Water Softener Follow-Up Question

[tioga0630]

Last weekend, I got an education in how my salt-based water softener by the Nelsen Corporation works.

I need to know something: Can the clay in the holding tank ever get corrupted or ruined, so that it no longer interacts the way it should with the salt infusion?

I had posted because of the amount of scum in the brine tank. Is there any industry or chemical test that can find out if the clay in the holding tank is still good?

The trouble is that the tank is in my mom's home. A sister paid for the softener, and mom's of an age where she doesn't pay attention to maintenance issues any longer. It wasn't until about a year and a half after it was installed that I began to take care of it (cleaning out a brine tank so filthy I actually sold my own home and moved in with mom because it-- Well, it suggested mom needed more help than she was getting). I'm so afraid the length of time the brine tank remained so filthy somehow corrupted the holding tank.

I SHOULD point out, however, that during this time the brine tank was routinely filled with sufficient salt pellets. I did not know this when I posted last week, but family relatives have set me straight in the past seven days.

Thanks.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Yes, but generaly it lasts for years. There are also conditioners available bt I don't know how well they really work.

All you hav to do is check the softness of the water. If it is soft, the resin in working properly, as is the rest of the system.

We have a softener at work that treats between 10,000 and 12,000 gallons a day and uses a few of bags a salt a week. We clean the brine tank once a year. Nasty as it looks at times, the softener still does its thing. If it is still working, don't worry about it. Takes but a few seconds to test the water so do it once a week or so.

[tioga0630]

Thanks again, Edwin. One FINAL (promise) question: where do you take your water, if you're a residential customer, to be tested?

[willshak]

On 1/16/2005 6:27 AM US(ET), [e-mail] took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

Call, or drop by your local Sears store (the full service ones). They may have a testing station in the large appliance section (where they sell the softeners). If they do, there will be one or two people who are trained to do the testing. You may be better off calling to get a day or time when that person is working, or due in to work. I had mine tested at my local Sears two different times, and with two different persons doing the testing, before I bought my softener. Both times, the readings came out the same, or pretty close to being the same.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

To test for softness, all you need is a $10 kit. put the water in a vial, put a few drops of solution, check the color. Water is either soft of hard in that test. That means it is either working or not working

You can get kits that tell the degree of hardness, but you don't really need that. If you want more thorough tests, any water treatment outfit can do it. Sears stores usually do it.