Water softeners regenerate by removing trapped contaminants and replacing them with either sodium or potassium depending on which chemical you put in the brine tank.
Water softener flush cycle.
Fill brining brine rinse backwash and fast rinse note.
The following steps are involved with regeneration.
The times for each of these stages are variable and change just.
The recharge phase involves placing sodium ions into the saturated hard water.
During a backwash of a water softener system water runs through a resin tank upward.
In the backwash phase the dirt inside the mineral tank which translates as residue from the previous regeneration process is flushed out through the drain and outside the water softener.
Once every few months pour water softener cleaner into the brine tank following label instructions.
However the accumulation of bacteria in your softener may also be a cause of undrinkable brown water.
After a period of time the resin beads get coated with hard minerals and need to be cleaned.
This is known as the water softener backwash cycle.
The cleaning process is called recharge.
Depending on the size of your water softener a regeneration cycle typically takes about 30 to 60 minutes and uses anywhere from 40 to 60 gallons of water.
Recharging consists of five stages.
The brine solution flows through the resin tank rinsing the beads and exchanging new sodium for the hard water minerals that have collected.
Backwash 10 minutes this step removed accumulated dirt and such while also fluffing up the media bed.
Flush with water softener cleaner.
Water softener 5 recharge regeneration stages.
No softened water will be available for home use until the regeneration cycle is complete.
It does this at a fast speed and flushes iron minerals from the resin bed and out to the drain.
To exclude this possibility sterilize your system with chlorine or hydrogen peroxide.
During regeneration the backwash cycle reverses the flow of water in the softener tank to lift loosen the resin bed and flush the gravel bed at the bottom of tank.
This helps keep the resin efficient and functional.
You can manually set the water softener to perform an extra backwash and fast rinse cycle before the normal regeneration.
A strong salt water brine solution is created with the salt added to the softener.
Here are the typical water softener regeneration steps.
Manually start a regenerating process or pour in the cleaner right before a scheduled regeneration.