At wits end with new Fleck 7000 stx!

[Adamk]

Hello folks!

I seem to have exhausted the internet with my research so it's time for me to start a new thread to help myself today and hopefully someone else in the future. I purchased a new water softener from http://www.discountwatersofteners.com with the idea that I would plug it in and be up and running. I have extremely hard water, 80 gpg so I bought a 96,000 grain single tank system (3 Cu. ft of fine mesh resin). There are 4 of us in the house though we're not heavy water users. Well the problem is I haven't had soft water yet! I have a TDS meter. My installation called for putting gravel at the bottom of the resin tank which I did using the supplied gravel. I initially did not install the small red basket/sieve type thing that fits over the bottom of the distributor and slips over the tube going down the resin tank but I went back and installed it once I figured out what its for since it wasn't mentioned in the directions. Here is what I've done so far:

- Testing brine draw with a bucket full of water
- Allowed the water and salt in the brine tank enough time to make brine (3 hours is enough?)
- Observed the system suck up all the brine in the brine tank during the correct time in the cycle.
- Observed the tank fill back up after wards during the fill cycle.
- Observed water flow freely through the drain tube at various points.
- Insured the unit is not in bypass (the above wouldn't happen if it was in bypass mode right?)
- Took apart the injector and screen and made sure all is well. The injector had a little ball that may have been stuck in the up position but I think I freed it. Could it be stuck again?

Additional facts about the system:

-BLFC 0.125
- The drain line port has a sticker on it that says 3.0
- All system setting other than the hardness and capacity settings are default.
- I took the fleck head off the resin tank and examine what I believe is the distributor to see if it's broken. Seems fine (see pictures).

I emailed the discountwatersofteners.com and was told that I should give it a chance to sit overnight and make brine properly and that if it's drawing brine it should work. I'm not sure about that, I thought I should have good brine in a few hours.

Anyways I would appreciate any help or advice I can get. I would even take a referral to someone around north columbus oh who I can call to come over and take a look at this for me. Either way I'll be sure to post my progress with this issue here for the sake of contribution.

[Pictures bellow are of the control valve off the resin tank observing the what I believe is the distributor cap on and off the unit as well as the red sieve that fits over it.]

[mialynette2003]

What makes you think you have hard water after the softener? If you are using the TDS meter, that is the wrong piece of equipment to measure for softness. The TDS of soft water will be higher than hard water. Water softeners do not remove TDS. Take a sample of your soft water to your local water treatment company and ask them to test it or take a sample to Sears and they will test it for you. Or invest in a Hack 5B test kit.

[Bob999]

As mialynette2003 notes a softener does not reduce or remove TDS.

As an additional point, if you have been living with very hard water then your hot water heater is filled with hard water and both the hot water heater and the piping system is likely lined with hardness deposits. The result is that even if the softener is working perfectly you won't have completely soft water until the hot water tank is completely flushed and the deposits in the piping system have slowly dissolved over time. This could take weeks.

[ditttohead]

LOL, you beat me to exactly what I was going to say. Without a test kit, you dont know what you have or if your water softener is working. Buy a HACh 5B test kit.

Looking at the picture, you have the most up to date 7000SXT, these are basically bulletproof. You need to adjust the hardness for the high TDS.

In the last picture, that looks like the 32mm x 1.05" adapter. if it is, it is not installed correctly. Part # 61419 should not be removable once it is installed. You need to remove the 32mm oring and o-ring retainer from the valve, pt#'s 19054 and 40538 from the valve, and snap the adapter into place.

Warning, do not attempt to remove the adapter 61419 once it is installed correctly.

Here is a simple programming guide for your system. If it is a properly sized 3 cu. ft. system, then it should be in a 14x65 tank. This would use a 5 GPM DLFC button. White #1 injector. the .125 BLFC is fine, but the brine refill cycle will be quite long. If you program it exactly as shown in this guide, you should be just fine. I have already adjusted this for your assumed TDS.


As to it drawing brine, you can usually tell if the system is drawing brine properly by tasting the drain water during the first minute or two of the brine draw cycle. If the brine is being drawn, the water should not be salty to the drain for a few minutes. If it is immediately salty, then their is a problem, usually with the riser o-ring, tube, etc. It is an easy test, let us know what you find.

10 minutes of water in the brine tank is enough to do a test, but 1 hour should be the minimum soak time.

[Bob999]

Note that Dittohead's instructions have a DLFC of 5 gpm while the poster says the unit has a DLFC of 3 gpm.

Additionally, I would expect that the unit has fine mesh resin is probably being used because there is iron in addition to hardness and if there is iron a compensated hardness should be used when setting up the unit. Compensated hardness equals hardness in grains + 5 x iron in ppm.

So if your hardness is 80 and the iron is 2 ppm the compensated hardness is 90 and H would be set to 90. (I note that Dittohead has apparently further adjusted the hardness setting for the TDS by adding an additional 10.)

[lifespeed]

BD needs to be much longer than 60 minutes with 0.125 BLFC and 96K system.

[Adamk]

Thank you very much for the responses so far! I wrongfully assumed that a TDS meter would give me information regarding hardness. I've ordered the HACh 5B test kit and should receive it within a couple of days. Another good point is that my hot water heater is full of hard water. I have been testing only the cold water but that was irrelevant since my testing tool was incorrect all along. Having said that, the water has not changed in any way during this process so I will assume it's hard until I receive the test kit. Those of you who mentioned iron are also correct, I will on rare occasion have a very faint iron smell in the water which is why I opted for the fine mesh resin.

Dittohead, you touched on a interesting point regarding the 32mm x 1.05" adapter. Again I'm attaching a picture for my own benefit and for others searching the web. It's labeled as #18 in the diagram and was simply pushed up into the valve when I received it. It was not easy to remove but I was able to slowly wiggle it out using the 3 small notches on the sides as grip. There is an O ring inside of the adapter that I have not previously messed with, would that be pictured as #19 in the picture? Once I find and remove the O ring and O ring retainer what do I do with them? Just a bit confused about that part of your instructions.

I'll also do the "taste test" this evening. Looking forward to a mouthful of salty water.

18.............................1.................. ............61419................................. . Kit, 1.05" Distributor, Adapter
19.............................1.................. ............19054................................. . O-ring, -124
20.............................1.................. ............40538................................. . Retainer, 32 mm, O-ring Dist, 7000

[ditttohead]

Actually, the BLFC does nothing for brine draw, it is the injector. The BLFC is a directional flow control, it is unrestricted in draw, restricted in fill.

A #1 injector draws about .35 GPM, assuming 8 gallons of water in the brine tank, the water should be removed from the brine tank in approximately 22 minutes, allowing a .8 gpm slow rinse for the remaining 38 minutes. The 60 minutes is pushing the recommendations, maybe an additional 10 minutes would not be a bad idea, but 60 will probably work just fine.

This is assuming he has the correct injector. A #1 injector on the 7000 is white.

[ditttohead]

The retainer and o-ring (19, 20) are discarded. I am surprised that there are companies out there that still dont know to remove the retainer and o-ring. The adapter will have its own o-ring on it. If this is not locked into place, it will work for a couple of years, but eventually, the adapter will fall down over the manifold and hard water will bypass across this area. The adapter is installed by pushing it with force into the valve. You may here a slight "snap" as it seats and locks into place. The salt taste test at the drain comes in handy when this piece is installed incorrectly and falls down an inch over the course of a few years.