Resin for Water Softener

Is there a Yellow Pages telephone directory in that country?

There are a number of home water treatment companies listed in most localities, and they will be happy to advise.

We have had problems in the past with our resin. Apparently chlorine in the town water affects the resin and it goes soft and sticky. We found that when it goes like that we couldn't get the water through it as it was like clay. Our flow which would normally be 26K L/min would only be about 4-5K L/min.

Just had to replace it. I think they are all much of a muchness, but I'm interested in other posters view.

If you are using municipality water, it contains chlorine which damage resin. You have to install an Activated carbon filter before the softener to de-chlorinate water. That should solve your problem. Buying resin from another manufacturer will not help.

I am not sure whether there are any softener resins which are chlorine tolerant. If available that could be a cheaper option.

I have based my answer on the answers given by others. By the way what do you mean by "sticky" water?

After you take a shower it feels sticky on your skin before drying with a towel.

"Sticky water" implies to me that the water is not softened, eg. the hardness is still there.....

I hope this helps.

Unless you are on city water ( clorinated ) you should not have to replace resin for many years , average resin lifespan in a normal installation with aveage use is appox. 20 years !

Check your components and verify proper settings and operation before assuming a resin problem. There are many web sites available to help you , if not able get a pro. to check your system.

Which leads me to ask why did the OP replace the resin in the first place, if he has still got it, change it back!!!

I was moving to another state. the wet resin was just to heavy to carry. I dumped the resin and refilled it at the new address.

1. Normal residential chlorine residuals should not adversely affect the resin used in household softeners. This is cation resin that is relatively resistant. In other more elaborate systems, chlorine might affect a second stage of treatment in which another type of resin called anion resin is used (a process use in demineralization in which virtually all of the salt content is removed from the water.

2. It sounds to me like maybe your old resin wasn't working to specification. In the softening process, calcium and magnesium (hardness) swap in the presence of the resin with sodium that is temporarily adhered to the resin. This attachment occurs when you do your salt regeneration. After a period of time, the adhered sodium runs out and you have to regenerate the resins again. The removed calcium and magnesium on the resins are driven off by the salt brine that is applied and flushed to waste

3. The so-called "sticky water" is the natural effect of a softener. It is caused by the additional presence of sodium in the treated water which is equivalent to the calcium and magnesium removed in the softener and the absence of the latter. In many softening applications, a small quantity of untreated water is mixed with the softened water to eliminate this effect which feels like you didn't rinse off all of the soap that you bathed with. Pure soft water make rinsing off a real chore. You may have been getting some bypassing in your softener tank before you replaced the resin.

The blend technique is also used to offset the additional sodium content added by the softener for water used for drinking and cooking. The residential water distribution piping, obviously, has to be modified to do this.

I followed the regeneration steps and found out that the backwash step which is the first step of the regeneration cycle doesn't work for some reason (broken or plugged valve?). I don't know for how long it hasn't been working. All other steps e.g. rinsing with salt water etc. works. The water produced after regeneration is not soft. How important is the backwash? Will it lead to accumulation of calcium and magnesium and cause the stickyness?

Its for cleaning out debris collected. It needs to wrok....

The backwash cycle expands the resin bed and will assist in flushing out particulate matter that would eventually plug the bed. You may have partial plugging now causing insufficient rinsing and inadequate salt contact with the resin material. You probably had this condition prior to replacing the resin.

It is not the calcium and magnesium that causes the sticky (or slimy, as I describe it) sensation when showering.

You should repair or replace the multiport valve that controls the regeneration cycle.

You said that the water after regeneration is not soft. How are you making this determination?

I measured it with a hardness test kit. Before the softener the hardness was 8 and after the softener it was 6.

A hardness of 8 (on the hardness scale I remember) is almost soft water anyway....

Hard water (in Dover, UK where my parents lived at the time) is 25 or more!!!!

Very hard is defined as being up to 30.....

See the following link for a good description:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water

I'm sorry, the hardness as CaCO3 is 8 x 17.1 = 136 ppm.

To Guest!

?????????? Isn't 136 ppm "around 140 ppm"? The BS&B soap test for hardness is hardly a precise measure of hardness! Actually, 8 x 17.1 is 136.8- Is that better?

Yes, it is a visual titration test counting the number of droplets added.

Your untreated water hardness is not that high but a 25% reduction across the softener is pretty poor. Resin bed fouling with suspended matter is my guess causing poor distribution through the resin. I have a feeling that you are not getting effective rinsing of the brine after regeneration and thus are getting residual brine (sodium chloride) that is bleeding out slowly after your regeneration cycle timer (that advances the multiport valve during regeneration) times out causing the unpleasantness in the shower.

The unit will not function properly if the backwash cycle is not working as it should. You may need to replace this or at least repair it if it is maintainable.

The hardness measure determined with the soap test gives you an approximate measure of "grains per gallon". One grain per gallon in USA vernacular is equal to 17.1 mg/l or otherwise stated, 17.1 ppm. So your inlet water has a hardness about equivalent to around 140 ppm. This is moderately low hardness content.

By the way, the conversion of hardness to ppm offshore might be in Clarke Degrees (or English Degrees), 14.3 ppm per degree, French Degrees, 10 ppm/degree, or German Degrees, at 17.9 ppm/degree.

In any case, get the machine fixed and functioning properly before investing in more resin.

Before you buy new resin, first make sure it is the correct type. Not all softening resin is the same. There is fine mesh, coarse mesh, and 3 levels of cross linkage. Please send me your location and I can help you with the correct local distributor.

You can contact me directly for more help

Seth

I live in Katy, TX 77493. Thanks.

email Water Resources Co [wrc@satx.rr.com] they can help.

Good luck, also many brands do make a low crosslinked resin that municpal water supplies resin breakdown, for example, in Florida, they need a 8 percent crosslinked resin otherwise chloride levels will destroy it in a short amount of time

To test water hardness, you can purchase a small calibrated kit from good chemists that allows you to calculated the hardness using a special pure soap solution.....its very easy to use. My Father sold and installed water softeners after he retired, I assisted him a few times...

If anyone needs a fuller description, just ask....