Water – Running out of soft water and confused by softener settings

water-softener

Problem

I notice my water softener running at night occasionally, and the next day I have nice soft water. But, within a few days, it seems to run out — soap barely lathers, and my skin feels very dry after showering. I've double-checked that the salt tank is at the right level, and that there is no salt bridge.

My system and situation

  • Autotrol 460i controller (manual here)
  • 0.75 ft3 resin tank
  • Two adults in the house, average 3,300 gallons of soft water usage per month / 55 gallons per person per day.
  • Incoming supply hardness is 12 grains per gallon (~200 ppm / 17.1), based on home test (image below).

enter image description here

Settings on my water softener

  • Hardness setting: 26. Range: 1 to 99 grains per gallon. According to the manual, this should correspond to the "hardness of the incoming water supply."
  • Capacity setting: 26. Range: 1 to 99 kilograins. Manual says "refer to the suggested salt dial settings table," reproduced below.
  • Salt dial adjustment: 12. Range: 3 to 19 pounds of salt. Manual says: "controls the amount of salt used per regeneration."

Suggested salt dial settings table, for my system:

Capacity setting        Salt setting
 (kilograins)              (lbs)
------------------------------------
      16                    5.5
      20                    8.5
      24                   14.0

Question

How should adjust my settings to get to get the salt water supply correct? I understand that hardness is a function of my water supply and should be lowered, and it seems the salt setting is a function of capacity. But how do I determine which capacity setting is correct? Current setting does not match my salt setting. Should I raise the salt? Lower the capacity?

Best Answer

As suggested by Mattman944's comment, you may have a salt bridge. That's where the salt sticks together to form a crust near the top of the tank, but it's actually empty at the bottom, and therefore isn't creating the brine necessary to clean the resin tank. Poking at the top of the salt (be careful, you don't want to jab through the plastic of the tank and cause a crack and a leak) should break any salt bridges and allow you to properly fill the salt basin.

More importantly, how often is your softener set to cycle? If you have a manually set cycle, you may need to increase the frequency/reduce the days between cycles. If it's set to run every 5 days, reduce it to every 4 days to see if that fixes the problem. If you're still running out of soft water, reduce it to every 3 days. Lather, rinse, repeat until you're happy with your soft water supply.

If it cycles automatically when the water gets hard (ours does that - a lovely feature), it may be that the sensor mechanism is malfunctioning. Check your manual for troubleshooting tips and/or contact the manufacturer. If there is a failure, it may still be under warranty.

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