Resin replacement on Rainsoft gold series

[BillG]

Hello,
I have an old Rainsoft Gold series softener from 1999 that stopped working a few years back. It stopped using salt but the control head seems to be fine. I am having trouble finding information on it and have attached pics. Admittedly, I am kinda clueless about this thing but would like to learn. I have cleaned out the salt tank and resin tank hoping to replace the salt/resin and getting it to work again or just replacing the whole unit. Is there a way to test this thing before I invest in new resin and salt? Thanks!

 

[Bannerman]

The fact that it is not consuming salt usually indicates there is an issue with the control valve. Also highly likely the resin will need to be replaced, particularly if your water source is municipal since constant contact with chlorinated water will damage resin over time.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

I would be inclined to replace the unit with something I could get a service manual for. That gets you new resin and more.

I found https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/rain-soft-problems.54602/ which might give a clue.

If not using salt, I would wonder about how much liquid is in the brine tank. You emptied that. If now full up to the safety float level, I would be considering a clogged injector, clogged injector screen, and there are other possibilities.

 

[BillG]

The fact that it is not consuming salt usually indicates there is an issue with the control valve. Also highly likely the resin will need to be replaced, particularly if your water source is municipal since constant contact with chlorinated water will damage resin over time.

The resin tank is just water right now. I was hoping I could test the system somehow before investing in resin, and then finding out the control unit is bad. Any idea if it is supposed to regenerate with just water in the resin tank?

 

[BillG]

I would be inclined to replace the unit with something I could get a service manual for. That gets you new resin and more.

I found https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/rain-soft-problems.54602/ which might give a clue.

If not using salt, I would wonder about how much liquid is in the brine tank. You emptied that. If now full up to the safety float level, I would be considering a clogged injector, clogged injector screen, and there are other possibilities.

The resin tank is just water right now. I was hoping I could test the system somehow before investing in resin, and then finding out the control unit is bad. Any idea if it is supposed to regenerate with just water in the resin tank?

 

[Bannerman]

Any idea if it is supposed to regenerate with just water in the resin tank?

The Brine Draw cycle should draw water from the brine tank, regardless if there is salt in the brine tank or not.

 

[BillG]

The Brine Draw cycle should draw water from the brine tank, regardless if there is salt in the brine tank or not.

Actually I was wondering about the resin tank. I removed the 20 year old resin, cleaned it out, and just filled it with water...no resin. I was hoping to see if the system at least functioned properly before putting new resin back in.

 

[Bannerman]

A softener control valve will typically utilize 5 stages during the regeneration cycle.

1) Backwash
2) Brine Draw
3) Slow Rinse
4) Rapid Rinse
5) Brine Fill

The Brine Draw and Slow Rinse stages are often combined as 1 setting (ie: Draw) because the resin will continue to be slowly rinsed after all of the brine has been transferred from the brine tank.

Some control valves are programmed to utilize 2 backwashes, 1 before Draw, and the 2nd after so as to further reclassify the newly regenerated resin within the tank, but 1 BW is most common.

The control valve does not know if the media tank contains resin of not so regardless of whether your media tank contains resin, each stage of regeneration should continue to occur, likely over a ~90 minute time period.

Because the control valve only controls the flow of water through the media tank, the media tank will continually remain filled with water regardless of which regeneration stage is taking place.