WATER SOFTENER MAINTENANCE
Your Water Softener removes hardness minerals from the incoming water by causing them to stick to charge points on the resin bead. These ionic particles are then removed when they are knocked off and replaced by the sodium or potassium ions during the recharge cycle. However some ionic particles that attach to the charge points are more easily knocked off than others and some, such as iron and manganese are extremely difficult for the ionic bombardment to remove. These more highly charged ions build up on the resin bed and can decrease the efficiency “capacity” of your resin bed by as much as 10% in a single year. This is why we recommend a Resin Bed Cleaning once a year with a special cleaning compound that removes these stubborn ionic particles and restores your softener to its full capacity. This helps you use less salt and keep the water coming into your home or business completely soft like it should be. Otherwise the water just keeps getting worse a little at a time. So little at a time that you might not even notice until you start to see the destructive results on your fixtures and appliances, or even worse, your hair and skin.
You help your softener do all this by putting salt or potassium in the brine tank on a regular basis or as it is used up. A natural result of this is that the brine tank is going to get dirty, even nasty, over time. None of these products is 100% pure so as they are used up a residual is left that is not dissolved and used by the softener. This residue builds up and mixes with the dust, dirt, insects, etc, that get into the tank and create a sludge. This sludge then becomes part of the regenerant for your water softener. In other words the softener puts water into this and draws it back into the resin bed to clean your softener. If the sludge gets deep enough it can actually draw the sludge itself into the valve and cause serious damage to the interior valve components. This is why we recommend a Brine Tank Cleaning each year to clean and sanitize the tank that is being used by your softener to clean itself.
The valve is the part of your softener that performs the task of regenerating it when necessary. It does this all by itself whenever needed and you don’t have to do anything and may never know it is happening. Too many people reward this devoted service by letting it sit there and work untill it literally chews itself up inside. All valves, (YES I said ALL VALVES no matter what your sales person told you) have something that moves and something that the moving part rides on. This part that the moving part rides on is called a seal. When this seal wears down the part that moves will grind against the inside of the valve and destroy itself or the valve body or both. This is why we recommend that the Seals be Changed in your valve on a regular schedule. Each valve design has its own distinct seal to valve configuration so the time span between seal changes varies with different valves. Our specialists have been maintaining these valves for a long time and can tell you what we recommend for your specific valve design. This does not help the sales person sell you a new softener every “X” number of years and it does not help the manufacturer move another unit but it does help you keep the softener you already own working like new for many, many years. That’s good for you, and that makes it the right thing to do. After all it is you we went into business to serve, and it is you who puts the food on our table.
