With more than 30 years’ experience in the residential and commercial water treatment space, Mark Nelson is a Class 1 Drinking-Water Operator and a CBWA (Canadian Bottled Water Association) Certified Plant Operator. As founder and president of Nelson Water in Ottawa, Mark focuses on dealing with challenging water treatment system designs for problem water. He also heads the largest water bottling plant in the city of Ottawa with a delivery network throughout the Valley.
The short answer is yes. A water softener is a hard working part of your plumbing system, and it does need servicing from time to time. Certain tasks, such as: topping up the salt, cleaning the brine tank, and general cleaning, can be carried out by anyone. But, when it comes to optimizing the settings or essential servicing, you need to hire a local water treatment specialist instead. Let’s take a closer look at water softener servicing, the frequency, warning signs to look for, and how regular servicing can make your life easier.
3 Water Softener Emergencies
Let’s start by mentioning three reasons why you may want to call a water specialist immediately; they are:
- You notice a rapid change in your water quality.
- The water feels hard, even after adding salt, and you can see water spots on your dishes.
- The water softener sale remains at the same level, and it doesn’t seem to be consumed during the regeneration cycle.
If you experience any of these three situations, it’s likely that you need some expert help to fix the problem.
5 Reasons for an Annual Water Softener Service
It’s important to add salt and clean the brine tank regularly. Still, if you read your owner’s manual, you will notice that most manufacturers recommend an annual service for their water softeners. This may seem excessive, but all the hard water coming into your home passes through the water softener first, and it has a hard life. A water softener is expected to have a useful lifespan of around 15 years if it’s been well cared for. A unit that’s been neglected is more likely to fail, and it will probably have a shortened lifespan leading to an earlier than expected replacement. Let’s take a look at five good reasons why you should consider an annual service for your water softener.
- General Cleaning and Upkeep of the System
A water treatment professional will clean out your brine tank and recharge the resin media during an annual service call. They will also make sure that no salt bridging is occurring in your brine tank. If your system needs to be sanitized, they will do this as part of the service.
- Essential Water Softener Maintenance
Every appliance needs some professional maintenance, and a water softener is no exception. The water softener has some moving parts and o-rings that can wear over time. Eventually, these parts will need a replacement, and this is a job for a water treatment professional.
- Protecting Your Investment
A water softener represents a substantial investment in your water quality. So, it makes sense to protect that investment with regular servicing and maintenance. When the system is properly maintained, it will perform well for many years. If a water softener is working well, it will reduce your need for soap and detergent and protect your water using appliances. When you think about it, a water softener can save you a great deal of money if it’s working efficiently.
- Optimizing the Settings
When your water softener is serviced annually, you can ask the technician to check the settings and make sure they are optimized for your home. This process will save you money because you don’t need to treat water that you’re not using. A prime example would be a change in your family size because a child left home or went to college. In this example, you would now be using less water, and the softener should be regenerating less often. A local water treatment specialist can adjust the valve on the water softener for you, and this will make the system more efficient.
It’s important to mention that certain water conditioners calculate the regeneration requirements automatically based on the level of consumption. If you have a water softener with this feature, there is no need to change the valve settings manually.
- A Water Assessment
During an annual service visit, the water treatment professional can conduct a water test to check if the makeup of your water has changed over the year. Changes can occur even if your water is supplied from a municipal treatment plant. Based on the results, the professional can adjust the settings to meet the new demands. If a drastic change has occurred, they can offer advice on ways to deal with the problem, such as installing a pre-filter to remove sediment. This process will help you to maintain and even improve the quality of the water in your home.
Water Softener Resin Replacement
This is a concern that many water softener owners worry about, but it’s not as bad as they imagine. Most experts would recommend that water softener resin media is replaced every ten years. But, if the resin has been exposed to water that contains very high concentrations of iron or chlorine, it may need to be replaced every five years. When you consider that a water softener has a useful lifespan of 15 years if it’s well cared for, you can see that you will only replace the resin 1-2 times.
It’s possible to predict the lifespan of your resin media by taking the parts per million (ppm) of chlorine in your water and dividing it by 10. As an example: if your water contains 3 ppm of residual chlorine, it would only last 3 years! That’s an extreme example, but if you do have high levels of chlorine in your water, you can negate the effects on your water softener by installing a carbon pre-filter.
High concentrations of iron can also affect the efficacy and useful lifespan of the resin media in your water softener. Iron is very common in well water, but it can even be a problem in municipal water supplies. This can be negated by installing an iron cleaner, or the lifespan of the water softener will be lessened.
If you want to know more about regular water softener servicing and replacing your resin media, contact your local water treatment professional today.