Can running out of salt ruin my water softener?
Q:
I try to keep salt in my salt tank full, but sometimes I forget
and it runs out. One of my friends told me that's why my water gets bad
occasionally. Can running out of salt ruin my water softener?
A:
Keeping your salt tank filled is critical and can not be overstated
for the consistent performance of your equipment. The salt provides a
brine solution that literally cleans the resin beads in your water
softener when it gets dirty from removing the contaminants in your
water. If there is no salt, this cleaning process cannot happen,
resulting in dirty hard water passing through the system and into your
home or business. This seems straight forward enough. What many do not
realize is when this happens repeatedly, the resin beads become coated
and can no longer be cleaned, which eventually leads to the softener no
longer working properly to absorb the dirty hard water. Major service is
then required to get the system operating correctly.
If your
water company sold you a water softener to remove iron from your water,
running out of salt can have the same effect and worse because, the
resin will not release the iron. At some point a water softener will
become iron bound and stop functioning all together. Iron out salt alone
can often, not be enough to clean out all the iron from a water
softener especially, if the iron content is above 2 parts per million.
With new technology available, it is better to remove the iron before it
has a chance to contaminate a water softener.