Water softeners

[kudu63]

Hi, lately we been having some issues with rust/stains in the washer and toilet stools and I'm thinking my 9 year old Culligan water softener is starting to die. My wife ruined a few of her white shirts already so I may be starting to die soon to (haha). I have my own well for water and I know our water is very hard but don't recall the numbers anymore. When we see the rust/stains appear in the toilet I manually regen the softener and that seems to be fine for a while - weeks. What is the normal life expentency out of of water softener? I've been hearing numbers like 5-8 years is about it. If I need to replace the softner any recommendations?

[Tom7227]

Try getting a product called Iron Out and follow the directions and run it through the rig. I had a similar set up with a well and it would crud up the material that coats the resin in the tank and makes it ineffective. I also would bleach my well every spring and late fall and that seemed to help a bit as well. If you're going to try that go to the UofM extension HSOforum and search to get the directions on bleaching the well. I have 15+ years on my Lindsey softener and it still does the job with a bit of maintenance.

[BobT]

I'm not sure there are too many softeners out there that are designed to handle any real amount of iron. I may be wrong but I believe if you have a problem with iron, you may need a special filter handle it. Softeners might be able to handle some iron in low quantities but I'm not sure about higher quantities.

[jerkbait]

We had a Culligan at our last house. It was 11 yrs old when we sold the house and it was still working fine. We had very rusty water and used the iron out dripper(Resup dripper) now they use the iron out salt. Try the iron out liquid to clean out the resin beads. I was told when we had ours put in the rust rust over time will plug up the resin tanks. Hopefully it isn't to late to flush it out.

[kudu63]

jerkbait - how do you go about adding the iron liquid? Do you just pour it into the salt tank and then regen the softner? I believe you are referring to those little brown containers that you can buy in the local stores called - Iron Out?

[Archerysniper]

Thier are 2 types of of iron in your water clear and red iron,softeners have a hard time with iron they really can't do anything with the red but can take some of the clear out you can up the hardness setting abit to help with the clear I used to remember how much I might have to go dig out my softener books and take a look.

[jerkbait]

Yes, Iron out is what I am talking about. Just follw the directions on the bottle. I never had to use it since I always had the resup dripper in ours. But I had friends that would use the iron out. Yes it does get put into the salt tank and then regenerated. Culligan now has the salt with the rust remover in it. Do you buy your own salt or do you have culligan fill it for you?

[jltimm]

Sears used to carry some type of water softener cleaner for their Kenmore softeners. I actually need to get some and use it on mine.

[Tom7227]

Tip - when you're mixing the water in with the Iron Out powder avoid breathing in the 'dust' that comes up. I don't know what the stuff is but it is wicked and bad news if you breath it in.

[kudu63]

Jerkbait, we buy our salt from directly from Culligan. I will try the solar iron out salt and also try the the iron-out liquid and regen the softener. Thanks for all the replies.

[jerkbait]

Good luck! Hopefully that cleans out the resin bead tank. If not the resin tank may be to full of rust. Have you talked to Culligan about the syptoms?