Watts PWSPSE - Manual (Page 7)

7
Control Start-up Procedures
Control start-up, flushing/conditioning and programming proce-
dures may be found in the control service manual included with your
system.
Control Service Manual: ProFlo SXT Downflow Brining Service
Manual
Softener Operation
As water enters the softener, it passes over a resin bed in the mineral
tank. The resin consists of tiny beads of plastic called styrene. These
beads attract and hold sodium ions and exchange the sodium for
hardness ions when encountered. Over time, the resin becomes
saturated with hardness ions and no longer removes hardness
materials. The softener goes into a "regeneration" to flush hardness
materials to the drain and refresh the resin with sodium. Regenera-
tion is typically programmed to take place in the middle of the night
when little or no water is in use.
Regeneration consists of four cycles:
1. Brine Draw / Slow Rinse Position
Brine Draw: The process in which brine is drawn out of the brine
cabinet and passed through the resin in a downward direction. This
rinses the resin and large amounts of sodium ions replace the hard-
ness ions accumulated during service. Slow Rinse: After brine is
completely transferred from the brine cabinet into the resin tank the
brine valve closes. Water replaces any remaining brine from the resin,
flushing hardness ions removed from the resin to drain.
2. Backwash Position
Backwash is a rapid upward flow of water that loosens the resin bed
and flushes iron particles, dirt and sediments filtered in the bed out
to the drain.
3. Fast Rinse Position
Fast Rinse is a fast flow of water down through the resin tank that
follows a Backwash. This flushes all remaining brine from the tank
and packs the resin bed for softening efficiency.
4. Brine Fill
Brine is water saturated with large amounts of salt (sodium chloride).
During brine fill, water flows into the salt storage area after each
regeneration and dissolves salt. During the regeneration process,
hardness ions on the resin beads are replaced or exchanged for
sodium ions from the brine solution.
5. Service
When the softener is In Service water is flowing through the system
and removing hardness minerals from your water.
Service
Cleaning Iron Out of the
Water Softening System
The system is designed to remove minerals like calcium and magne-
sium from household water. Periodic resin bed cleaning is recom-
mended if your iron rating is high. Clean the bed at least every six
months, or more if iron appears in the soft water between cleanings.
Contact the system installer for this service.
Checking for a Salt Bridge
A hard crust or "Salt Bridge" can form in the lower half of the salt
storage tank. This can be deceiving because the tank will appear to
have plenty of salt, but underneath, salt has hardened and when the
system regenerates, water cannot quite reach this level to be made
into brine (water and salt).
Breaking a Salt Bridge
Take a wooden broom handle and carefully push it down into the
salt, working it up and down. If the tool strikes a hard object (be sure
it's not the bottom or sides of the tank), it's probably a salt bridge.
Carefully break the bridge with the broom handle. Do not pound on
the walls of the tank.
NOTE: Salt bridges are typically caused by high humidity or
using the wrong kind of salt. In humid areas it is best to fill with
less salt, more often. Use only nugget, pellet or coarse solar
salt with a purity of 99.5% or higher. DO NOT use rock, block,
granulated, and ice cream-making salts, or salt with iron-remov-
ing additives.