Should water be drawing for entire brine draw cycle (Fleck 5600SXT)

[fritzk3]

Hello all,

I am trying to troubleshoot a low water pressure issue in our house, which goes away when I bypass our water softener (48K system with Fleck 5600SXT head). The softener is plumbed in immediately after water comes into the house.

I had the system bypassed for a couple weeks, put it back in the water loop, then started a manual regeneration.

When I manually regenerated, I noticed that during the brine draw cycle, the water level got to about an inch in the bottom of the salt tank / brine well early in the cycle (first 20-30 minutes) but the control head seemed to be wanting to continue to pump out water. I added a gallon of water to the salt tank, it got sucked out. Basically, the head was "sucking" for the entire 60 minutes - I could hear it and feel it in the draw line.

Is this mode of operation normal (attempting to draw the entire time), or does it suggest something wrong with a valve or piston?

Other than this behavior, the rest of the regen cycle completed successfully. Afterward, though, the initial flow through the house was strange - very "frothy" at the kitchen faucet I tried.

I'm basically trying to figure out if I need to replace my resin bead, control head piston/valve and seals, or the entire system. Any ideas are welcome.

 

[Reach4]

When I manually regenerated, I noticed that during the brine draw cycle, the water level got to about an inch in the bottom of the salt tank / brine well early in the cycle (first 20-30 minutes) but the control head seemed to be wanting to continue to pump out water. I added a gallon of water to the salt tank, it got sucked out. Basically, the head was "sucking" for the entire 60 minutes - I could hear it and feel it in the draw line.

Is this mode of operation normal (attempting to draw the entire time), or does it suggest something wrong with a valve or piston?

Normal to be sucking (creating a vacuum), but not sucking air. The "BD" brine draw cycle actually is broken into two parts. The brine gets sucked down, and then the air check valve is SUPPOSED to block off the path to prevent air from being sucked in. The remainder of the time is called "slow rinse".

If your air check valve is bad, it can suck air.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[fritzk3]

Thanks for the reply. What should the water flow be like during slow rinse? Which direction should it be running? Should I be able to hear or feel any flow in the brine line?

 

[Reach4]

With a white injector,

What should the water flow be like during slow rinse? Which direction should it be running? Should I be able to hear or feel any flow in the brine line?

With a #2 injector, water should be flowing just from the input out the brine line at about 0.7 gpm at 50 psi on the water. There is a graph in the service manual. #1 flows less, #0 flow even less, etc.

 

[thewatersoftenerblog.com]

Hello all,

I am trying to troubleshoot a low water pressure issue in our house, which goes away when I bypass our water softener (48K system with Fleck 5600SXT head). The softener is plumbed in immediately after water comes into the house.

I had the system bypassed for a couple weeks, put it back in the water loop, then started a manual regeneration.

When I manually regenerated, I noticed that during the brine draw cycle, the water level got to about an inch in the bottom of the salt tank / brine well early in the cycle (first 20-30 minutes) but the control head seemed to be wanting to continue to pump out water. I added a gallon of water to the salt tank, it got sucked out. Basically, the head was "sucking" for the entire 60 minutes - I could hear it and feel it in the draw line.

Is this mode of operation normal (attempting to draw the entire time), or does it suggest something wrong with a valve or piston?

Other than this behavior, the rest of the regen cycle completed successfully. Afterward, though, the initial flow through the house was strange - very "frothy" at the kitchen faucet I tried.

I'm basically trying to figure out if I need to replace my resin bead, control head piston/valve and seals, or the entire system. Any ideas are welcome.

Pull the head off and see if the upper distributor basket under the valve is plugged up with iron. If so, clean it. It's going into a vacuum but struggling. Also, check the brine draw time in the SXT programming.

 

[thewatersoftenerblog.com]

Hello all,

I am trying to troubleshoot a low water pressure issue in our house, which goes away when I bypass our water softener (48K system with Fleck 5600SXT head). The softener is plumbed in immediately after water comes into the house.

I had the system bypassed for a couple weeks, put it back in the water loop, then started a manual regeneration.

When I manually regenerated, I noticed that during the brine draw cycle, the water level got to about an inch in the bottom of the salt tank / brine well early in the cycle (first 20-30 minutes) but the control head seemed to be wanting to continue to pump out water. I added a gallon of water to the salt tank, it got sucked out. Basically, the head was "sucking" for the entire 60 minutes - I could hear it and feel it in the draw line.

Is this mode of operation normal (attempting to draw the entire time), or does it suggest something wrong with a valve or piston?

Other than this behavior, the rest of the regen cycle completed successfully. Afterward, though, the initial flow through the house was strange - very "frothy" at the kitchen faucet I tried.

I'm basically trying to figure out if I need to replace my resin bead, control head piston/valve and seals, or the entire system. Any ideas are welcome.

If you have "Frothy Water" / "Air" after a regeneration, this indicates the brine tank float assembly is not "Seating Properly" after all the brine water has been drawn out of the brine tank during the brining cycle. This causes air to be drawn for the balance of the brine cycle, into the water softener, and causes cloudy, frothy water and sometimes air-spurting from faucets right after a regeneration. Remove the brine float assembly and check the bottom of the assembly where the "check ball" is. It's probably dirty, preventing the ball from seating properly. Clean the float assembly and brine tank. Use Duracube or Hardi cube salt for the cleanest salt to prevent such problems moving forward. You can find this post for "water softener salt comparisons" on our blog, The Water Softener Blog. Hope this helps.

 

[Bannerman]

Brine will typically be transferred from the brine tank to the media tank within approx 25% of the Brine Draw setting. For instance, if your Brine Draw setting is 60-minutes, then the appropriate quantity of dissolved brine from the brine tank, will be transferred to the media tank within ~15-minutes. Once substantially transferred, as mentioned above, the Air Check valve at the bottom of the brine tank will close to prevent air from being drawn, but Slow Rinse flow will continue through the control valve's injector and through the media and out to drain.

Slow Rinse will continue to push the brine through the resin, and will flush away the calcium & magnesium ions to drain, which are the ions that cause hardness. Also being flushed to drain is chloride and excess sodium. During Slow Rinse, the brine tube will be under suction, but because the Air Check valve is closed, there will be no flow through the brine tube.

Unusually high flow restriction through a softener, often referred to low water pressure, which immediately is corrected when the softener is bypassed, is common symptom of Chlorine damaged resin. Once damaged, the resin will need to be replaced, or a new softener installed. If you pull the control valve off from the media tank so as to obtain a sample of resin from the top of the resin bed, damaged resin will usually feel mushy when squeezed beteen two fingers whereas non damaged resin should feel solid and granular.