Water softener/Well issue

[MinnesotaMike]

I was getting hard water from my water softener and discovered I had a salt bridge. Broke that up but now my water is still hard and has a pretty strong iron smell/taste.

I have a well, is my well bad or my water softener?

We have lived here 14 years and never had any problems.

Also noted the iron stains in the sink and toilet are worse than ever.

Any help????

Thx,

Mike

[PurpleFloyd]

Thie first thing I would try is to remove all the salt and clean out the storage tank and any lines into and out of it making sure you get the crud out of anything you can, then manually recharge the softener a few times a day for a week and see what happens. It will take some salt to do this but it may take care of the problems. If not then you may need to have the resin beads or possibly the controller replaced.

Does it seem to be working like it always has?

[delcecchi]

I found out that the resin beads in a water softener degrade and stop working eventually. That, together with the iron possibly doing bad things to them, could be your problem.

Sometimes the anode in the water heater getting used up can lead to water smelling bad, particularly if it stays in there a while, like you are gone for a few days or more.

[Tom7227]

Have you tried cleaning the softener with some Iron Out?

You could also consider treating the well. When you do this you have to pump a lot of water through the system and so you probably should wait until you can use a hose to get it out of the house.

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/wells/waterquality/disinfection.pdf

[pike79]

If the water level is high in your salt storage tank your softner is not working.

[WWW]

Have you done any routine care to the water softener. Most have parts that need to be cleaned. On a well maybe every year or two. Should be right in the manual for the softener. If the softener is over 15 years old and the hard water in our area you might just be looking at a new softener.