Life expectancy for water softener

[B@ssmaster]

I have a 9.5 year old Kenmore. It no longer softens the water. I have gone through the unit checking/cleaning everthing I can think of. There is no salt bridge. The venturi system is clean, brine valve functions properly, main valve cycles when it should, water moves where it should at the proper times, circuit board works properly (no error codes) etc. The manual has some pretty good troubleshooting tips, I've done them all. I've manually cycled through the recharge cycle several times looking for the correct responses by the system. Everything checks out. (Brine tank fills, drains into resin bed, resin bed gets backflushed, etc.) The only thing left that I can think of is that the resin bed itself can no longer perform the chemical reaction necessary to capture the minerals. Here's my question. What is the expected lifespan of a resin bed? Seems like 9.5 years is a bit short, especially since our water isn't that hard. (26 grains - we are on city water, not well water.) I'm thinking it is time for a new unit?

[BobT]

Our first one was a rental. I started that contract in 1990 and used that same softener for 17 years. It was still working when I decided to stop renting and buy my Water Boss. Our water is very hard but low in iron so maybe that made a difference.

One of the problems with most softeners is homwowners think all they have to do is keep them in salt. This is not true. They do require some periodic maintenance that basically amounts to cleaning the brine tank tumbing and any screens in the system. I clean mine about once a year whether needed or not. Takes me less than 1/2 hour to do.

[Tom7227]

http://www.kenmorewater.com/HSOforum/animations/product-animation/ts_index.html

[efgh]

I had the same thing happen to the water softener,I got a new resin tank that had the resin already in it and installed it, softener worked fine after that. I cut the top off the old tank and the resin was packed in there like concrete, it came out in chunks.