Anyone here own or know about Water Softeners?

[Jessica]

May want to drain it and pull and check the anode rod at some point too if you have build up that bad.

lol, i have. Thats why i am getting a new on. did you miss the part where i said its 80% lime? I pull out an element and there is an element shaped tunnel of buildup inside.

[Lbox88]

Lol fuck, I saw you said the heater was full of lime but I guess late night brain isn't working good enough to connect the dots that the element is done for.

[Jessica]

its cool, there is no saving this thing i have tried. Just a big metal tube full of rock now. I have resorted to boiling pans of water, filling the tub with luke warm water adding the boiling water then running cold to get it to a normal temp just to take baths. I can manage a shower in like 3 minutes, which is all the hot water i can get from it currently

[Jessica]

ok, water softener is installed, new water heater installed, and $140 worth of plumbing. I have a question i cant find an answer to.

The tank with all the salt, should it be full of water too or not?

I really wont know for sure if this thing is working right for a couple days probably because it will take a minute to cycle the soft water through the water heater. Anyway, thanks again for the help guys

[Lbox88]

Mine doesn't fill up with water, from my understanding the water cycles in and out just at the bottom of the barrel. My parent's used to fill somewhat with water though. After a day of using the water you should be able to feel and taste the difference. Water should feel slick, the 'squeaky' clean you feel with hard water is actually due to all the impurities in the water.

[Jessica]

Good, thats how mine is, just water at the bottom. It seems to be working pretty good. Took like a 45 minute shower last night and still had hot water. lol.

[Lbox88]

One thig to mention, NEVER EVER USE SOLAR SALT! They basically take a salt brine and pour it on giant baking sheets and let the sun cook off the water. This makes Gian sheets of salt and they bust it up and bag it.

The problem is that the salt structures are different and what happens when you use it in your softener is that not all the salt breaks up and you eventually end up with a salt dome off the bottom not letting new salt to drop down into the water. Always use a good softener like Mortons or there a couple others out there, some shaped like small cubes.

Just stay the hell away from solar salt.

[Jessica]

oh, these are what i bought

[Lbox88]

I'm just talking about the salt itself that you put into your softener, those look good.

Basically salt that comes in a compacted small cube shapes are fine, but crystallized salt that looks like the salt you throw on your driveway will have higher levels of impurities in it that can gunk up your system over time.

This is from the company I got my softener from

There are three major types of salt on the market today: rock salt, solar salt (crystals) and evaporated salt. Do not use rock salt or solar salt in your water softener. Use evaporated salt in the form of compacted pellets, cubes, or blocks as your system requires. This is the purest type of salt, with sodium chloride content ranging from 99.6% to 99.99% and very little foreign particulate. Using lesser grades of salt can lead to unnecessary service and maintenance issues.

So good salt will look like this:

(plus that shows you how the water is)

And bad salt is like this

Just think of it like your water, knowing what you know now, would you rather have your cheaper to obtain hard water or pricier soft water?

Same thing, pricier evaporated and compacted salt pellets/cubes or cheaper solar salt.

The guy that installed ours took pics of a unit he fixed that the guy had been using solar salt in and it had created a 1" thick dome of salt about 6-8" off the bottom of the softener. They basically had to scoop out all the salt he had in it (just filled) then take a hammer to the dome and bust everything up and get it out. How long that guys softener wasn't working properly who knows, but for it to have built up as bad as it did, it had to have been some time.

[Jessica]

My salt is the large cubes like you posted and reading your posts it seems things are working correctly. I can tell a difference already so that is good.

Yesterday was a pain in the ass because you know how old ass plumbing is, had to basically rebuild everything under the sink. Made two trips to town (25 miles away) still forgot the dam salt. Made the third trip got the salt and that was like 8pm. lol.

Thanks