softwater
New Member
We inherited an Autotrol 255/760 on a WG 1040 resin tank with the purchase of this home in 2011, and it was exhibiting brine tank overflows with each cycle at the time we moved it. I replumbed the whole house at the time, but kept this system, as I found it worked fine after re-plumbing the drain, cleaning the venturi ("jet"), replacing the venturi screen, and few minor mods to the brine tank.
In the 13 years since, it has worked fine for months or years at a time, but would occasionally go back to not drawing brine. When this happens, if we don't detect it quickly enough, it will overflow the brine tank during backfill, after 2 unsuccessful full cycles.
There is no sign of a cracked or leaking brine draw tube, nor is there any sign the draw tube is plugged at the open end. In fact, the ball valve on the 255/760 stays full of brine, with the ball floating in it... there's just no suction of flow through it. In a few of the many dozens of experiments I've run over the last decade, I've caught a few times where it starts drawing brine, but then stops after a minute or two. When this happens, a noticeable change in the audible pitch of water running through the valve occurs with it.
Long story short, it really appears the venturi was clogging, but I'd always find it clean after completing the cycle and removing it. Of so I thought... I'd rinse and blow it clean, reassemble, and everything would go back to working fine for a few weeks/months/years, until it'd happen again.
Out of frustration, I installed a Big Blue pleated paper filter upstream of the softener, such that all water going into the softener from our well is filtered. The filter does catch some mineral deposits, but mostly just a little red (iron?) sediment way too fine to ever clog the hole in the venturi. The frequency of intermittent failures never changed though, it seems the problem is not coming from the inlet water.
It failed again this week, and after cleaning the venturi, it drew brine again... for like 1 minute. Then the change in pitch, and the brine stopped drawing. Ball valve still floating in the clear check valve full of brine... just no suction. I decided to close the bypass valves and pull the venturi before letting the valve cycle thru the remaining steps, in case that was washing away whatever obstruction might be causing the venturi to fail. And I did find a few very small particles, almost like grains of black sand.
I suspect this might be my problem, but cannot figure from where they might be coming. Who knows what sort of neglect this system saw before we bought the house in 2011, could it be coming out of the resin tank into the valve? Could hard water making it thru the pleated filter be causing deposits in the valve assembly? Not really sure what to think, or what solution to chase, here.
In the 13 years since, it has worked fine for months or years at a time, but would occasionally go back to not drawing brine. When this happens, if we don't detect it quickly enough, it will overflow the brine tank during backfill, after 2 unsuccessful full cycles.
There is no sign of a cracked or leaking brine draw tube, nor is there any sign the draw tube is plugged at the open end. In fact, the ball valve on the 255/760 stays full of brine, with the ball floating in it... there's just no suction of flow through it. In a few of the many dozens of experiments I've run over the last decade, I've caught a few times where it starts drawing brine, but then stops after a minute or two. When this happens, a noticeable change in the audible pitch of water running through the valve occurs with it.
Long story short, it really appears the venturi was clogging, but I'd always find it clean after completing the cycle and removing it. Of so I thought... I'd rinse and blow it clean, reassemble, and everything would go back to working fine for a few weeks/months/years, until it'd happen again.
Out of frustration, I installed a Big Blue pleated paper filter upstream of the softener, such that all water going into the softener from our well is filtered. The filter does catch some mineral deposits, but mostly just a little red (iron?) sediment way too fine to ever clog the hole in the venturi. The frequency of intermittent failures never changed though, it seems the problem is not coming from the inlet water.
It failed again this week, and after cleaning the venturi, it drew brine again... for like 1 minute. Then the change in pitch, and the brine stopped drawing. Ball valve still floating in the clear check valve full of brine... just no suction. I decided to close the bypass valves and pull the venturi before letting the valve cycle thru the remaining steps, in case that was washing away whatever obstruction might be causing the venturi to fail. And I did find a few very small particles, almost like grains of black sand.
I suspect this might be my problem, but cannot figure from where they might be coming. Who knows what sort of neglect this system saw before we bought the house in 2011, could it be coming out of the resin tank into the valve? Could hard water making it thru the pleated filter be causing deposits in the valve assembly? Not really sure what to think, or what solution to chase, here.
