Purchased a house with a Culligan Medalist Series conditioner. Tonight the Mrs hears water running and I discover it's flowing through the valving (and down the drain) and it's been going on for about a half hour at this point. On the plastic wheel inside the control box there's a micro switch and in my infinite wisdom I decide to play with the switch thinking maybe it's stuck and keeping the wheel from turning... ya, right. I've always told my kids - if you don't know anything about it, don't touch it. Good thing they weren't watching. Now I have an E1 on the display that I don't remember there. Is that a code? Did I do that? It's been running for almost 2 hours, is that normal? I grabbed the manual but it tells me absolutely nothing.

I have a Kinetico Mach 2100 S water softener. This is the newer model series from Kinetico. I have had it for less than a year, and was manufactured around June 2005. The major problem with it is when the Kinetico Mach 2100S regenerates, our water becomes brown and extremely salty while the unit is regenerating. This is annoying and we dont know what it is exactly we are drinking due to this. It apparently is the brine and the backwash , which is not good. Would anyone know what valve / piston / o-ring, etc is the possible source of this problem on the Kinetico Mach model ? We bought the Kinetico expecting it to be an improvement over other models, but this is a big problem with it doing this. Also, since we live in Florida and have very high chlorine levels in our county water, I would like to consider doing a re-build of the interior parts of the control valve if it would not cost too much more than just fixing the current problem. I have read that there is a Kinetico 'chlorine kit' for high chlorine water areas like ours, which has the parts made of better materials to resist chlorine. If there is a way to get Kinetico parts, that would be ideal, since I have rebuilt the GE water softener valve many times, so I am handy, but I know that this would be a learning curve for me. I have not rebuilt a kinetico. Also, anyone have experience in cost estimates to any similar fixes, labor and / or parts. Thanks in advance to anyone who has comments or experience.