Broken screen at bottom of brine tank

[Spoolx21]

Hi all, new member here and I found this forum after googling my issue.

i have a kinetico water softener and I’ve noticed lately that my system hasn’t really been using salt but the softener has a strong suction on the fill line.

I took all the salt out of the tank and noticed that is was a nasty quagmire at the bottom and this screen or shelf was broken and all the salt had gotten past it.

I went to my local hardware store and bought a tank kit. The old tank had a shelf (see broken picture) and a hose with a floater valve on it (see picture) and the new tank does not have a shelf or a valve (see picture).

if the new tank doesn’t need a shelf, does the old tank? Is there any reason I can’t just clean out my old tank and put the pieces back in and use them without the shelf? Seems to me like there is fundamentally no difference but I really don’t know much about being tanks.

the black tank is the new tank and the tan is the old one

any advice is appreciated

 

[Reach4]

That shelf is called a salt grid. It allows a smaller tank to hold more brine by excluding solid salt from the bottom of the brine tank.

The Kinetico uses the float valve as the thing that regulates the fill, so the float valve is not being used as safety backup; it is the primary control device.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Spoolx21]

That shelf is called a salt grid.

The Kinetico uses the float valve as the thing that regulates the fill, so the float valve is not being used as safety backup; it is the primary control device.

Thank you, I did some googling on the term salt grid and it appears it’s not needed. Is there anything special about the kinetico that needs the salt grid?

 

[Reach4]

No.