Tan water after softener regeneration

[harringtondav]

This has been an "on and off" issue for years. It's back again. McClean/Fleck mechanical timer. I rebuilt the valve body and replaced the resin +- 10 yrs ago. Not much change. I increased the final rinse time by a few minutes. Still tan water. I use RE (rust eliminating) salt. I guess it works, but it takes several toilet flushes before the water clears.

Any suggestions?

 

[GA_Boater]

Toilet water takes time to clear because some water is left in the bottom of tank. It takes several flushes to dilute and get clear water again.

That's my experience when water lines are flushed and water is muddy. Got no softener answers though.

 

[jakedaawg]

Do you live in Flint, Mi.? Never heard of dirty water but I am on a well...

 

[harringtondav]

Do you live in Flint, Mi.? Never heard of dirty water but I am on a well...

No. Cedar Falls IA. Deeep aquifer the city taps into. The city supply is hard - 18gpg, and has moderate iron. The discolored water only shows up after our softener regens. Looks like someone forgot to flush after a pee.

Our river place has it's own well. 120' deep, same hardness and serious iron. No problems with the softener there. But it's downstream from a 20 mic. Rustco filter and a 5 mic whole house filter.

 

[dingbat]

I have a Fleck 5600 SXT head on mine. No issues whatsoever

Check to make sure your head is set to backwash and salt to match your bed capacity. Need a bit more salt to counter your iron content

Depending on who you talk to, Resin beds are only good 5-10 years. Could be your bed is contaminated.

Have you tried cleaning the resin bed with Iron Out?

 

[harringtondav]

I have a Fleck 5600 SXT head on mine. No issues whatsoever

Check to make sure your head is set to backwash and salt to match your bed capacity. Need a bit more salt to counter your iron content

Depending on who you talk to, Resin beds are only good 5-10 years. Could be your bed is contaminated.

Have you tried cleaning the resin bed with Iron Out?

Thanks. Salt seems OK. The water is plenty soft up to regen. I'll research, or just plain 'ol start tweaking backwash and rinse cycles. I'm at factory settings except for the final rinse. The cation resin is eight yrs old. Changing it after 20 yrs didn't seem to matter much. But there was gunk at the bottom of the bottle. The Fleck units are pricey, but you have the ability to dial in the cycles with the pins.

I once added Iron Out with each salt charge. But the discolored water seemed worse. I don't know what's in RE salt, but I suspect it's similar to what's in Iron Out. Our water is plenty soft. The discolorization at regen is just something for me to fuss over.

I've installed newer, digital Sears and Omnifilter $300 units at my wife's family cabin and our river cabin. They've worked fine for 10/7 yrs. resp. But our home McClean (Fleck) has worked nicely for 29 yrs....with a little DYI. No expensive circuit boards. Just packings, meters and timer motors.

 

[dingbat]

I once added Iron Out with each salt charge. But the discolored water seemed worse.

Exactly what I would expect from a buildup of iron in the bed.

I would do a full blown iron “rinse” regen, soak, regen to clean it out.

Had pin type head in the neutralizer at last house. Worked well for the 20+ years we lived there. Had to dump and replaced the bed every 5-7 due to iron buildup.

When we moved here, the neutralizer was shot. Installed a new system only to find out the nuertlizer pushed my hardness to the brink. Had to install a softener to counter act the neutralizer.

Put Fleck digital on both systems for monitoring purposes. No more guessing. Regens are based on flow not time. Can configure multi-stage regens. Much better system if your load varies as much as ours.

Better overall water quality and save on salt as well. Well worth the $5 a year amortised cost of the upgrade

 

[NYBo]

I had this problem with the softener when I moved into my house a couple of years ago. No idea how old it was but it regenerated on a simple timer. A new softener fixed it plus I'm using less salt.