There are a few quick and easy checks you can perform on your softener to confirm is it performing correctly. Because all water supply compositions are different, we recommend walking through these steps rather than judging the 'soft' feeling of the water.
1. Bypass. The bypass valve allows water to come in and out of the unit, so we want to make sure this is open. Confirm that your softener's bypass is pulled OUT and check for a 3 valve bypass on your plumbing (correct valve position below).
2. Hardness. You can find the Hardness programming by scrolling through the menu using the Program/Select button. Confirm your programming is correct with our Hardness Worksheet.
3. Water Flow. Is your unit metering water usage? To check:
a. Hold Program/Select until '000' appears on the screen.
b. Turn on a hot water faucet and leave it running. Come back to the softener. Are the numbers counting up?
i. YES; your unit is functioning properly and will perform automatic recharges, based on your water consumption. You may also wish to remove the top cover here and verify there are no external leaks when the unit is under pressure. Continue to question 4.
ii. NO; your system is not metering water usage, so it will not recharge automatically. Please visit our Failure to Meter Flow article for troubleshooting.
4. Salt Level
We recommend keeping the salt level between level 2 and 5 on the brinewell number scale. Depending on how long your unit has sat idle, you may want to check for a Salt Bridge as well.
5. Check if your softener has a blending valve on the bypass assembly (pictured). If it does, visit our Bypass Operation article for adjustment instructions.
6. Test
Run a manual recharge cycle (hold the Recharge button until the motor kicks on). A recharge cycle lasts around 2 hours. After the cycle has concluded, test your water at several faucets with a hardness test strip. 0-3 gpg or 0-50 ppm is considered soft.
Comments
2 comments
I had a new home built 6 months ago and first thing got a Rheem water softner at my local Home Depot ..The water is NOT soft. The salt is currently on 4 and its set to regenerate at 2 am ...the plumber had it set to 17 we bumped that up to 30 then again on 50. the water is hard. I can see the deposits around my faucets in a brand new home..I don't know what to do but this is not working here..and the salt is NOT bridged we checked that all the way to the bottom..wealso have iron in the water as I can see iron stains on my white laundry.. Now isn't the water softner suppose to soften the water and yes it was installed by a licensed plumber.
Hi Debby. We've created a ticket for you and a member of our team will be reaching out to help if this has not been solved yet. Thank you for reaching out!
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