Water softener won't regenerate

Maz1963

Hi. I wonder if anyone can give me some advice please. I have a Culligan Hi Tec Meter water softener. I guess it's probably around 7 years old and was installed by previous occupants of house. It has suddenly stopped regenerating. The power is on fine and I can hear it trying to move the dial along to the regeneration stage, and now and again there's some clicking, but it will not regenerate. I did disconnect hoses a couple of months ago to clean out the salt tank, but it was working fine after that. I was very careful not to touch the parts and wiring of the control unit, but I guess I may have knocked something. I have booked for someone to come and hopefully repair it in a few weeks.

Should I leave the water passing through the softener system in the meantime, or should I put the water on byass? The thought of having hard water for a few weeks does not appeal!

Has anyone else had the same issues and solved them? I have tried pressing the button to start a manual regeneration, but it either continues with the attempt to move on and the clicking sounds, or the button sometimes gets stuck, until it eventually clicks out. It's definitely trying to do something, but sounds stuck!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it can be repaired - there's a max price they will charge me (£150 plus VAT), so I guess worth one attempt.

I know there are quite a few knowledgable people here on the topic, so any advice would be appreciated, even if just on the point about whether I should bypass it or not. Thank you.

Chunks

An expert will be along shortly, no doubt. Personally, I would take the softner 'offline' for now since leaving it on might do more harm than good; if it cannot regen, you won't be getting soft water anyway......

Wookey

Hiya, I'm not familiar with that type but going by others that i have worked on you should be able to set it on a manual backwash, this should then allow it to produce some softened water. The timer usually only sets the machine to backwash every other day or so, doing a manual backwash will clear the crap out and should let it work away. The only surefire way to test for softened water is to buy a test kit and sample the water periodically. The button your trying to press may in fact need turned with a screwdriver, check to see if it has a slot on the front of it.

Maz1963

Thanks for the advice. I have tried turning the black button by using a screwdriver in the slot, but it's completely stuck. I'll leave it now until the guy comes to repair it, as more meddling by me may make it worse. I just hope that it's an issue with the timer/motor and can be repaired, I don't really want to buy a complete new softener just yet!