Culligan Water Softener - Platinum Series

I just bought a house with a Culligan water softener. I am looking for help in how to program the "AccuSoft" controller and more importantly to understand what changing the settings will do. The owners manual does not provide the level of detail that I am looking for. Thank you, John

 

http://WWW.Culligan.com

 

Are you inquiring because you want to change the settings or you need to change the settings? They are initially programmed based on your incoming water quality data, specifically hardness, at the time of installation. If you have that info and the diameter sized softener tank, I can relay the correct settings for the Platinum softener.

Art

 

Thank you for the reply. I'll get the info in about one week. I bought the house through a foreclosure and it has been without electrical power for about 3 months. So I suspect that all the original settings have been "lost".
Thank you,
John

 

John,

If you can identify the exact model of your Culligan you can get the documentation here ...

http://www.culligan.com/index.cfm/title/Owner's%20Guides/id/10.html

Those guides explain how to program the control valve. Correctly programming the control depends on you having the the knowledge of what the specific settings mean and on the condition of the water (hardness, iron, magnesium, iron, etc), the capacity of the softener (volume of resin and service flow rate), # of people in the house and the plumbing fixtures.

You'll need a recent water test.

You might consider calling Culligan and getting them to come out and test the water and program the softener. Sitting unused for a few months doesn't make softeners happy (especially if there's iron in the water) and it might benefit from a basic service. You'll probably incur a minimum service charge and it gives the local Culligan people a chance to cultivate a new customer and explain what routine maintanence the softener requires.

IMO it would be money well spent.

Oh, and some softener control valves have a back-up battery or capacitor to keep programmed memory settings without AC power ... you might get lucky.

 

I took the water to the local Sears harware Store and the young lady rinsed the vial and test bottle with my water, that was a good sign. Then she added the chemicals and it took 9 drops of a chemical to turn it blue-ish. She said that meant it had 9 grains per gallon - hardness.

I'll have four people in the house for about one year and then the number will drop to just two people. The model number is 0100950, S/N 1468312; looks about a 9" diameter. I looked over the Culligan website for sometime prior to posting and the control head looked like the Platium version. The Control head also had the word "Premier" on it.

This week I'll clean out the salt tank, hook it all up and see if it comes a live with the old program. Culligan keeps their information close to the vest, Sears/Kenmore provided much more information in their typical owner's guide. I'd like to give the "Do It Yourselfer/ME" a try before I call the Culligan rep to look it over, set it up and give me the sales pitch.

Thanks for the replys, I appreciate them.
John

 

John,

The young lady at Sears did a quick and easy and incomplete water test. Hardness is only one factor in water quality AND in correctly setting up a water softener. There's iron, manganese, TDS and more to consider.

When one is selling a water softener that is limited in it's successful aplications then one uses a limited test to support it.

You've got a quality piece of water treatment hardware but it's useless if it's not setup properly and working correctly. You can guess and experiment and try one thing or another with that softener but how will you know if it is working correctly?

With respect, all the information needed to program that softener can be found at the link I provided. What is not provided in the Culligan documentation is the knowledge of what to do with that information.

Your water quality is important and not a good place to guess. I don't see Culligan coming out to "give you a sales pitch". They'll send the service tech and that's who you want to meet anyway. You can learn a lot from watching that tech and if he/she doesn't mind answering your questions that cost is money well spent. The money you'd spend to have Culligan come out and do what you need can be considered TUITION. Education costs money. If you want to learn about your water softener this is a good place to start.

 

Brand bashing was removed.

 

I am about to replace the Culligan water softener. One year ago it cost $340. To get it working and now it has the same problem. Sorry but at $300 to $400 per year for maintaninance is just too much. I bought a unit online and will install it myself.

 

I want to verify the current settings on my Culligan Accusoft Conditioner (Mark 100) to make sure they are right. Because we are still seeing rusty colored water so I am wondering if I need to adjust some of my settings. ???

 

I want to verify my settings because my water is still rusty

 

You stand a much better chance of getting your questions answered by starting a new thread instead of resurrecting a 2 year old thread...

Well water or water system?

Has your water ever been not rusty?

How long have you had your softener?

Has it been working properly previous to this episode?

Did you change anything or fiddle with your softener at all?

Has the softener run out of salt in the brine tank?

 

Check on everything that justalurker recommends and also check 3 other issues.

Number one, if the iron has any ferric component (precipitated iron) the softener needs to be preceded by some sort of pre-filter that filters down to 5 microns. Ferric iron is between 5 and 10 microns in size. (Almost all) softeners do not eliminate ferric iron and if the amount of ferric iron is enough, say over 1 ppm (this varies depending on other water chemistry factors and type of resin), then it will also foul the resin.

Number two, if your water is acidic, then the iron can not be totally removed by the softener due to the acidity stripping the iron back off the resin after the ion exchange has occurred. If this is the case, then some sort of neutralizing will have to take place. Your local water guy will recommend the best method taking into account all the issues with your water.

Number three is backwash frequency. All the old timers I have worked with always said to backwash (regenerate) a softener that is removing iron every three days due to the ferrous iron having enough time to turn ferric after three days of being stuck on softener resin. This will then become problem number 1 again, because the softener will now allow this changed iron to pass through to the house. This advice has always worked for my customers. If your accusoft culligan is the same as the ones I have worked on, you should be able to override the metering system so that if three days pass without enough water passing through to initiate a regeneration, it will automatically regenerate. You may need a culligan technician to reprogram the valve if this has not been done already.

This is all assuming you don't have problems with your well or well pump not being able to keep up with the demand of the softener during regeneration and that the drain is not restricted. If those problems exist, all bets are off.

 

Hi guys, I was browsing this thread for answers to my Culligan Mark100 Watersoftener problems. I had the unit for around 12 years and working fine, recently I noticed the water was draining out continuously day and night, I bypass the system and call culligan people for service, they said $139 for sending the service guy plus cost of the parts, reluctantly I agreed and schedule the service, he came today and told me the control valve, aqua sensor and some other little parts were gone and quoted me $400 to fix the system or offered me for $800 he will replace the whole head unit and brine solution and gives warranty for 3 years. I just paid $139 and asked me for a week time to think, I need help, shall I dump the whole unit and buy any brand new one from Sears Etc. or pay to Culligan to fix the system? We are four people in the house and which softener you guys recommend?

 

To pgadde:

For most homes, I would recommend either a Fleck 5600 softener or a Fleck 2510 softener. Which one and what size media tank will depend on many factors including:

what size is the plumbing
how hard is the water
how much dissolved and precipitated iron is in the water
how many bathrooms you have (and other water using fixtures and appliances)
what the recovery rate of both the pump and well are

pH is something that must be tested to determine if you need any pre-softening neutralizing done, and having the correct sediment pre-filter will make your system last many years longer with less aggravation.

If you can get that info, please re-post with questions.

 

Water softners will not remove very much iron in the water. You need to install an iron and sediment hole house filter in line before the softner. That should help. Get some of those little water hardness testers from your Home Depot store. Test your water. If its soft your water softner is working. If not readjust the frequence of your softner.

 

How do you determine "not very much"? Of course the the type of iron is also a key factor, right?

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

 

Thats correct. Yes it does matter what type of iron you may have and it's source. It could be coming from the ground. Or your holding tank. Or it may be coming from old galvanized pipes in you system. What ever the type of iron you may have and there are 4 different types. The best way to elimanate it is with an iron filter. Again if your water tests soft and you still have staining you need an iron filter. Hey, it can only help. And save wear and tear on your softner.

 

I guess my question was how much iron was considered 'not very much'. Everything is relative. Some in my area think that 17 grains is not very hard in their rural water supply whereas they came off a well with 125 grains.

 

I've been selling softeners to remove up to 5 ppm of iron for 20 years. With special resin, I go up to 10 ppm.

Using filters when they aren't needed just increases the cost to the customer .

How much iron do you think is too much for a softener?

 

Do a basic water hardness test. Go to your do-it your-self home center and get a home water test kit. If your water is soft, your softner is working. Remember, this is a water softner not an iron fiter.

 

While you're there, buy an iron test too and use it to see if there is any iron in your softened water. If not, your softener is working as it should. If there is iron in the softened water, then there is something wrong with it like not the K of capacity or salt dose is not set correctly etc..