On Jan 10, 7:39 am, rlp2955 wrote:
Thanks everyone for the quick responses. To answer a few questions:

-Mysofteneris setup to provide soft water to most of my indoor
plumbing but due to a finished basement we couldn't get cold soft
water in the kitchen, only hot. (Softenerwas installed 3 years after
finishing)

-The guy who hooked my watersoftenerup was a plumber...not someone
who is an expert in installing water softeners. But he has hooked a
ton of them up before so I am not as concerned about that....

-My GE watersoftenerlets you electronically set the "hardness"
number. My water before thesoftenerhad a hardness level around 23
or 24 so I set it to 24.

-Someone asked about the bypass valve...funny story....when the watersoftenerwas first hooked up, the bypass valve was on so for 3 hours I
was trying to regenerate and nothing was happening. Then realized the
valve was closed. I hope I didn't damage it? Once the valve was
open, that was first and only time since I have had thesoftenerthat
I actually saw water move into the brine well. I have manually
generated thesoftenerabout 6 or 7 times in the last week and I still
don't see a decrease in the salt in the bottom of the tank??? Should
regeneration that many times have depleted my salt tank?

-On the manual diagnostics questions....it lets me go into a
diagnostics mode where I can see a "meter" type reading that first
starts out at "000". When I turn on a soft water faucet, that number
is supposed to increase as water moves through. It is doing
that...but does that necessarily mean that is soft water? Seems to me
its only a mechanism to show water coming through, even if the water
isn't getting softened.

I guess what I am really wondering bottom line is why my salt hasn't
decreased after a week. All the salt pellets look completely
intact...like I just dumped them in there. My water is about 2 inches
above the salt. In the brine well, as someone else stated, the water
level is the same as what is in the salt tank. My hot water heater
should have flushed through by now (we have three other people in the
house...my wife and two kids...laundry, dishwashing, baths, etc.)

Thanks again everyone...maybe this new information above leads to some
other things I can look at? I definitely need to get one of the water
test kits...maybe that will ultimately provide the answer.

I don't think it is working. Having it by-pass didn't hurt it. You
should have seen the salt go down quite a bit with all the manual
regens. You don't want to fill the salt tank, 1 bag is sufficient and
if you know the salt dose in pounds, you can calculate how long 40 lbs
will last.

When first set up, you have to add water to the salt tank. But now you
have too much water in the salt tank. That is probably due to the unit
not sucking salt brine; lose brine line connections allowing air to be
sucked instead of heavy brine, a blocked/kinked drain line, blocked
venturi or its screen etc.. With Pre refill there should only be 2-3"
of water in the brine tank between regens. Go to:
www.gewater.com and watch the animations of how the softener works and
then go through the troubleshooting animations there. Also, make sure
the in/out plumbing is correct and not hooked up backwards; inlet
water to the outlet etc.. The inlet water comes in on the right rear
looking at the front of the softener and over the top; right is in,
left is outlet water. There may be arrows.

Gary Slusser
Quality Water Associates