Water softener resin

[tadmaz]

Anyone have experience with replacing water softener resin? Looking to hopefully only spend $100 for 1 cu.ft. Know of a good brand? Also would appreciate any tips or gotchas that you ran into.

 

[jebatty]

Why do you think it needs replacement?

 

[tadmaz]

My softener is from 1992. Original resin. I had the seals and spacers and all that replaced about 5 years ago, before that it would leak all over the place, so likely wasn't ran for many years with the original owner. When I bought the house, the valves were bypassing the softener. It has never really softened well. I've used resin cleaner and soap immediately suds up well, but that lasts for about a day. My single-handle bath faucets go through a cartridge a year, not good. At one point I had a water hardness test strip, and it was beyond dark purple, off the charts hard. I go through a few 50# blocks a year, and it goes through it, but not getting the results I want.

 

[Highbeam]

My softener is from 1992. Original resin. I had the seals and spacers and all that replaced about 5 years ago, before that it would leak all over the place, so likely wasn't ran for many years with the original owner. When I bought the house, the valves were bypassing the softener. It has never really softened well. I've used resin cleaner and soap immediately suds up well, but that lasts for about a day. My single-handle bath faucets go through a cartridge a year, not good. At one point I had a water hardness test strip, and it was beyond dark purple, off the charts hard. I go through a few 50# blocks a year, and it goes through it, but not getting the results I want.

Don’t polish that 26 year old turd. Get the water tested and replace your softener with a good one properly sized to give you the results you want.

At the very least, test the water and compare to what that old softener was supposed to be able to treat.

I’ve replaced seals and spacers in the control heads and it took a lot of years to wear them out.