Water Softener Broken?

[tsande00]

So I ran out of salt in my brine tank. I kind of forgot about it and I'm guessing it was empty for quite some time.

A couple of months ago I stocked up on salt and refilled my tank. It's been almost 2 months and it doesn't look to be using very much salt, if any. For a week or so after I added the salt to the tank our water had a rusty hue to it. That discoloration has since cleared up but we still don't seem to be using much salt, if any.

We have 2 adults and 3 small children in my house so our water use is average to slightly above average.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

[3pronghook]

Get some hardness test strips and check water at taps. if no hardness softener is working. If it appears youre not using salt, you may have a salt bridge. take a stick and ty to work it into salt. to see if it is working you can manually run it through each cycle and make sure it is pulling brine. manual should be able to guide you through process.

[tsande00]

Get some hardness test strips and check water at taps. if no hardness softener is working. If it appears youre not using salt, you may have a salt bridge. take a stick and ty to work it into salt. to see if it is working you can manually run it through each cycle and make sure it is pulling brine. manual should be able to guide you through process.

Thanks for the tips.

Sadly I don't have a manual because I bought it used - it was 1 year old, rental return with no manual.

I bet I could find a manual online though. I'll check into that tonight.

[Craigums]

Agreed, Test your water to see if its soft.

Alot of softeners these days are very efficient and you may not notice much movement in the salt.

if you've got iron in your water and your not seeing any staining, that is a pretty good sign that its working.

[tsande00]

Would the local small town Ace hardware store carry these test strips?

[Craigums]

Any hardware store should carry the strips. Most Sears stores that sell the softeners have a kit were they can test your water for you also.

Make sure your testing a faucet that is hooked up through the softener though. Alot of the times the kitchen cold water is bypassed.

[tsande00]

I'm pretty sure my kitchen water is connected because after I added the salt our drinking water from the kitchen had a yellowish tint to it for about a week.

[Archerysniper]

You probably have a salt bridge built up take a broom handle and break up the salt problem solved hopefully. The softener will not know the differance if you have salt or not more then likely the salt has formed a bridge where it's crusted on the top and doesn't appear to be moving if you break it up you will see that their is no salt in the bottom just the crust on the top.