What I would do... Remove all the salt and water from the brine tank and make sure there's no solidified salt at the bottom. Any solidified salt can be dissolved by hot tap water. Put 4 to 5 gallons of water in the brine tank and add one bag of salt. Note the water level with the salt added. Get some Iron Out or Super Iron Out and dissolve 3/4 cup in a gallon of warm water in a bucket or bottle. Add that solution to the brine well (the 4" tube where the float lives) and wait two hours (for the salt to dissolve and make the brine). After two hours do a manual regeneration. After that regeneration the control valve should have replaced the water in the brine tank. Add water to the level noted in previous paragraph. Make sure there's enough salt to cover the water. If not, add salt. Dissolve another 3/4 cup in a gallon of warm water in a bucket or bottle and add that solution to the brine well. Wait two hours, with no or as little water use as possible, and do another manual regeneration. Now your resin is as clean as it can be and your resin is returned to as much hardness removal capacity as it's condition will allow. Ger some hardness test strips and test the water after the softener after the second regeneration. The strips should show ZERO hardness. Test the softened water again before the softener regenerates. The water should hold ZERO hardness all the way till the next scheduled or demand initiated softener regeneration. If not, then see the paragraph below. If the problem is not solved the resin is fouled, the resin is depleted, the water conditions have changed and the softener is no longer set correctly for those conditions, or the softener is not operating correctly. If problem is resolved you need to be using Iron Out or a comparable product on a routine schedule determined by the amount of iron in the water. Please let us know what you find out.

The bypass should suffice for right now. Kenmore softeners are not the hallmark of efficiency or reliability or long service life and in your circumstance removal is not a bad idea. Many of those cheap softener installations were done to treat only the water going to the water heater. If that is the case then a second vote for removal. The previous owner recognized the need for water treatment so you might want to investigate replacing that Kenmore with a correctly sized industry standard softener. If you're on a water system you can contact the water authority for a copy of their water quality report and see what the general conditions of the water in the system are and then decide what to do. If you are on a well then it is very important to test the water and see what you've got from both a nice water and a safe water perspective.

I love my RO filter. Most of my out of town relatives who've come to visit have commented on how they like my water, not knowing it was filtered. One small additional benefit with a softener + RO combination is that the RO membrane will last a bit longer than if you feed it "regular" water. My RO is plumbed to the fridge so it can feed the icemaker + water dispenser, and I have a separate spigot at my prep sink. It sounds like you're already doing it, but you'll want to be sure that you run RO water through plastic tubing, not directly in copper pipes. The plastic tubing is normally run inside the copper pipe. Be aware that the RO filter removes fluoride, so if you have kids you might want to talk to your dentist about it. A fluoride toothpaste and fresh fruit should be plenty of fluoride, but talk to your dentist.

GardenWeb Community, I need your assistance. I am needing to size a water softening and whole house filtering system for my home and there are many different approaches I have found on the web with different values, peak vs. average flow rates, etc. Based on the feedback I have read thus far from Justalurker and aliceinwonderland_id on this site I am leaning towards a Fleck softening system but not sure which one. Also looking for ideas on a whole home filtering system based on the below test results. We live in Anchorage, Alaska and we just bought a 6000 sqft., 3 bed 3.5 bath house with 3 people living in it (wife, 2.5 yr old daughter, and myself). All appliances are high efficiency Frigidaire Professional series, Triangle Tube Prestige Water heater, etc. A recent water test was performed by a local sales company and the basic results are as follows: TDS: 125 ppm Hardness: 10 gpg pH 7.0 Total Alkalinity 120 ppm Total Iron 0.1 ppm Total Manganese 0.2 ppm Coliform: Neg colonies/100mL Nitrate: 5.09 mg/L Arsenic: ND ug/L Let me know if any additional information is needed in order to provide any recommendations. Any recommendations are welcomed and I genuinely appreciate the assistance in advance. Regards, Derek