We just bought our new house and my wife and I have never used a water softener before. I think there is something wrong. We buy approx 150 lbs of salt every other week. It is set to recharge 3 times a week. It is only my wife and I, and it sucks our salt down after a few days. There is barely any salt in the tank. i am not sure what to do, and we really dont have any extra money to have a techincian come out. what should i do? Please help!!
matt
Hi, By the sound of it, yours is mechanical set timer run recharge unit.
3 times a week is a lot. Your water that hard? I'd try once a week(or less like once every two weeks). Family of 4 with 4 bathrooms here, on demand recharging unit from Sears. I just fill the salt tank 3 times a year. Our water is pretty hard. TonyI'd suggest you go to your local Home Depot and explain your situation to them first, before pulling in a technician. HDepot will better understand your local water hardness levels in order to comment specifically on your setup. I have a GE based softener for my home, and I use potassium chloride, not actual salt. For our family of 4, only have to re-fill it twice/year, and recharging is only once per week. Our local HDepot set us all up after we bought our current home; then all I needed was a plummer (suggested by HDepot) to install it economically.
With a family of 5 we go through about 300lbs/year. The amount of salt you use will depend on the unit size and recharge period. I'm guessing that you have a large unit and the 3 day recharge is way too often for just the two of you. Based on your current salt usage I would suggest a period of 2 weeks is likely more than sufficient.
No one (here) can tell you IF your regeneration schedule is right or wrong based on the volume of salt it uses or the time between regenerations...
Demand/metered control valves regenerate when needed and based on the size of softener you have, the type of resin you have in it and the ion exchange required (raw water quality), the number of gallons between regenerations, ETC.. Your softener may be working just fine, or maybe not set up correctly. Is the water soft?
The capacity of a softener is dictated by the volume and type of resin AND THEN the salt dose in lbs per regeneration. Thereby every softener in the world has an adjustable salt dose. If you have a high efficiency salt dose setting, and decide to use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, you must increase the salt dose. Potassium is not as efficient and sodium because cation resins are not made in the potassium form, they are all sodium form. Depending on the salt efficiency setting, you have to increase the salt dose as much as 30%.
Here's a link to explain all the above and more about correctly sizing a softener and setting one up.
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