SECTION 2.ow YOURWATERSOFTENERWORKS
I
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
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:
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.
WATER FLOW THROUGH THE
SOFTENER IN FILL
soft water hard water
[] | FILL | [] | BACKWASH |
[] | BRINING | [] | FAST RINSE |
[] | BRINE RINSE |
|
|
NOTE:
If the Clean feature is set to ON, additional backwash and fast rinse cycles occur before the fill cycle.
WATER FLOW THROUGH THE
SOFTENER IN SERVICE
soft water hard water
OUT IN
salt storage
tank (salt
not shown) _'h
brine valve
\ | resin tank |
|
OUT IN
saltstorage
tank
brinevalve
\
\
fill water
resinbed
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