K60

[Randy in Iowa]

Hi all, new here but but I've been learning a lot.

I just brought my k60 out of a decade long hibernation but I'm having some issues. The backstory is simple, I just needed to re-plumb the service to and from the softener because the old brass one piece bypass manifold set finally corroded into being unusable (I couldn't [open] the bypass valve at all).

Today I was watching the meter run and the advance pawl was pushing the toothed gear clockwise as it was supposed to but the meter disk was moving backwards (or at least the visible black dot was). Is that the way it works? I didn't have time to run enough water to see if went into regen mode. It pushed through six teeth however and the dot moved counterclockwise. I'll go back down and look after my shower.

I'll have plenty more questions but for now I'm just getting started on learning about water hardness. I am on a well with one sediment filter. The water as bypassed was very good tasting but the rust and lime scale is ruining all the modern fixtures in the house, the older than 50 years fixtures work just fine with hard water. My water pressure is low at the new Moen kitchen faucet and the new bath faucets just installed 10 months ago. The house is plumbed with CPVC throughout. Plastic Poly pipe out the well house. Very short stretches of galvanized in the well house and PVC drop pipe to the pump.

For now however my issue is with the #4 meter disk apparently moving in the wrong direction.

Thanks for any assistance!

 

[Randy in Iowa]

Hi All, Not much interest in my question I guess, so here's another couple.
I feel a rebuild might be necessary so I was looking for rebuild kits. There seems to only be one source from the UK. However, I did find x-profile O-rings at Mcmaster-Carr made from Buna-n.
So, the questions are;
are x-profile rings the standard that came in new machines?
are the originals made from Buna-n or silicone rubber?

and the most important one - are they sized as SAE or metric?

Any offerings here?

Thanks
Randy

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Randy in Iowa]

OK, had more time to observe everything today.
The meter wasn't moving backwards but it was stuck and clicking backwards.
Today I ran Iron Out through it and saw/heard a couple of things.
1) I'll start with what I heard, an awful lot of bubbles coming out of the drain line as the brine rinse was going on. The drain line has a solid downward slope until about five or six inches before the drain and that section is held down with a solid concrete brick. I was thinking that could be cause - the water flows out slower there letting air in over the top of it, then it's spit back out when the water flow fluctuates just a little inside the drain causing the bubbles sounds. IDK. Maybe it's supposed to entrain air somehow? I know the water in the brine tank wasn't too low.

2) What I observed when the rapid back-flush started (on only the main tank under the valve) was the entire bed raised up for about 8" or so before the top burst open and then the water in the tank got cloudy over the main body of resin with what looked like flakes of material. After it all separated somewhat the main body of beads showed rippling movements on the surface and continued to rise until until it mostly blocked all light from penetrating through the tank.

3) When I did the same thing to the second tank (I actually did the aux tank first) it did not raise all the way to the top filter basket. But it did follow the same pattern - raised up completely before bursting open and sending clouds of flake look material up. The main body of resin only lifted to about 2" above the ogive of the tank parting line.

Both tanks are filled to within about 1/4" of each other with resin.

The tanks are about 48"+/- tall and probably 9" diameter of opaque fiberglass (I still haven't measure them).

The brine took about 23 minutes to empty to below the salt floor. I have no idea where the brine float is be set but I have it so there's about 3" of water above the brine floor and the bottom of the float device is maybe 2" - 2-1/2" above the floor of the tank itself (that was were the installers had the length to the elbow leaving the tank, no way to change that.

After doing this I have marginally better pressure in my house (except for the Moen faucet in the kitchen). It's still not nearly what it was before unfortunately; before all these water problems started after I ran a while without a filter in the whole house filter. That's my stupid. Now I'm trying to remedy that mistake (new see through house filter, new CPVC plumbing right after the pressure tank, all 3/4" with 3/4" ball valves.

This house is about 125 years old. There was re-piping done sometime in the 80's with all cpcv except for some very short bulkhead passes of galvanized in the pump house floor that would have been to annoying and expensive to replace. The stand pipe to the submersable pump is pvc which transitions to galvanized through the well cap, then to clear reinforced 1" tubing and back into galvanized to go back underground through the concrete floor (this where all the check valves and such are). The line from the well house is black 1" abs. There is still a short amount of galvanized pipe underground (maybe 30') that goes to the paddock water spigot, I'm not certain where the house water branches off that line to the paddock but it's under the drive and within 5 -10 feet of the pump house because it was installed about 1989 or so after we moved in here (we were just renting the place at that time).

If I keep typing I'll likely end up writing my entire lifes story... so ... Thanks again.

 

[Valveman]

Sorry, not much help with softeners. Be glad to help with any pump system problems though.

 

[Reach4]

Knowledge of Kinetico softeners here is slight. I do know that the float valve is what determines the salt dose.

Given that your softener faced iron for quite a while, I suggest an Iron Out treatment. https://www.menards.com/main/grocer...er/io10n/p-1444444183163-c-7097.htm?exp=false There are various methods.

Usually, if you are using a submersible pump and an air-precharged pressure tank, you don't want an above-ground check valve before the pressure tank.