David L. Martel wrote:
Michael,

It may help if you tell us what brand of water softener you have.
Sounds as if one of the valves is not closing tight. With the "residue"
problem I'm thinking that you need to flush the crap out of your holding
tank and pipes. Get the crud out of the brine tank too. Once your water
is fairly clear run the softener through a few cycles without salt to
flush the crud out of the valves. If that does it, great. If not
you'llneed to clean or rebuild the valves.

Dave M.
Hi,
+1. Dirt maybe plugging up the float valve orifice.