Water Softener Troubleshooting: Common Problems & Fixes

Your water softener was working fine for years, and now something is off. Maybe the water feels hard again, the salt level hasn't moved in weeks, or there is more water in the salt tank than you remember. The causes on this page are a lever, a crust of salt, a setting, a small screen inside the valve, or a worn part, and you can check the first four before you call anyone.

This page is written for a standard home softener: one tall resin tank with a Fleck or Clack control valve on top, and a separate salt tank beside it. Most of the checks below end the same way: start a regeneration by hand and watch it run.

In this video I answer the softener questions people call me with, one symptom at a time. Where the video and this page differ (breaking a salt bridge, how much water belongs in the salt tank), follow the steps on this page.

Check these three things first

Before you take anything apart, check the power, the bypass and the salt. These three come first in the Fleck manual's list for a softener that will not regenerate or gives hard water. Cabinet softeners from Whirlpool, GE, Kenmore, Morton and Rheem are built differently, with the resin and the salt in one cabinet, so most of this page will not match yours.

Is the softener plugged in

The valve plugs into a standard outlet. If the display is dark, check the plug, the outlet, and any switch or breaker that feeds it. If the time of day is flashing, the power went out; press any button to stop the flashing and check that the time is right (how to set the clock).

Check the bypass lever behind the softener

The bypass sits on the back of the valve where your pipes connect, and it lets water go around the softener. On the Fleck softeners we ship it is a stainless bypass with one lever: pointed at SERVICE, water runs through the softener; at BY PASS, it goes around it and you get hard water.

A Clack bypass has two knobs with arrows. In normal use the arrows point the way the water flows. When a caller is confused by a bypass with two knobs, I tell them: when you turn the knobs and "the tips of the arrows face each other in the middle," the water is going around the softener.

Salt in the salt tank

Lift the lid. You must keep salt in the tank; with too little, the brine is weak and hard water passes through. Use pellet salt made for softeners. If the tank looks full but the level never drops, the salt may have bridged (how to break a salt bridge).

Water is hard again

Hard water again means water is skipping the resin (the beads in the tall tank that do the softening), or the resin is not getting enough salt water when it regenerates. Check that the bypass is set to SERVICE, verify the hardness setting matches your water test, and confirm salt is actually being used. Then work down this list, starting with the bypass:

1. The bypass. Set to BY PASS, or halfway between (the first three checks).
2. No brine. An empty salt tank, a salt bridge, or a softener that is not pulling brine out of the salt tank (salt level is not going down).
3. The hardness setting. If the valve thinks your water is softer than it is, it waits too long between regenerations and runs out of capacity first.
4. A plugged injector screen. A plugged screen keeps the injector from pulling brine, so the resin never gets its brine (too much water in the salt tank).

Check the hardness setting

On a Fleck 5600SXT, press and hold the Up and Down buttons together for 5 seconds while the softener is in service. The first screen is the day override (DO); press Extra Cycle to step to the regeneration time (RT), then to the hardness (H), which is set in grains per gallon. Change it with Up and Down, and press Extra Cycle through the rest. If you do not press a button for 60 seconds, the valve throws out your changes. If you do not have a hardness number, how to test water hardness walks through a strip test, and our certified well water test ($199) reports hardness and iron from one sample.

Less common causes of hard water

The Fleck manual lists three more. Water that is hard only from the hot taps can be the water heater still full of hard water; the manual's fix is to flush the heater, more than once. A cracked distributor tube (the pipe down the middle of the mineral tank) or a bad o-ring where it meets the valve lets water skip the resin. An internal valve leak, meaning worn seals, spacers or piston, does the same thing (repair or replace).

Still hard after these checks

Text me what the display shows

Send a photo of the valve and the salt tank with the lid off, and your hardness number if you have it. It does not matter where you bought the softener.

Text Aidan443-277-2204 Call800-460-5810Aidan

8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, seven days a week. A real person, not a call center.

Salt level is not going down

Salt that never goes down can mean a crust of salt called a salt bridge, or a softener that is not pulling salt water out of the tank. Pentair's manual says the salt tank works best with the salt below half full; filled higher, the pellets can wedge against each other into a crust over the water. The tank looks full, but no salt reaches the water at the bottom to make brine, so the softener regenerates without recharging the resin.

How to break a salt bridge

1. Push a broom handle straight down into the salt. If it stops on a hard layer and breaks through into a hollow, that is the bridge.
2. Carefully pound the handle into the crust until the pellets collapse into the water.
3. Wait 2 hours for the salt to make brine, then start a manual regeneration. A second one may be needed before the water is fully soft.

After that, keep the salt below half full, use only pellet salt made for softeners (rock salt and snow-melt salt carry dirt and chemicals), keep the lid on, and empty and clean the salt tank every three years, as the manual says.

When there is no salt bridge

If the handle goes all the way down, run a manual regeneration and measure the water in the salt tank before and after (the water level test). If the level does not drop during the brine step, the softener is not drawing brine. If it does, the softener is drawing brine, and the salt may simply be going down slowly in a house that uses little water. The softeners we ship regenerate by gallons used, and after 14 days without enough water use they regenerate anyway.

Too much water in the salt tank

Some water belongs in the salt tank, as long as the softener pulls it out when it regenerates. At the end of every regeneration the valve refills the salt tank so the salt can dissolve for next time. On the softeners we ship, a safety float inside the white tube (the brine well) shuts the water off before it can overflow. So test it instead of judging by eye, the way I tell callers: measure the water level now, run a manual regeneration, "and measure it again after and see if it comes back at the same level."

During the brine step the softener "sucks out the salt solution from the salt tank for about 40 minutes or so. It's a very slow process." If the level drops during that step and comes back after the refill, the softener is doing its job. If it never drops, the softener is not drawing brine. The Fleck manual lists these causes:

• A plugged injector or injector screen. The injector is the small nozzle that creates the suction that pulls brine in; its screen catches grit.
• A plugged drain line flow control. The small restrictor where the drain line leaves the valve.
• A kinked or clogged drain line. During regeneration, water must flow out the drain line. If the drain line is kinked, frozen, or clogged, backpressure prevents the system from completing its brine draw and rinse cycles.
• Debris in the brine valve or the brine line flow control. These two parts control the refill.
• Low water pressure. The manual says the valve needs at least 20 psi to draw brine.

How to clean the injector

The Fleck service manual's order: put the bypass in BY PASS, step the valve into backwash for a moment to let the pressure out, return it to service, and unplug it. Take off the injector cap and screen, clean the screen, and clear the injector nozzle and throat of grit (the manual unscrews them from the injector body when it replaces them). Put it back together, return the bypass to SERVICE, check for leaks, plug it in, set the time of day, and run a manual regeneration to watch the brine step.

No water in the salt tank

A salt tank with no water in it means the softener is not refilling it at the end of each regeneration. Without that water, the next regeneration has no brine to pull. The Fleck manual's fix for "insufficient water flowing into brine tank" is to check the refill time and clean the brine line flow control if it is plugged; a valve that is not cycling at all will not refill it either (softener is not regenerating). On a new install the tank starts dry: at start-up I tell people to "put a five-gallon bucket of cold water in the salt tank and one or two bags of salt."

Softener is not regenerating

A Fleck 5600SXT keeps its settings through a power outage and keeps time for at least 8 hours; after a longer outage, check the clock. When the power comes back, the time of day flashes to tell you it went out. If a regeneration was due during the outage, the valve queues it, usually for one day after it was scheduled. If the power went out in the middle of a regeneration, the valve stays where it stopped and finishes the regeneration when the power returns.

Set the clock on a Fleck 5600SXT

Press and hold either Up or Down until the display reads TD. Set the time with Up and Down, then press Extra Cycle (or wait 5 seconds). The regeneration runs at the time it is set for, usually 2 AM, so a clock that is wrong by hours puts the regeneration in the middle of your day.

Start a regeneration by hand

Hold Extra Cycle for 5 seconds and the valve starts backwash right away. One press without holding queues a regeneration for the next regeneration time (the service icon flashes). On the softeners we ship, a full regeneration takes about an hour and a half. Pressing Extra Cycle during a regeneration skips to the next step, which is how you check that the valve reaches every one. Water softener regeneration explains the four steps in detail.

Error codes on a Fleck 5600SXT

If the display stays dark with power at the outlet, the Fleck manual's fix is a new timer (the control on top of the valve); code 0 points to the motor and drive, and code 3 to the control board. Storms do this: a caller in January told me "I had a power surge at my house, and it fried some internal electrical components" on his Fleck.

Setting the clock on a Clack

Press SET CLOCK, set the hour with Up or Down, press NEXT, set the minutes, and press NEXT again. To regenerate right away, hold REGEN for 3 seconds; one press and release schedules it for tonight. Clack's error codes E1, E2 and E3 all point to the motor: E1 means the control cannot sense the motor moving, and E2 and E3 mean the motor stopped short of the next position or ran past it. Clack WS1 covers the rest of Clack's settings.

Water keeps running to the drain

Water running to the drain between regenerations means something inside the valve is not sealing. Callers describe it as "it's just running, running, running." I call it running to drain; it usually shows up in the backwash position, and the cause is the seals or, on some valves, the cam.

First make sure it is not simply mid-regeneration: the display shows the step and counts down during a regeneration, and a valve that lost power partway through finishes when the power comes back. If it keeps running after that, the Fleck and Clack manuals list these causes:

• Debris caught in a seal. On a new install, grit from the well or the plumbing can lodge in the valve. When a new install does this, I tell the caller to run another manual cycle to flush it through first.
• Worn seals, spacers or piston. The fix is a seal and spacer kit or a new piston.
• A valve that does not reach its positions. The manual's fix is the power head (the motor and control on top of the valve).
• A control that cycles over and over. A broken or misadjusted switch; the manual's fix is the switch, the timer, or the power head.

Low water pressure after a softener

A softener the right size for your house lowers the pressure a little when a lot of water is running; a sudden drop means something is blocking the water. Pentair rates its 1.5 cubic foot 5600SXT softener at a 14 psi drop when water runs through it at 10.8 gallons a minute. An undersized softener costs far more: when a caller read me a competing system rated at 4 gallons a minute, 7 at peak, I told him "that's a huge pressure drop." What size water softener has the size chart.

The Fleck manual's causes for a loss of pressure:

• Grit from recent plumbing work in the valve inlet. The manual's fix is to pull the piston and clean the valve.
• Iron built up in the line to the softener, or in the softener. Clean the line and the valve, add a resin cleaner, and regenerate more often (orange water after the softener).

Pressure matters on both ends. The valve needs at least 20 psi to regenerate, and Pentair and Clack both say house pressure must not go over 125 psi; above that, the fix is a pressure reducing valve on the line before the softener.

Which regeneration noises are normal

Water running down the drain in the middle of the night is normal; that is the softener regenerating. You also hear the motor move the valve between steps. The softeners we ship usually regenerate at 2 AM and take about an hour and a half. Backwash and rapid rinse send a steady stream of fresh water down the drain; the brine step is slow, about 40 minutes of the valve pulling salt water out of the salt tank; the refill at the end is water running back into the salt tank. While the motor moves the valve from one step to the next, the display flashes. Some valves are louder than others: we used to use Clack, and "a lot of people complained the backwash was too loud."

Sounds that are not normal: water running to the drain in the middle of the day with no regeneration on the display (water keeps running to the drain), and a motor that runs and runs without the valve reaching the next step, which ends in error code 0 after 6 minutes.

Water smells after the softener

A softener does not take out a rotten egg smell. If you smelled it before the softener went in, you still will. That smell is sulfur, and when callers ask about it I tell them the same thing: "It's an iron and sulfur filter for the smell and a water softener for the hard water." Rotten egg smell in well water explains how to tell which kind you have.

If the smell is only on the hot side, look at the water heater before the softener. The Minnesota Department of Health explains that the magnesium rod in a water heater (the anode) can turn sulfate in the water into hydrogen sulfide. When a caller tells me the smell is mostly in the hot shower, "it could be the anode rod inside the hot water heater."

How to sanitize a softener

If the smell started after the softener and is in cold water too, bacteria may be in the softener or its salt tank. The Minnesota Department of Health says that if they are, you should get disinfection instructions from the manufacturer. Pentair's: use plain 5.25% household bleach, 1.2 fluid ounces per cubic foot of resin (about 1.8 ounces for the 1.5 cubic feet in our 48,000 grain). Run a backwash, pour the bleach into the brine well in the salt tank (there has to be water in the tank), and then run a normal regeneration.

Orange water after the softener

Orange or brown water after the softener is iron, either coming through the resin or coming off it. As I tell callers, "The softeners aren't really meant to take iron out." Iron builds up on the resin and shortens its life. When the iron is high, an iron filter goes in ahead of the softener; can a water softener remove iron goes through where that line falls.

The Fleck manual's fix for iron in softened water is to check the backwash, the brine draw and the refill, and to regenerate more often; for iron that has built up, add a resin cleaner. If an iron filter already went in ahead of an older softener and the water is still orange, the old resin may be holding iron from before. When a customer wrote in with exactly that this September, my answer was that the softener "may be holding iron" and may need to be rebedded, which means new resin in the same tank.

Water tastes salty

Salty water after a softener has its own guide. Why softened water tastes salty walks through the causes on the valve, each fix, and how to tell whether the salt is coming from your well instead.

Repair or replace an old softener

An old Fleck softener can be fixed with a part or a new valve instead of replaced. A new Fleck 5600SXT valve is $545; a complete 48,000 grain softener is $1,995. On a Fleck, "10 or 15 years down the road, you may have to replace some pistons or a control board, which is fairly simple to do," and the parts are readily available because it is the most common valve in the business. When the valve is so old its parts are no longer made, as on a Fleck 7000, I tell people to replace it with a 5600.

When a caller's old mechanical valve has bad seals, my answer is short: if it is that old, "get a newer valve." A new softener ships with the mineral tank empty, the resin in separate bags that are loaded into the tank at install, and no drain tubing; we recommend a licensed plumber for the install, and I support your plumber by phone. Our water softeners are all on one page, and the Fleck 5600SXT review covers what wears out on the valve and what the parts cost.

Frequently asked questions