Kenmore 625.348670 owner manual Service, Regeneration

SECTION 2

HOW YOUR WATER SOFTENER WORKS

2B. SOFT WATER SERVICE AND REGENERATION

SERVICE

When the softener is giving you soft water, it is called “Service”. During service, hard water comes from the house main water pipe into the softener. Inside the softener resin tank is a bed made up of thousands of tiny, plastic resin beads (FIG. 4). As hard water passes through the bed, each bead attracts and holds the hardness minerals. This is called ion-exchanging. It is much like a magnet attracting and holding metals. Water without the hardness minerals (soft water) flows out of the softener and into the house soft water pipes.

After a period of time, the resin beads become coated with hardness minerals and they have to be cleaned. This cleaning is called regeneration or recharge. Regeneration is started at 2:00 a.m. by the electronic timer (see page 15). It takes place in 5 stages or cycles. These are:

1	FILL	4	BACKWASH
2	BRINING	5	FAST RINSE

3BRINE RINSE

NOTE:

If the Clean feature is set to ON, additional backwash and fast rinse cycles occur before the fill cycle.

FIG. 4 WATER FLOW THROUGH THE SOFTENER IN SERVICE

REGENERATION

¡FILL: Salt, dissolved in water, is called brine. Brine is needed to clean the hardness minerals from the resin beads. To make the brine, water flows into the salt storage area during the fill stage as shown in FIG. 5. Fill cycle length depends on how much soft water making capacity you have used since the last regeneration. As you use more water, fill time increases so more brine is made. The greater amount of brine cleans more hardness minerals from the resin bed.

FIG. 5 WATER FLOW THROUGH THE

SOFTENER IN FILL

soft water		hard water
	OUT	IN

salt storage

tank

brine valve

salt storage

tank (salt

not shown)

brine valve

soft water	hard water
OUT	IN

resin tank

fill water

resin bed

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