I just determined that my water softener isn't functioning properly.
The unit is a Kenmore Custom 100 (model no. 625.347411) which I placed in service 10 years ago.
A few months ago I added a Kenmore Resin Cleaner (model no. 625.341944) which is sold by Sears for use with my softener.
Today before starting to trouble shoot the softener I opened and cleaned the nozzle/venturi assembly and found that it was quite clean for 10 years service. What I have observed though is that there is very little flow into the brine well during the brining phase.
The instructions for the resin cleaner that I added call for inserting a tee in the 3/16? id hose from the nozzle assembly to the brine well. The segment of hose from this tee to the brine well also has a flow restrictor inserted into it. The branch connection from the tee is connected directly to the pump in the resin cleaner with no flow restriction.
I can understand placing a flow restriction in the feed to the brine well so that there will be sufficient pressure delivered to the resin cleaner pump diaphragm to actuate it but the flow restrictor that Sears supplied has a 0.052? hole in it. I suspect that this flow restrictor is my problem since it restricts the 3/16? hose to about 7.5% of its former area and the water to the brine well must pass through this much small orifice.
Also, when I remove the connection to the resin cleaner there is ample flow to fill the brine well.
Has anyone encountered this and do you know what the flow restrictor diameter should be? I hate to just drill it out to an arbitrary larger diameter for fear that I may over-achieve.