Hello, I have a water softener manufactured by a local water conditioning company which has a fleck 5600 econominder metered and is 50000 grains. The softener started doing this six months back where every morning after regenerating (regenerates every 4 days or so due to it set at 900 gallons) at 2 in the morning the first family member which gets up uses the shower at 5:30 and they get salty water which is sticky and smelly like rust and sulfur. So far we have only seen this in one fixture because nobody uses water before 5:30 so its hard to tell. I called out a service man who changed the spacer and seals and piston, which were bleeding iron a bit but still we get the "brine" water (Im assuming its brine because its salty and it occurs after regeneration). I use iron out when I fill it with salt and I was told not to do that and fill it up every so often twice a year. This brine water has a higher TDS than that of the raw water that comes from the well into the softener. Im thinking of replacing the softener. Please I need advice. Thanks.

 

I'm no expert but I have had the same problem in the past. Chances are your water softener is not releasing brine water after regeneration, it is most likely not rinsing all of the brine water out of your softener during regeneration. Some possible causes are as follows. 1.) check to make sure your drain line is not plugged or partially blocked. 2.) check to make sure your brine valve is closing after filling your brine tank. 1 gallon of water will dissolve 3lbs. of salt so if your brine valve is sticking open you will put to much water in your brine tank thus dissolving more salt than your salt setting. this makes it difficult to rinse the higher salt solution completely during regeneration. also you will use salt at a much faster rate than normal. 3.) There could be a blockage in your control valve or distribution tube thus not allowing a complete flush of brine water during regeneration. look in your owners manual it should state the gpm (gallons per minute) flow to the drain during the backwash cycle while the unit is in backwash cycle check the flow rate to the drain with a 5 gallon bucket and a watch. If the manual states you should get 5 gpm. during backwash and you only can get 2 gpm through your system chances are you have blockage some where. 4.) check your well and pressure tank to make sure you don't have a recent drop in flow or pressure this can also cause your softener to not rinse completely during regeneration. Like I said I'm not an expert but I noticed nobody would answer your post and I have had this same problem in the past hope it helps
Neil

 

Thank you Neil for posting a response. Hopefully I will find the solution to the problem.