New water softener system awaiting installation, few questions.

[Gary Slusser]

Yep, air bubbles in the drain water line, unless your brand of control valve adds them, like Clack, are not good.

They indicate that the brine line or something else is allowing air to be sucked into the resin tank (or the air is coming in with raw water) and... the only way air can get out of the resin tank is during a regeneration, specifically backwash.

Otherwise it sounds as if ya got a good plan for your installation.

[marcelo73]

Ok so as I mentioned to Mr Slusser in an email, after an almost complete day of work I finished up the install of my beloved softener just after midnight last night.

Excitement and deliriousness took over after install and I rushed to pour in the salt and fill brine tank with water, opppsss, as instructed by Mr Slusser I went ahead and left the salt/water as is and followed his directions... since there should be air trapped in the tank, I went ahead and shut off the water ahead of the softener, Then i opneed the hose bib and relieved the pressure, turned the hose bib off, pluged in the control valve and put the control valve in the backwash position, I then turned on the main valve about a 1/4 and ran that water until all air was out of the tank (which should've taken but 5-10 seconds if that, but took a few minutes and only because I turned the water main completely on).

BUT im stuck at this point, is there a manual regeneration required or does the softener valve do the rest of the work, what do I do from here??? How do I know if it is working properly??? Aren't I supposed to program it for my family of 3 with 15 gpg? The only other thing I ve done on this valve is set the hour on timer.

Below are photos from the valve in its current state and a photo of my filled brine tank, its almost at the half way point but i need to grab probably 2 more bags to get it to half or just above it.







Any help or suggestions, I have just added that 1/2 cup of non scented bleach as suggested by dittohead in earlier portion of thread.


Thanks to all of you who made this project much easier for me with all your ideas and professional suggestions very much appreciated.




** UPDATE** At approximately 3:30 pm pst about 1.5hrs after this original post, I took a long warm shower. During this shower I didnt notice any difference in the water aside from almost a vinyl/rubber odor but then all of a sudden i'm getting a slight taste of salt, i taste the water and yep tasted very very salty, like sea water, a few moments later the taste is gone and water feels of slight slime/smooth, could this softener have kicked in?! The slight vinyl/rubber odor is still there ever so slight, but salt taste is gone and there is the softener feel is slightly there.

[Gary Slusser]

After getting the air out did you let the control valve finish back to Service? If not it will have been regenerating while you were in the shower.

The manual you should have received with the unit or the people you bought the unit from should tell you how to program the valve.

I would not fill the salt tank with salt, 1/2 to 2/3rds is enough.

[marcelo73]

After getting the air out did you let the control valve finish back to Service? If not it will have been regenerating while you were in the shower.

The manual you should have received with the unit or the people you bought the unit from should tell you how to program the valve.

I would not fill the salt tank with salt, 1/2 to 2/3rds is enough.

Maybe I didn't let it finish its thing

The system was given to me by a friend, he was not a diy'r in fact he would call the service folks if there was ever a problem but I do have a pdf manual that was linked by dittohead, but i need to get the 45 or so pages printed to have in hand.

I will stop with salt now at your advice.

Thanks again.

[marcelo73]

Well i've programmed the valve, with hardness at 15, and capacity at 36, the brine setting is set at 12. I administered a water hardness test yesterday and results were in the area of 8 gpg, and this afternoon they are at 1 gpg.


My wife brought up an interesting question, did I service the system? I paused and said no! She asks because when she contacted the phone number on the tanks to inquire about installation they advised her that based on their records our system was due for a service. This service was somewhere in the area of 300 bucks or so. What all is included with this SERVICE they refer to. I tried to call them today but they are out of the office until Thursday. Other than this it appears the system is running as its supposed to.


Thanks again to all, and Happy New Year!!!!

[Gary Slusser]

Softeners do not require annual "service". Other than adding salt to the salt tank periodically and keeping the time set correctly, they are 'plug'n play' until you start getting hard water through them. Kinda like your vehicle, you check the tire pressure and change oil, change filters and grease it and use it until something doesn't work right. I suggest raising the hood every so often and check things out in the engine compartment but... today far too few guys know what to look for and women... most don't speak mechanical. Ya know, that is true of most guys today too.

[Mikey]

women... most don't speak mechanical. Ya know, that is true of most guys today too.

Problem is, today just speaking mechanical doesn't do you much good -- you've got to speak electronical and quantum-mechanical as well. I still do most of the service on my '91 F-150, but the new Prius is another bag o' worms altogether. A very tightly packaged bag o' worms, I might add.