Beap52 1,481 #1 Posted July 24 Most of you are likely to be aware that maintenance needs to be done to water softeners. I've been noticing that the shower doors are getting the hard water lime look so I began investigating and discovered that our twenty year water softener has not been serviced properly--make that not at all. What got my attention was the two or three inches of salt compacted in the bottom. Then reading about the resin, I discovered it needed to be changed from time to time and that there is even a cleaner that can be utilized to aid in preserving the resin. I have ordered resin to replace that black mess that is pictured below. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wh500special 2,277 #3 Posted July 25 I just installed a new softener last week and the resin was shipped in a bag separate from the unit. It (the resin) was coal black just like yours. Not sure the black color of yours necessarily indicates an issue…at least I hope it doesn’t! Previous softener quit working and replacement parts cost more than I thought was worth investing into it. This one is a Fleck which gets high marks for parts availability and serviceability. We’ll see. From what i read over the last months while i was procrastinating about replacing it, today’s softeners are five-year products between overhaul or replacement these days. Steve 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
8ntruck 7,877 #4 Posted July 25 I had a service guy out to check our softener and iron filter this year. He gave them a clean bill of health, then casually mentioned that both units are obsolete and parts are getting scarce. Replacement of these things is on the to do list. Ah, the joys of home ownership. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beap52 1,481 #5 Posted July 25 57 minutes ago, wh500special said: I just installed a new softener last week and the resin was shipped in a bag separate from the unit. It (the resin) was coal black just like yours. Not sure the black color of yours necessarily indicates an issue…at least I hope it doesn’t! Previous softener quit working and replacement parts cost more than I thought was worth investing into it. This one is a Fleck which gets high marks for parts availability and serviceability. We’ll see. From what i read over the last months while i was procrastinating about replacing it, today’s softeners are five-year products between overhaul or replacement these days. Steve That would be nice if the dark wasn't from our well water. The white plastic filters weren't to terribly stained so maybe it came with dark beads. I'll be paying more attention to the softener from now on. The new beads i have ordered are amber colored. I was surprised to find the semi solid chunk of old salt (and impurities) in the bottom of the brine tank that was likely clogging (certainly slowing down) the entrance of fresh water and the withdrawal of brine. I'm now studying what salt might be the best to use. I normally just pick up whatever I find at the store. Sometimes I think "That knuckle-head, why doesn't he keep the filter clean?" (or whatever lack of maintenance that I feel is needed.) Here I got caught failing in maintenance of my own. I try to take care of my stuff because it seems to me that newer equipment may not be as well built. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oliver2-44 10,781 #6 Posted July 25 1 hour ago, 8ntruck said: I had a service guy out to check our softener and iron filter this year. He gave them a clean bill of health, then casually mentioned that both units are obsolete and parts are getting scarce. Replacement of these things is on the to do list. Ah, the joys of home ownership. My wives coworkers husband was in the softener business until he recently retired. My softener is 25 plus years old and no parts available He said run it till it fails. The new ones don’t last near that long. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WildHorses 432 #7 Posted July 25 I used to work on them for Sears doing appliance repair, including water softeners. Softener resin has a life of around 20-25 years depending on usage. The resin is only made by 2-3 plants in the entire world, so all brands are basically doing the same job no matter what brand of softener you're buying. You do not need to clean it unless your water has something like iron or sulfur (ie well water not city water) that can harm the softener over time or buildup in the resin, which will basically make your water pressure drop. The cleaner can shorten the life of the resin if you use it too often. The cleaner is basically acid (in liquid or powder form) to soften the particles the salt rinse doesn't remove. The issues with them is typically 98% of the time (not counting major obvious leaks) around the regeneration system, where water mixes with the salt to form a brine solution which is ran back through the resin in the opposite direction of the normal water flow to rinse off the hard particles. You can usually rebuild the moving parts portion of the regeneration unit for less than $200 (may be more post covid or on a higher cost unit like Culligan) Common issues most people have are: 1. Keeping the tank full of salt to the top. This is bad and can create a "salt bridge" or blockage as OP had. Keep the unit half full at most, or let it run down to less than 12" of salt before refilling if you have a circumstance where you have to fill it all at once. 2. Buying a unit not adequate for their water. (This is typically an issue with well water but if you have a larger home or more than the standard 4-5 people in your home you may need a bigger capacity unit. Capacity listed in grains on the specs is what you're paying for as it is the amount of resin capacity a system has. More capacity of resin, less salt usage and fewer recharges.) 3. Do not ever call a "advertised on TV/Radio" local hvac company or plumber to repair your system. Call the company that sells your brand or anyone locally that has experience fixing your brand. 90% of the time the local plumber or hvac company will make up a BS story and say it needs a part they can't get or that's $800-1,000 plus labor. 4. Keep the hardness level set (98% of the "rust belt" can set one to 21 grains or you can get your water tested at most stores that carry softeners for free, take only hard water to test) (if you set it higher than this you get a little cushion so you won't run out but you're mostly just wasting salt) 5. Keep the time set, some units won't recharge if the time isn't set OR they will recharge at the wrong time when you're using water. When a softener recharges you're getting hard water supplied to the house so if someone runs hot water the water heater will fill with hard water which can make it seem like an ongoing issue of no soft water even if the softener is working ok. Ecowater is the company that made the Kenmore softeners for Sears. If you liked a Kenmore water softener or have one needing repair there are a ton of videos on youtube or look for a dealer of an ecowater made water softener. Currently the Rheem softeners at Home Depot are made by Ecowater as are the Morton units at Menards. There are a decent number or independant Ecowater dealers around the country as well. GE, Morton, Rheem, Whirlpool were but I'm not sure if they still are or where to buy one if so. -Culligans are over rated and over priced. They have a brass valve which indicates better or longer life but they have plastic internal wear parts and rubber o-rings that operate their regeneration system like anyone else. They aren't horrible systems but you're going to pay for them. They do typically have decent service and local dealers which is a plus though. -I don't know anything about a water boss or aqua systems. But yeah, don't throw out resin for new unless your system is 20+ years old but since you did you need to make sure you get the right amount. Often they send out a random sized bag that isn't measured out. So call the company and make sure you're using the correct volume of resin for your system. If you have a dip tube to shove down into the resin, you can partially fill the fiberglass tank with water and the tube will go in easier. My personal recommendation currently is to get a Rheem at Home Depot or Morton at Menards (whichever store is better/closer for you) for $400-500 plus install (which a local plumber can typically handle for $200-300 if you have the unit sitting there). Some may tell you they won't install it if you bought it they only install X brand and the cost for that is $2,000+ installed, say thanks and keep calling around you'll find a decent plumber at some point. Also... as of 7/25/2025 and writing this I have never seen a saltless unit that actually works. Do not buy the hype! Ask to have your water tested if you get one installed and don't trust the installers word. They typically only are helpful at all if your water is barely hard, something around 4-5grains they can put a dent in that but for 90% of the country they do almost nothing. I have tested water in many houses using them with white hardness film on their dishwashers. You can use potassium if the salt is a problem for you but a properly working softener should add no measurable salt to your water unless you have a major mechanical problem. 4 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WildHorses 432 #8 Posted July 25 5 hours ago, wh500special said: I just installed a new softener last week and the resin was shipped in a bag separate from the unit. It (the resin) was coal black just like yours. Not sure the black color of yours necessarily indicates an issue…at least I hope it doesn’t! Previous softener quit working and replacement parts cost more than I thought was worth investing into it. This one is a Fleck which gets high marks for parts availability and serviceability. We’ll see. From what i read over the last months while i was procrastinating about replacing it, today’s softeners are five-year products between overhaul or replacement these days. Steve What brand of softener ships their resin separately? That seems extremely weird to me. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wh500special 2,277 #9 Posted July 25 9 hours ago, WildHorses said: What brand of softener ships their resin separately? That seems extremely weird to me. The whole water softener is branded as a Fleck. I think the boxes said Fleck-Pentaire on them or something like that. I was a little hurried and paid less attention to this than I usually would have…more on that in a moment. The filament wound tank was only partially filled with resin. The balance had to be added from the pre-measured bag. I assume this was done to keep package weights within standard UPS/FedEx limits. Now, when the wheels fell off… I had a minor surgery scheduled for last Friday that’s going to keep me from doing many strenuous things for the next few months. So in the leadup to that I had a flurrry of things to do at work and around the house. One of those was finally getting around to replacing the water softener that I had been putting off. Ironically, I was procrastinating on this replacement as a means to avoid the surgery but once one was on the docket so was the other. i had already removed the old softener when I considered rebuilding it so installing the new wasn’t a big deal. I had all my plumbing pretty close already and used PEX for the final connections figuring that would soak up some misalignment if I needed it and help speed things along. Wednesday night at 730 I began. 45 minutes after I started I was done and putting water to it. No leaks, and we had soft water right away. Patted myself on the back for being perfection personified. Hubris. Surgery Friday. Came home. All great. My wife noticed that some fine resin particles had settled in the bottoms of the toilets. I figured it was just fines that got out during initial fill and it would go away after another regen to flush the bed. It did. Or seemed to at least. Until we saw it again on Sunday morning. I thought for a microsecond about the infinitesimally small chance I’d hooked something up wrong, but just as quickly dismissed that improbable idea. In addition to being incredibly smart, handsome, and humble I also have great attention to detail so I figured that we’d find that the piping was fine and that my softener probably came from the factory with a statistically rare failure escape. She went downstairs and took a picture from my piping for me. And… It’s hooked up backwards. Water goes in the outlet and out the inlet. It couldn’t be more clearly marked on the unit itself and my plumbing loop is incredibly obvious so mixing it up really takes some intentional chicanery. Clearly this is a case of some miscreant sneaking into the house while we were at the hospital and reversing the plumbing as a prank. I hear this happens all the time in my neighborhood and the same guy is probably the one who occasionally runs the hot water to toilets as a neat party trick. So now I have a small project waiting for me. I think the PEX connections here will make the reconnection easier than it would have been if I’d run my copper all the way as I originally had planned. At least I rationalize it this way. And to close the loop for the curious, we isolated the softener in its bypass loop (I have a plumbed-in independent bypass for this in addition to the softener’s valve) and ran a million gallons of water through everything to flush out the mobile resin. My wife ran water into the sinks, toilets, and tubs and ran the outside faucets into a washtub to look for resin that would settle out. Very minor amounts here and there and I guess we lost very little overall…perhaps a cup full. We luckily hadn’t washed clothes so nothing got out in that run of plumbing. Hardly any in the water heater when she drained it thru the washtub. I have one slow bathroom faucet that I suspect has a clogged aerator in it, but so far that’s all I notice as an issue. It’s seized up and I can’t get it off to clean it out so I’m saving that for later. I called the seller’s water softener hotline asking if I should check the resin level or screw with it when I correct the plumbing and they said resin loss is usually minimal. If it pulls brine, it’s good to go. If not, I’ll get to see how easy it is to install a rebuild kit. They also said that reversed connections happen all the time…they field this call many times each week and likely more often after a professional install than a diy. So there must be a lot of these plumbing pranksters out there. So my haste that had me ignore the box labels also resulted in getting to do the job a second time. C’est la vie. Steve PS - it’s ok to laugh at me by the way…at least I’m still handsome. 3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites