rlp2955 wrote:
Thanks everyone for the quick responses. To answer a few questions:

-My softener is 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. (Softener was installed 3 years after
finishing)

-The guy who hooked my water softener up 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 water softener lets you electronically set the "hardness"
number. My water before the softener had a hardness level around 23
or 24 so I set it to 24.

-Someone asked about the bypass valve...funny story....when the water
softener was 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 the softener that
I actually saw water move into the brine well. I have manually
generated the softener about 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?


The softener has a built in bypass but sometimes a plumber will install
a manual bypass usually consisting of 3 ball valves. One on inlet pipe
and one on outlet pipe and one on a cross pipe between the in/out pipes.
If your plumbing does have this then ALL 3 valves must be positioned
properly in addition to the built in bypass being properly set. If the
valve on the cross pipe is open then most of the water will not go
through the softener. The manual bypass system allows you to completely
disconnect, service or remove the water softener without having to shut
off the main water supply.

This does not explain your no salt usage though?
Kevin



-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.