The Iron-Out is doing it's job. Some iron is becoming oxidized and is getting trapped in the media. The Iron-Out is reducing this trapped insoluble iron, and back into solution it goes. Ensure that there is no aeration or chlorine affecting the water prior to softening.

It's possible that your slow and/or fast rinse after the brine portion of the regeneration is not adequate. What are the times on the regeneration stages? Does the water taste salty immediately after a regeneration?

I am willing to wager that you are using a single tank softener. That is often a problem with single tank softeners especially with high iron content.

What happens with that process is, the resins are regenerated with hard water containing the very iron you want to be removed from your water. Also, chances may be that you are putting iron and hard water in your salt drum. Look in the bootom if the salt gets low and see how dirty it is.

After it goes through initial rinse and brining, it will need to backwash to get all the salt out before using. In this water there is iron so when you use water at the beginning of the next day, you get the remains of the iron attracted to the bed the night before.

Twin tank softeners prevent this from happening because they backwash with soft, filtered, iron-free water. They also use less water and salt than most any other softeners.

Continuing to do what your softener is doing will eventually lead to resin death and system failure. If your softener has a pack bed, there is not enough freeboard to allow the resin to lift during backwash. These are often sold on water that is not ideal for this design.

What is the valve company you are using? If you can describe it, maybe we can tell which one it is.

Yes, continue to use the iron out as that will lengthen the life of the resin.

Have someone test your water after the softener to see if all the hardness and iron is being removed.

Andy Christensen, CWS

darknova - Is this a new problem or has it always been this way. I would obtain a sample of the 'redish' water and have it tested to see if it is actually iron, or if it is something else. Without testing, we are only speculating here. When you say you have low iron levels, do you have a number? I do agree with andy about checking your salt tank. All salt has some impurities in it and the tank needs to be cleaned out periodically.

andy - Your description of how a softener works is just not correct. I'm hoping it's just a terminology issue. The backwash should be the FIRST step in the regeneration process (NEVER purchase a softener that brines before backwashing). It does not matter one bit whether the backwash uses softened or hard water. The purpose of the backwash is purely to fluff up the bed to prevent it from becoming compacted and removal of debris, broken resin beads, and other non-resin particulate matter. Backwash is high flow, upflow through the bed. It does not regenerate the resin.

After the backwash, the brine enters the softener, downflow or upflow. This is a slow flow. The concentration of the brine is such that, unless very, very high iron is present in the water, it doesn't matter much whether the brine was produced with hard or soft water. However, modern systems will fill the brine tank after regeneration, with soft water so this should be a non-issue.

After the brine, a slow-rinse starts, generally the same direction as the brine. Downflow is more efficient. This is slow in order to push the brine from the bed with as little mixing as possible in order to obtain a good rinse. This step is critical to ensure proper bed rinsing. Then a fast rinse to wash away the remaining brine residue in the bed. Both of these rinses are with hard water, but it simply does not matter - they do no more harm to the resin bed than normal operation, which by necessity runs hard water through the bed.

All we know about the iron right now is the OP's statement that it is a low level. Most softener resin will tolerate low iron levels just fine without appreciable adverse effect. To suggest that the very high expense of a double softener is necessary is just poor advice. Double softeners might be necessary for locations where there is constant water use 24/7, but they are rarely, rarely needed in household water situations. The expense of a double softener far outweighs the negligible benefit to a homeowner.

Yes, in fact, I reversed the terms rinse and backwash, Sorry for the oversight. But sometimes these terms are interchangeable (backwash = rapid rinse, etc). Nonetheless, after the brining, hard water containing iron re-enters the resin bed to "wash" out the salty brine water. Chances can be that the iron used in this portion of the regeneration process can be re-introduced to the house causing him the problems he is stating.

I disagree in that it makes no difference if the regeneration water is either hard for soft. There are advantages to using soft water. It avoids the very problems that darknova is stating.

Older systems that use hard water for brine drums can cause many problems as I have seen dirty water cause problems with brine drums. So much so that a few inches of dirt have accumulated in the bottom of the drum. I see no sense in washing the resins in this dirty, iron-ladened water. We have had so many service calls with this very problem.

Counter-current regeneration has shown to be more efficient using less salt, water and hard water leakage is greatly reduced. In other words, brining in the opposite direction of service.

The reason for twin tank softener because water is needed 24/7 is never a reason given for their application and therefor as an argument against it has little value. Twin tank softeners have better service, longer resin life and customers that I have after replacing single tank softeners nearly always commented on the great difference in service and water quality.

How much iron does darknova have. "Low iron" is not a clear definition and anyone who judges the type of softener because someone has 'low iron' is doing no one any service. Would you consider 5ppm iron low? Well, in some location where iron can be 25ppm, 5 might seem low.

Or the owner has been told "low" but in fact after testing it is considered high. Anything over 0.2 ppm is considered a nuisance iron. So, if he has 2.0 ppm it may not seem high to the person telling him but in fact can cause problems. Get accurate test results, that is essential.

http://www.awqinc.com/buying_a_water_softener1.html

http://www.realestatecolorado.com/realestatelibrary/water_water_softners.html

http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/Don_t_Be_Afraid_of_the_Water-Miscellaneous_Plumbing-A1610-5.html

Yes twin tank systems are more expensive but cost effective over the longer and generally use less salt and water.

Andy Christensen, CWS

Precisely why we test before telling someone to spend money on a new softener. Get out of sales mode and into problem-solver mode.

Hello,

Thanks all for responding. Unfortunately, I do not have much information on my water softener. I wish I did. I just purchased the house in October. The house was built in 1994 so I would guess that's the age of the softener. The only label on it is pretty worn but the information I could find said "Structural Fibers, Inc." and elsewhere said the model was "DUA-1047". I believe from your terminology that I have a single tank softener. There's the main tank with the resin and the control unit on top and then another tank that just holds the salt. The next time the salt gets low in the salt bin, I will check to see how dirty that is. Should I be cleaning out the salt bin regularly? I see no way of adjusting anything on the softener except for the days it regenerates.

I also unfortunately do not know the levels of iron in the hard water. My "low amount" of soluble iron content is purely observational: if the hard water sits it turns a light shade of red, maybe 5% of the way between totally clear and totally red. I know that's an unscientific measurement. The only other thing I know about the water is that I got a little PurTest "water hardness test kit" that came with 2 swabs with a greenish square on the end. It had me dip it in the hard water for a second, wait 20 seconds, and then it was supposed to change color based on the "hardness" of my water. Well, I did what it said and I barely noticed any color difference, so I'm supposing that my water is actually not very hard. Based on the colors on the package it would be less than 3 grains of hardness, assuming that's accurate.

The previous owner of the house was regenerating every 2 days with 5 people in his household. I have 2 in my household and I changed it to every 4 days. Even that seems pretty frequent to me -- we go through maybe 100 Lbs of salt a month. Does this seem reasonable?

Thanks for all the help!

The first thing you need to do is get someone out to do a good test of your water. You need actual members for iron, hardness, TDS, pH at the very least. if you actually only have less than 3 grains of hardness, then a softener is not really necessary. Based on your description of the water turning red after sitting, you've got a definite problem, but you'll need test results to make a good decision. Call a local water treatment pro, ask your neighbors who they use and if they are happy.

Softeners, given the right control, can be used for iron removal, provided the right resin is used. Generally, 1-3 ppm is the range where a softener will work, but they can work well for up to l0 ppm iron. Its all about keeping the pH low enough to keep the iron dissolved so it can't plug up the softener.

When softeners are we for iron removal, they require frequent regenerations and more salt. The resin will, eventually, be ruined by the iron and will need to be replaced.

There are other methods to remove iron, but they are more difficult for the average homeowner and require dealing with chemicals and equipment that most people would prefer to avoid.

Start with testing and see what your local treatment pro recommends. If it is a high iron problem, ask about his/her experience level with iron removal.