Why is The Water in My Water Softener Dirty?

Crystal Clear Water
WS-5800, WS-5810, WS-5812

Why is the water in my water softener dirty?

The water softener only removes hard water elements like calcium, and rust if you have a unit designed to handle that.

This is not water scale. I don’t know what liquid rust would look like.

If your well water has too many minerals, the water softener’s sediment is not the dirt particles that came in and did not go out. Then you get dirty water in it unless you put a water filter on the intake or clean the tank periodically.

I have not had this problem before, so it cannot be blamed on the water source.

You are supposed to empty and clean the tank every six months or so.

It has filters to prevent that.

The filters capture the sediment and rust when the unit is backwashed, but the filters themselves get clogged over time

So I need to replace the filters to remove the sediment.

And clean the tank.

How should I do that?

Empty the brine tank, adding three gallons of water with a cupful of bleach, regenerate it, empty it, rinse it, and then refill. If anyone stopped at those steps, you’d have an empty tank.

And flip the bypass valve while doing it so I do not send soft but bleachy water to the rest of the house.

Now the problem could be your salt.

I do add salt to it.

If you add solar salt, which crystallizes from sea water, you get more silt in the tank because that white salt contains dirt flecks you do not notice until after the salt is used up.

I do not use solar salt; sea salt sounds romantic but is not as good as it sounds.

If your pipes are degrading, you’ll get flakes of rust in the water.

It is not like the rest of the pipes are putting out pink water.

If you normally had high iron water and stopped using salt and resin meant for high iron water, that would explain it.

I’ve never had a rust problem.

That does not mean the valves and pipes connected to the water softener are not dirty or rusting.

That I could at least verify by cleaning the valves and seeing if there’s rust on the side I don’t normally see.

If the injectors are clogged and the water is darker in color, then the problem is likely due to sulfate reducing bacteria.

Out comes the bleach and other cleaning chemicals.

Or ozone or hydrogen peroxide.

And if that does not work, I solve the dirty water softener by getting a shiny and clean new one.

Видео Why is The Water in My Water Softener Dirty? канала Tony Dinh