How do i trouble shoot my culligan water softner

[UncleTom]

I have a culligan water softener that i own. Its 25 years old. It is the one that only renens when it needs too.It hasnt made soft water for a long time and when i shower i can tell the water is hard. I have manually re-gened it and it would help but not now. I dont know much about how they work. There is a few inches of water/brine in the bottom of the salt tank. So i just looked at it and there is abou8t 12 inches in there now. I just pushed the ge-gen button and it is going through its cycle. It is must be sucking water from the tank as i can see the level is going down and inch or so. Now it sounds like it went into rinse. I think the settings are correct in the screen. From there i dont know.

 

[Johnny Farmer]

Mine acted that way and I changed the resin tank and worked like new, hope this information helps you.
I also installed a water filter ahead of the softner to catch any sediment in the water from the well.

 

[Watthour]

My 20-ish year old dual unit started the same way, not softening, even though the control valve was working and cycling everything properly. I finally realized that the media/resin was probably fouled. I thought about opening it up to clean it out, replace the resin, dip tube, and screen, and putting it back into service. Once I priced out the bags of resin and parts I soon realized that if was going to be more economical (for me) to simply replace the unit. Antone can remove the resin and even acid clean it to somewhat restore it, but that's also not without risk and at least SOME of the media would have to be replaced to make up for compaction and missing beads.

 

[showcrop]

Usually that is caused by the valve that causes the brine tank to fill getting stuck with mineral film. Second most likely is the water wheel that turns as you use up the softened water being stuck due to mineral film. I am familiar with Fleck but not Culligan so far as exactly where these components are and how to access them. Neither should be hard to take care of.

 

[bc]

25 years on the resin probably means it is bad and every thing is aged out. Rubber o rings and washers go bad along with mineral issues. After going through issues with 2 Kenmore 35000 grain softeners going to their limit with every cycle over 35 years I finally went on Amazon and got an aquasure 65000 grain Fleck unit with separate tanks and it works great. Regenerate once a week and never come close to using the full capacity of the resin so I hope it lasts longer than the others. I can feel the softness in the shower and I also put in a tankless water heater so I take long, hot showers which feels good on my old body.

I cleaned resin and replaced a lot of parts on those Kenmores over the years but 15 years of life on parts is around their limit and not worth replacing the resin when the rest of it is all gummed up.

 

[MarkB_MI]

First, clean the venturi and its screen.

Make sure water is coming out the drain during regen.

Check the brinewell for a salt bridge. Try poking a steel rod into the salt to see if there's a cavity under the salt.

Check the brinewell for sediment. You may need to empty out all the salt to do this.

If all the above items check out ok, there's a good chance the resin bed is worn out.

 

[Eric in IL]

Can you remember if you had to add salt more frequently when the softener worked good ? There should be a screen type filter somewhere on the brine draw circuit. It could be clogged.

I'll guess your resin media is fine. The reason for that guess is Culligan offers lifetime warranty on their resin. At least they do with some models......check your manual and/or warranty. I doubt they'd offer that warranty on resin if they had to replace it often.

The valve might have one or more damaged seals inside. This could cause one or more of the regeneration phases to not function correctly.

I just feel like lack of salt brine dosage is your culprit here.

 

[J.Wondergem]

I have a culligan water softener that i own. Its 25 years old. It is the one that only renens when it needs too.It hasnt made soft water for a long time and when i shower i can tell the water is hard. I have manually re-gened it and it would help but not now. I dont know much about how they work. There is a few inches of water/brine in the bottom of the salt tank. So i just looked at it and there is abou8t 12 inches in there now. I just pushed the ge-gen button and it is going through its cycle. It is must be sucking water from the tank as i can see the level is going down and inch or so. Now it sounds like it went into rinse. I think the settings are correct in the screen. From there i dont know.

You can buy new resin for your tank.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Usually that is caused by the valve that causes the brine tank to fill getting stuck with mineral film. Second most likely is the water wheel that turns as you use up the softened water being stuck due to mineral film. I am familiar with Fleck but not Culligan so far as exactly where these components are and how to access them. Neither should be hard to take care of.

Another common problem with Fleck demand valves is that the connection to the flow meter can come unplugged when the timer is opened.

 

[Hoenes]

I have a culligan water softener that i own. Its 25 years old. It is the one that only renens when it needs too.It hasnt made soft water for a long time and when i shower i can tell the water is hard. I have manually re-gened it and it would help but not now. I dont know much about how they work. There is a few inches of water/brine in the bottom of the salt tank. So i just looked at it and there is abou8t 12 inches in there now. I just pushed the ge-gen button and it is going through its cycle. It is must be sucking water from the tank as i can see the level is going down and inch or so. Now it sounds like it went into rinse. I think the settings are correct in the screen. From there i dont know.

Impresa Ventura gasket from Amazon is an easy try. Be very careful on which way goes "up."