Softener Problem

[Dave G]

Hello. Happened on this site trying to find help with my water softener. Read a few posts and it seems I may have found the site that can help me out. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Here is my story: bought this culligan mark 100 new 9 years ago with my new house. Installed and checked out by culligan. Everything appeared to work fine for a few months. Then, no soft water anymore. They came out, and after some adjustments things worked again for a few months. $300 bucks this time to replace a gadget or? Long story short. They have been out about every other year to the tune of a couple hundred a visit. Funny thing (not really funny) is that I don't think this machine has actually EVER worked. Our water is ALWAYS hard. There are no trouble codes or such on the display and every night it "regens" (or makes the noise like it is) We have used maybe 3-4 bags of salt in 5-6 years. That just doesn't sound right to me. I am in no mood to talk with the local culligan folks as I really don't think they have a clue. (sure have got me for several hundred bucks though) I really would like to get that thing to work. Today I emptied All the salt out of the "big" tank, cleaned it all out, put in 1-40lb sack. Hit the regen button and it started making the usual noise. Later this evening I looked in the tank. Dry as a bone. No water in tank. Do I need to put some in manually? What else can I do to check this thing out? If I can't get it to work the wife wants to send it to the dump and get a sears model installed. Ideas? Thank you for any help.
Dave

[CraigFL]

Don't buy the Sears one-- you'll be even sorrier! When you said the brine tank was "dry as a bone", did you mean that the salt at the bottom wasn't even wet? What I would do if that were true would be to pour several gallons of water into the brine tank, regenerate , ans see if that made a difference. If it does, your brine tank fill valve might be bad.

And remember, just because it's a Culligan doesn't mean you can't call another repair place to fix it.

[Wgoodrich]

CraigFL, I disagree with your comment against sears water softners being high odds for trouble. I built a new home in 1979 and installed a sears water softner sized per my hardness and rust rating use. I had no trouble with this old softner for 20 years working fine. The system finally plugged up after 20 years and I again bought a new Sears water softner. 8 years later this new softner is still doing fine with the water testing in acceptable range and salt use below expected needed use. I am pleased with my Sears water softner. So is my daughter and my ExWife. There are bad ones everywhere in every brand name. However water softners are a sales gimmick to many. I have seen outrages prices paid to a skilled salesman selling fancy outfits that a normal softner will work fine. Sears doesn't seem to high pressure sale you a bill of good push high end water softner costs and even offers free water tests without asking questions. There are other good brands of water softners but if you really check many are different brands built in the same factories with the same design but different brand names. I have no problem with Sears.

A applaud your advice that the poster is not married to culligan repair men or even culligan selling him the salt. I think you made a very good suggestion there implying a second opinion from a skilled water softner repair man being the best option for them by their post history.

Just my opinion

Wg

[Dave G]

Thanks both for the replies. I put enough water in the tank to cover the salt, plus about 1 inch over the salt. Hit the regen. It's been a few hours and no change yet so will give it a day or so to see if the water softens up. I used to have a little kit where you put water in a vial and added a few drops of something called "culligan standard soap solution" then shook it up. if it foamed up to a certain level you supposedly had soft water. It never felt soft or "slick" even though the test said it was o.k. I may take the advice and have someone else take a look if things don't improve. I'm betting there is something wrong with the machine itself. Thanks again and if anyone else has any suggestions I would sure consider them.

Dave

[CraigFL]

My problem with Sears is not when it's working but when you need to fix it. A lot of the tanks, valves and controllers are speced by Sears and are non-standard. The parts are usually available from Sears but much more costly than if a standard part was used.

[Gary Slusser]

Since there was no water in the brine take prior to the manual regeneration, it couldn't regenerate the resin. You should have added 2-4+/- gallons of water; it depends on how much resin is in the softener. But it probably wouldn't have sucked the brine anyway, since it didn't put any water back into the tank after regeneration.

The drain line, the drain line flow control, the injector, injector throat or screen could be blocked or... the piston isn't moving or the brine valve or the gears that drive the cam to open the brine valve are broken.

Usually an independent dealer selling/servicing Fleck valves can repair a Culligan. It depends on the control valve on the Culligan but, they use a lot of Fleck or Fleck like valves.

As to Sears/Kenmore, GE, mortonsalt.com, Whirlpool and North Star... they are all made by the same company, Ecowater, and share many of the same parts including the control valve. None of those brands last problem free for more than 2-6 years today. They are not good quality and the price for parts is very high for what they are. I suggest looking at a correctly sized softener using a Clack WS-1 control valve. You'll pay the same or less than a non sale Kenmore and get the same softener that would be used in a motel, car wash school etc.. You never find the big box store brands used in anything other than residential. And in their cabinet model types, you usually can not get larger than a .72 cuft softener. And they are hard to work on because of the cabinetry. They do not use industry standard tanks or control valves. And the quality of a softener is in its control valve.

[jstjr1]

I have never seen so much publicized crap in all my life. What happened to "Truth IN Advertising"? We desperately need boards like this where we have a chance of getting the truth.

Thanks again everyone.

[Wgoodrich]

Now you have two opinions on the same subject from respected members that reply often in this forum. One is a consumer giving a good track record of HIS experience with a Sears water softner. The other is a repairman that sees the insides of these things all the time and sees the horror stories of failures that should not be failures. If it were me I would lean on giving strength of opinion to the service man if that service man has shown knowledge and training on the subject exposing his level of knowledge. This Gary has done in this reply. Service men tend to be more thorough and have proven experience a consumer seldom has. Alway listen to everything everyone has to offer in advice then do what you think is best. Then you can not blame any one but yourself if it does not work and use the excuse that you did your research and made an informed decision. This is a good post to see what I mean.

Good Luck in your choice

Wg

[Gary Slusser]

Thanks WG. BTW, they just don't make them like they used to.

[Dave G]

Oh yeah! Thanks to all especially Gary. After adding the water and giving things a couple days it seems we now have good, soft water! I will ask this question as I read it somewhere else. Should I keep just a few inches of salt in the tank to stay a little below the water level? After the cleaning of everything, I put in a 40 lb sack and thats it. At one time a few years ago I filled that thing to the top and man it holds a LOT of salt! There are only my wife and I in the house and we do a few loads of laundry a week as well as the normal cooking etc. Also, the water could be just a bit "slicker" so I changed the "GPG hardness level from 24 to 30. Will that get the slicker feeling? The original settings for the system are all the same except the GPG. Here are the settings: salt dosage: 12 (calls for 5-24 for 12" model). backwash time: 10 (calls for 5-40 minutes). brine rinse time: 71 (calls for 35-89 ) Again I changed GPG from 24 to 30. Maybe this thing will work well after all!! Things are getting better thanks to you folks.

Dave

[Gary Slusser]

You should always have dry salt above the water. But filled salt tanks can bridge the salt and that prevents brining and the water will go hard.

Not having the slick feeling could mean the water isn't 0 gpg soft, but some softened waters don't feel slick.

A "12" model" would usually mean a 2.0 cuft softener. Commonly but mistakenly called a 64K or 60K.

The salt dose in a given volume and type of resin dictates the capacity in K, and the salt dose is adjustable by the number of minutes teh water flows into the brine tank. We get 3 lbs of salt in each gallon of water. Your control valve's brine line flow control is probably a .5 gpm; so you'd get 1.5 lbs / minute.

To learn about setting capacity etc. go here (http://www.qualitywaterassociates.com/softeners/sizingchart.htm)