5800 Upflow running out of water too soon

[chronos44]

I'm looking for a little help troubleshooting why I am running out of soft water before regen time. I contacted the seller about this and their original response was that I maybe had a leaky toilet that wasn't registering on the softener's meter. Sounded reasonable so I checked but did find any leaks in the toilets at all, everything was sealing and nothing running. I shut the water off to the toilets and the bowl level stayed the same after 3 hours. No water coming out of the valves. I've discarded this theory.

I saw on post on here about the air check valve leaking and causing the regen to not be complete. I changed my brine line from the supplied black line to a translucent white one. I did see air bubbles in the line after the brine level was low enough to shut off the brine draw. I contacted the seller and they sent me a new air check. I installed the air check and I still see air in the brine line. I'm not sure where the air is coming from since the brine level drops enough to let the air check ball fall but the port it seals is still under water and the brine level doesn't go lower. There are no leaks when brine fill is happening, so I am at a loss as to where the air is coming from. I don't notice air coming out of the faucets so it must not be much air.

After I installed the new air check, I did a full regen with 20lbs salt to get the resin back up to full charge. The softener went 8 days with soft water then regened (1100 gals left on meter). Soft water ran out after 6th day with 97 gallons left on meter (not in reserve yet).

Softener was originally setup by seller for 6lbs with a 0.25 blfc. I've changed it to a 0.125 blfc to match what I've found as the correct Fleck recommendation. I changed to a 7.5lb setting hoping that it would take care of the running out of soft water problem, but it hasn't. I test my water at 12gpg, seller tested my water at 12-14gpg with no iron.

BLFC : 0.125 GPM
Injector 00 (verified)
Drain Flow 2.0 GPM
1 Cu Ft Resin (32000)
Tank : 9x48

DF : GAL Display Format
VT : 5800 Valve Type
RF : UFbd Regenerant Flow (Upflow Brine First)
CT : Fd Control Type (Meter [Flow] Delayed)
C : 20 x 1000 Unit Capacity
H : 16 Hardness
RS : CF Reserve Selection
RC : 150
DO : 14 Day Override
RT : 1:00 Regeneration Time
BD : 60 Brine Draw
BW : 8 Backwash
RR : 8 Rapid Rinse
BF : 20 Brine Fill (.125 gpm = 2.5 gal = 7.5 lbs)
FM : P0.7 Flow Meter (3/4" Paddle Wheel Meter)
RE : OFF Relay Setting time based
VR : OFF Relay Setting volume based

What else would be causing this problem?? Thanks.

 

[WorthFlorida]

Is this a new problem? Regen time and actually soft water is not a simple switch over. The water will gradually get harder as the system capacity is used up. The region time left on your unit may be set for a hardness less than your water actually is. Usually there is a built in water meter that tracks the usage to determine the next regent time, it does not measure the actually hardness. If your system is set for a fix schedule say for every eight days regardless, then it needs to be shorten up.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Bannerman]

FM : P0.7 Flow Meter (3/4" Paddle Wheel Meter)

Post a photo showing the flow meter located on the rear of the control valve.

If your unit is actually equipped with a turbine flow meter, programming FM as a paddle wheel type, will cause the 5800 to calculate soft water consumption incorrectly.

 

[chronos44]

Pretty sure it is a paddle wheel. Is it possible they go bad?

 

[chronos44]

Is this a new problem? Regen time and actually soft water is not a simple switch over. The water will gradually get harder as the system capacity is used up. The region time left on your unit may be set for a hardness less than your water actually is. Usually there is a built in water meter that tracks the usage to determine the next regent time, it does not measure the actually hardness. If your system is set for a fix schedule say for every eight days regardless, then it needs to be shorten up.

It's not on a fixed schedule. It's based on water usage. Just 2 in the house, using around 150 gals a day. Should be getting 1250 gals of soft water (20000 grain/ 16 gpg = 1250) and about 8 days.

 

[Reach4]

How long has the resin been in service? I suspect not long. City water with chlorine/chloramine will reduce the life of the resin. Even with city water, the resin should last more than 5 years.

Your settings look good to me. Did they short you on the resin? I sure don't know. You could work around this by upping your H number to compensate. You are not using potassium salt, are you? That is not as powerful as regular sodium softener salt.

Make sure there will be enough salt to cover the water after fill. With the fill first, it may be harder to tell if you have enough.

If you are not measuring hardness with a Hach 5-B test, consider getting that.

 

[chronos44]

The resin is only a couple of months old and I put it in the tank. It was a full 1 cu ft box. I'm on city water but our city draws the water from wells around the city and they don't treat it. Their hardness test is pretty close to what I'm using. I'm using normal salt pellets.

From the City report:

HARDNESS, CARBONATE 225.000 MG/L
IRON 0.3 MG/L
MAGNESIUM 26.9 MG/L
MANGANESE 1.79 UG/L

I used a hardness test called AquaX, seems to be similar to the Hach.

It looks like I'm getting around 1000 gals of soft water, would H=20 be a reasonable setting? My last water bill was for 4800 gals of water, approx 160 gals a day. Still seems like there is something not working correctly.

 

[Reach4]

The city does not treat for hardness, but I have a hard time believing they do not treat with chlorine/chloramine.

 

[chronos44]

I called the city engineer and he said the water is untreated.

 

[Gsmith22]

I called the city engineer and he said the water is untreated.

echoing Reach, I would be shocked to hear they are not adding chlorine/chloramine. Its entirely possible the individiual has no idea. You could check for chlorine with pool water testing supplies.

In the event they are not treating the water (again, this is 3rd world banana republic type stuff), I would highly suggest you treat it. I know this doesn't solve your hardness issue, but frankly chlorination status of the drinking water is more important to know.

 

[chronos44]

echoing Reach, I would be shocked to hear they are not adding chlorine/chloramine. Its entirely possible the individiual has no idea. You could check for chlorine with pool water testing supplies.

In the event they are not treating the water (again, this is 3rd world banana republic type stuff), I would highly suggest you treat it. I know this doesn't solve your hardness issue, but frankly chlorination status of the drinking water is more important to know.

I really don't know for sure but the engineer told me they just pump it out of the well into the water tanks (there are 4 around this small town). The DNR report does show some chloride, so apparently it's added somewhere.

 

[Reach4]

Common salt is sodium chloride, so that chloride number does not indicate a disinfectant having been added.

You might ask one of the people if they use chlorine or chloramine in the water as a disinfectant.

 

[Reach4]

Revisiting this, I note "Upflow" in the title. I may have thought that thru originally. Upflow brining needs a lower brine injection rate. What injector do you use? The problem is that if the brine flow is too much, the resin beads could expand (come off of the bottom). And if that happens, there will be channels thru the resin bed, and a lot of the beads will not be fully treated.

Along with the low-flow injector, the BD time will have to increase. If you had the right injector, the 60 minutes may leave salt in the water at the end of the brine draw. So check that injector. If it is white or red, I think that could explain the problem. If the injector is violet, this takes more study. And if the injector is brown, then this is not the problem

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....low-injector-with-elevated-brine-tank.104194/ discusses an upflow brining with a 5810 valve, rather than 5800. But the concept is the same. But do see the table/chart in the first post.