Maybe water softener not yet fixed. Still trying to ID the problem

[1_Patriotic_Guy]

> > Thanks to all who helped on my water softener trials and tribulations -- > > If > > my softener lasts 20 years I will be very happy. > > > > It will be a couple of weeks before I am sure if it is fixed. I am on > > day three and softener has only regenerated the one time I manually called > > for it (even with the sensor back in place). For some reason when the > > tank > > ran out of salt "it" knew to halt the regeneration. As soon as I added > > salt, the regeneration started again. Not sure how it knows salt is in > > the > > tank, but I guess I don't need to know this. > > Can anyone tell me if the excess water in the tank between > > generations > > is a problem? My perception is most components that are exposed to the > > salt > > today are plastic, so long term corrosion is not an issue like it was in > > the > > days when much more was made out of metal. > > If not a problem, I'll simply monitor how often it regenerates for a > > while. > > Thanks in advance. > > > > > > A few inches of water in the tank is normal. If you can see the water then > you don't have enough salt in the tank. At the time of regeneration the > water softener uses the brine solution from the tank, not the dry salt. The > water in the tank needs to be completely saturated with salt BEFORE the > cycle begins. If not you don't get a complete regeneration or some other > malfunction. Modern water softeners have electronic sensors that measure > the salinity of the water in the tank and stop regeneration's until you add > salt AND the brine is ready. Some can measure the hardness of the water > output to determine when the next regeneration cycle is needed which could > be several days away depending on your water usage. > > Kevin > > Thanks -- Maybe my problem isn't yet fixed. This morning the tank water

level is more apparent. I filled the tank 3 days ago with 250 lbs of salt. Today the salt covers the first 25 inches in height of the 14" x 24" Oval tank (was several inches higher with salt 2 days ago). The clear water is above this level, so there is 5 inches of clear water above all the salt pellets. This is more water than last night, giving me the perception that the water is super saturated with salt and using way too much salt in the regeneration. Bottom line, something is causing consumption of 300 pounds of salt in a single month.

So where does the brine solution occur? In the main tank? Or in the float

cylinder? Or somewhere else? My perception is the brine solution would be opaque white because of the salt and not clear, is this right?

[Alan]

I had a similar problem although the brine tank actually overflowed before I noticed what was going on. I called Culligan who sent someone out. What he did while I wasn't here, I'm not sure, but it didn't keep the level from rising, so I called again. They sent out a different guy who appeared to know what he was doing. He replaced the main valve slider (which didn't slide very easily), showing me some o-rings that were obviously defective. He also reset the salt usage which he said was way out of whack. He said the float valve had nothing to do with it as it was only a "safety" device and it had not stopped the excess flow into the brine tank because the flow was too slow and wouldn't force the valve to shut tightly. Now it works fine, although the hot water tank is still full of hard water from when I had the softener on bypass. I haven't received a bill yet, but am expecting a big one for a service call, an hours work and some parts.