I have an 11 year old Kinetico Model 30 that has developed algae in the disk housing on top of the valve assembly. I called the local service company and was hit with a $1000 bill to rebuild the valve and replace the resin! Based on some online commentary I understand that the resin has an average lifetime of about 10 years so I am not to upset by the need to replace this material and after doing a little research I was able to get the replacement cation resin for $150 (1 cu ft bag since each tank requires .47 cu ft of resin per the factory specs), however I am concerned about the algae. Has any one ever taken apart this valve and cleaned the unit or attempted to do the servicing themselves to save money? I believe the algae is the result of filtered sunlight hitting the unit from a window in my north facing garage but I think the unit is still working properly. Are there on line schematics that show how the valve assembly is put together? Finally is there a way to get a parts list for the valve assembly?

 

The algae is not really gonna cause you a problem......Kinetico produced a sun cap to cover the cap, check with your dealer......as far as taking it apart, do it slow and log every piece and it's position

 

Okay, here's the update.

Replaced the resin- no problem.
Removed and cleaned the entire valve assembly- again, no problem.

However since cleaning, the amount of regen cycles has gone up significantly. While I now live with a teen and an almost teen, I don't believe our water usage has gone up enough to justify the amout of cycles. I'm concerned that I may have accidently affected a setting in the valve assembly during the cleaning and re-assembly. Reading through the Kinetico manual and various threads, I see numerous comments made about the "salt setting". What is this, and how is it adjusted? I have been all over the valve and other than the disk (#5) I can't find anything that appears to be an adjustable controller.

Thanks for the help.

 

The salt setting is not in the head.......when you say it is regenerating more, so you seeit regenerating , or are you judging the salt uage??.......keep in mind, a five disc is high and the unit will regenerate quite often......240 gallons I think......sometimes after a good cleaning the unit gives you the impression that it's now regenerating too often, when in reality, it is nowfunctioning properly!

 

uxoman/jdp38,

I am having problem with my Kinetico (I would explain but I don't want to get to off topic) that I think is related to the valve. I was going to break down the valve, clean everything up, and see if I can find anything that might be causing my problem. It seems like the valve might have something jammed in it that prevents normal operation.

I was just wondering how involved you found this project. Did you find any sediment or junk jammed into the valve? Did you replace anything in the valve (o-rings etc that are avaliable to non-service folks).

Did you take any digital pictures of the process?

Thanks in advance for your help, it is appreciated.

 

What are the symptoms???

 

some background:

We bought our Kinetico quad flow system from a neighbor about 3 years ago, to be honest I do not know how old the system is. We are both on city water so our water quality should be the same. About 2 years ago we had a tech come out and make sure everything was setup correctly.

The problem:

I have noticed that it seems like our water does not have the soft "feel" unless I manually regenerate the softener. The softener is definately regenerating because the salt level is decreasing over time. It also seems like the soft "feel" of the water is gone very quickly.

It also seems like one tank works and the other does not, ie we get soft water when one is active and the other is not.

What we have tried:

We had a tech come out and look into the problem and we really unimpressed with him. He checked out incoming water, and water at a tap. He manually regenerated the system and checked the water at the tap and repeated the procedure to check operation of both tanks. I was not impressed because he did not let the water run at all at the tap when he went through a regen cycle. So I am not sure if he was simply testing water that was already in the pipes. This is the only dealer in our area and I am not to keen on having them come out again just to run some quick tests without really looking into the system or listening to my concerns.

Our local water treatment system uses beds lime (if I understand correctly) to filter city water and we do not have a prefilter (I know we should and we plan to add a whole house filter). I am sure there is sediment in our water, I wonder if this has collected in the valve somewhere and is preventing the unit from working as intended.

Does any of this make sense at all or am I just to darn paranoid?

Thanks for all of your help, sorry for the long post.

 

I should have mentioned that the unit sat for 3-4 years without being used before we purchased it. Don't know if this can be harmful to the resin/valves/etc?

 

If one tank appears to working right and the other not, you could have fowled resin.....replace both.......but it sounds to me like you might have a metering problem.......when you pull the head apart see if the gears are moving smoothly and not skipping or binding....I know it can be a pain only having one dealer in your area (which is where?) but you can request they only send out the service manager....how far from the unit is the faucet he tested from.......you said he regenerated the tanks, did he let them complete a ful cycle?

 

I am in Ohio, about an hour south of Cleveland.

Softener is in the basement, the faucet is one floor up in the kitchen.

I consider myself handy but I have never worked on something like this. I am not all that worried about the valve assembly as long as I am really careful and document how it all came apart so I can put it together again. Of course murphey's law will probably nail my butt to the wall!!

How exactly does one go about replacing resin, I assume the tanks have threaded fittings so they can be broken down? Since I have the the quad flow system I do not know if maybe the activated charcoal part of the system might also need to be replaced.

Maybe this is all getting to darn complicated and I should investigate having the unit professionally rebuilt?

In any case, thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it very much.

 

If you are gonna take the time to replace the resin, then do the carbon also.........the top tank will spin off the bottom tank......should be pretty easy to do....might need a large pair of channel locks

 

joebk,

First off, I don't have photos of the process. I can give you the following advice - The valve assembly itself is pretty simple and can be disassembled in about 5 minutes. To remove the unit, simply unscrew it from the cylinder (there is a long flow tube attached which can be removed with a screw driver). The disks and ratchets are simply pressed in with springs. Do the work in a clear location and place all of the parts in a tray so they don't roll away. The o-rings on my unit were in good condition, however I did remove them and re-grease them (silicon grease available at any dive store). This will help reseal them since the rings will exhibit a memory. All of the parts are plastic or stainless steel (springs), so do not use a solvent to clean anything. I used mild dish detergent and a warm water rinse. Everything turned out shiny and new with very little effort. Reassemble the unit, making sure that the springs are compressing the limiting arms, and screw it back into the cylinder.

 

not bad, just a little more detail........there are only two "springs" in a Kinetico control head.....one is the meter drive spring and the other is the balance piston spring......depending on the age of the unit, you might not have the former due to design changes on the pawl set........contact your dealer to get a new set of pawls which will come with the spring.......as far as cleaning.......fill a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 ful.......add some iron out......place pieces in and allow to soak for a few minutes....NEVER use a brush on the pieces.....there really is no need to lube the seals.....unless it is a new one, and prohibits the head from assembly......in fact, overlubing has caused problems before with the lube finding its way into holes, restricting water flow causing the unit to malfunction