna tester with the chart? http://www.hannainst.com/manuals/manHI_98202.pdf

A standard Hach 5B is much simpler, more accurate, and does not need calibration.


What softener? What size? How hard is your water? What does your system feed? How many people in the house? Does it feed irrigation? What is the raw water hardness? More information is needed to answer your question.

[jasper7821]

Are you referring to the Hanna Hardness meter? You say it is a pH meter, this would not be an indicator of hardness at all, and the numbers you are stating would make for some very nasty water.

Honestly, use a Hach 5B test kit.

Check out the link, are you using the Hanna tester with the chart? http://www.hannainst.com/manuals/manHI_98202.pdf

A standard Hach 5B is much simpler, more accurate, and does not need calibration.


What softener? What size? How hard is your water? What does your system feed? How many people in the house? Does it feed irrigation? What is the raw water hardness? More information is needed to answer your question.

Sorry, I meant a pNa tester. The water feels pretty hard now. I bought that tester on Amazon thinking it would give me a really quick easy reading.
The softener is a GE GXSF39E 39,000 grain. The water before the softener with the Hanna meter says 2.7 and after the softener was saying the exact same thing. The after regeneration last night this morning it now says 3.2.
The system feeds the entire house except the front yard. Both front and back yard is on a drip system, not much of anything to water in the whole yard. (no grass, grass is a luxury in Arizona)
Only 2 people in the house and one shower a day for each of us. 10 minutes for her and 5 for me. Both showers use 2.5gpm.
It was working fine then last week I noticed it wasn't as hard with the soapy feeling. Went out of town for the weekend and did a regeneration last night thinking my morning shower would be nice and soft.

[ditttohead]

Honestly, considering the equipment, I would not venture to guess. Most service companies wont touch that system. Once they touch it, all the problems become thier problem.
You need to get a real test kit and determine the actual raw water hardness so you can program it correctly. Without a real test kit to tell us what the actual hardness is, it is not programmable. Order the Hach 5B. Simple, cheap, accurate, reliable.

[jasper7821]

Honestly, considering the equipment, I would not venture to guess. Most service companies wont touch that system. Once they touch it, all the problems become thier problem.
You need to get a real test kit and determine the actual raw water hardness so you can program it correctly. Without a real test kit to tell us what the actual hardness is, it is not programmable. Order the Hach 5B. Simple, cheap, accurate, reliable.

Thanks, I tested it with strips when I installed it a few weeks ago and it was about the same as the Hanna meter is reading now which is 2.7 on the raw water. After I did the regeneration last night because I didn't feel soft water anymore and the Hanna gauge said 2.7 I'd think this morning I'd have soft water but I don't. So I think something isn't working correctly.
It's programmed correctly but even if it wasn't wouldn't doing a regeneration make the water soft again. I have the salt level entered correctly and the hardness by the city's website hardness table.

[ditttohead]

What does 2.7 mean? (see below) A softener test strip is not a proper way to test either. It will only give you a range, not an accurate reading. The city water report should be very accurate, and they should give you the range that the hardness varies seasonally. My water ranges from 16-19 GPG hardness seasonally so I set my system to 19 GPG. What does your report show the hardness range to be?

For your softener, the standard troubleshooting applies. Does it draw brine during regeneration? Is the water salty to the drain within the first minute of brine draw? Is their any restriction in the drain line? Do you have at least 30 PSI water pressure? Is the drain line going up? Etc. I have only attempted to work on that model softener a few times, and would never do it again. Once I touched it, a few months later when it started leaking, or didnt work again... it was my problem. Maybe someone in this forum has worked on these more than me.

From the Hanna instruction guide

GENERAL INFORMATION
The pNa tester utilizes a sodium ion-selective
electrode to determine the activity of free sodium
in solution (pNa = -log aNa).
In dilute solutions, the activity coefficient is nearly
1 and in such solutions pNa is a good indicator
of the sodium ion concentration. The relationship
between the pNa scale and the g/L Na+ scale is
explained in the chart below.
A double junction reference is used to ensure a
highly stable reading. If you suspect that the
calibration has drifted, you can recalibrate the
meter by using a solution of known concentration.
Adjust the reading with the calibration trimmer.
HOW TO USE THE CHART
• Locate the pNa reading on the horizontal axis
of the chart.
• Move vertically upwards to intersect with the
45º line.
• Move horizontally and read the g/L Na value.
E.g. pNa = 1.4
g/L = 0.9

Not quite sure how sodium selective probes would determine hardness. I will call a friend at hanna later this week to see if he can educate me on this tester.

[mialynette2003]

You said one of the driper hoses is on soft water. It may not be registering on the softener and the capacity is being used up.

[jasper7821]

My irrigation has been shut off for a week so no water being used there.
Last night I tested everything again and watched the entire cycle and everything is working perfectly but the water still doesn't seem soft. I don't get it, it's going through all the cycles and doeing what's it's supposed to.
My Hanna pNa meter shows 3.3 BUT I guess that reads sodium and I'm using potassium. Returning it and getting the Hatch 5B.
The soap just doesn't seem to lather up like it did a few weeks ago.

[ditttohead]

The hach 5B will serve you well for a long time. I would recommend replacing i every few years since it does have a shelf life, but I know guys who have been using the same kit for 5 years, and they are still accurate.

Let us know what you find.

Thanks!~

[jasper7821]

The hach 5B will serve you well for a long time. I would recommend replacing i every few years since it does have a shelf life, but I know guys who have been using the same kit for 5 years, and they are still accurate.

Let us know what you find.

Thanks!~

Great, thank you very much. I wish i would have gotten that instead of the Hanna gauge in the first place.

[Gary Slusser]

If your softener has been using less than 15 lbs of softener salt per cuft of resin per regeneration, you get the maximum K of capacity of 30K per regeneration. It is a very rare softener that is programmed that way.

Most are programmed to use much less salt than 15 lbs/cuft of resin so.. you don't get the maximum K of capacity meaning not all the resin is regenerated, just the amount of capacity you use based on the hardness and number of people using water on a daily basis. IF you have used more capacity than the softener has been programmed for, yuo get hard water through the softener.

Example... you have a 1 cuft (32K as they are called although you don't get more than 30K/cuft) and it is programmed for 6 lbs of salt per cuft which regenerates 20K, leaving 10K of the original K of capacity still in the resin/softener.

So some day you use more than 20K of capacity by say 3K. Only 20K is regenerated the next regen, leaving 7K.

Now do that overuse a number of times (like your drip irrigation) and you use up the 'extra' K of new resin capacity and then your 6 lbs can't regenerate the 20K the softener uses between regenerations based on metered gallons, and you get hard water through the softener and start looking for why that is.... and find nothing wrong with the softener's operation.

To cure that situation you need to change the salt dose to 15lbs and do 2 manual regenerations one right after the other with no water use during or between the two so you regenerate all the resin back to 30K/cuft. Then change the salt dose back to the 6lbs or whatever is was originally and don't run irrigation water through the softener anymore.

You use potassium chloride and should increase the salt dose by 12-30% to equal the capacity that that much less sodium chloride would require for the same K of capacity. Or, my suggestion is to switch to salt and save some money over buying expensive potassium chloride.