On Jan 10, 2:07 pm, Kevin Ricks wrote:
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 water
softenerwas 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?

Thesoftenerhas 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 thesoftener. The manual bypass system allows you to completely
disconnect, service or remove the watersoftenerwithout 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.

Softeners do not have an internal by-pass valve. They usually have
internal hard water by-pass during regeneration only. Meaning that if
wqater is drawn during regeneration, you get hard water; unless the
control valve is a (rare) no hard water bu-pass type (usually only
used in commercial).

A factory by-pass valve is made for all control valves and are model
specific. A 3 way manual valve by-pass 'system' is plumbed into the
water lines and is not a good choice. If needed, the control valve and
resin tank is easily and quickly removed from a factory by-pass valve
leaving it on the plumbing which allows water use in the house. In 21
years I've only had 2-3 factory types go bad, one was on a seasonal
rental for ten years and used frequently and had been in a house for 6
years before that. And they don't create dead ends in the plumbing and
I've heard they are against code in some locations.

Gary Slusser
Quality Water Associates.