Water Softener not pulling much Brine

Hello,

I have a water softening system that has an Autotrol series 255 valve/460i. Its 5 1/2 years old.

I use Potassium Chloride pellets in my brine tank. I check the brine tank regularly and have been noticing lately that the pellets are last an extra extra long time. I doubt there is any chance these pellet can bridge but I stired then up anyway.

I manually ran a cycle and noticed that when it gets to the cycle that sucks the brine in through the Air check housing it only takes in brine for a few minutes - the level in the brine tank only goes down about .25 inches. After that few minutes the brine stops coming in an it sounds like its just sucking air. I've never watched a cycle when it was in working order but I assume it should be taking in more brine than that - correct?

I cleaned the injector and the screen. There was a lot of gunk on the screen. I was going to clean the brine control too but was not sure how it comes off - does it just unscrew?

Cleaning the injector and screen did not solve the problem. Any other ideas of what might cause this?

I appreciate any help/tips.

Regards

Reply to
Lex
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Pellets can 'bridge'. Check your brine line connections and prevent any air suction. If it sucks air it can't lift heavy water/brine. Yes the air check screws off the older version of that control or you remove the screws holding the clear plastic cap on it. The injector has to be clear/open or it can't suck brine. There can be no kinks in the drain line. The injector screen has to be clean. Te drain line control (ball) must be lean and able to roll around in the drain line flow control area. The minimum water pressure minimum has to be 20 psi. If those things aren't maintained, the unit won't suck brine.

Gary Quality Water Associates

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Reply to
Gary Slusser

Thanks for the reply.

I took the brine control off and cleaned it and cleaned the screen again (still had some clogge holes).

I ran another cycle and this time it took brine for almost the whole brine cycle. The water in the brine tank went down about 6 inches.

However - on the refill it only put back about 2 inches into the brine tank. Is this normal or something to be concerned about?

Regards

Reply to
Lex

The brine should be drawn in the first part of the brine/slow rinse cycle; usually in the first 15-20 minutes but the 255 can take longer. The amount of water added to the brine tank is determined by the salt dose setting. Brine draw and salt dose have little to do with each other. If the water level rises then all the brine isn't being drawn or there is a leak allowing water into the brine tank when it shouldn't be.

That's all I can tell you without being there.

Gary Quality Water Associates

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"Lex" wrote

Reply to
Gary Slusser

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