Water softener/plumbing advice.

Hoof_Hearted

I have a Culliagn Waterside MC350 water softener, which is about 3 years old. Apparently, these are not good models and prone to trouble. Anyway, it is discharging some briny water through the overflow pipe.

I had a plumber (softener expert) in today. He tested the water pressure, which is 5 bar. This is at the upper end of the range for this device and he recommended fitting a pressure-reducing valve. He didn't really look at anything else.

My MSE intuition is saying to me that this may not be a correct diagnosis and I will pay for the PRV and fitting and the problem will remain without a more detailed investigation. Why would it work for three years or does water pressure change?

He didn't have a PRV with him and I am wondering whether to pay him his call-out and move on or whether to let him fit it. It is an easy job and I could probably do it myself anyway, as the softener is easily isolated.

Any experts?

Avoriaz

If you can easily access the stopc0ck and have basic plumbing skills, then a PRV is easy to fit.

The issue with water discharging through the overflow could be as simple as adjusting the level float in the brine tank or it could be something more complex.

Avoriaz

I should have added that the PRV should be on the supply side of the softener.

The sequence should be:

Incoming Mains - Stopc0ck - PRV - (T joint for unsoftened drinking/cooking water tap if installed) - Softener - House.

The softener should have a bypass so that you can disconnect the softener for repair or replacement and still have a water supply to the whole house. It will be unsoftened hard water of course.

A drinking/cooking water tap is useful though not essential. If you don't have one this is an ideal opportunity to install one. A small number of people are sensitive to the sodium ions in softened water and it is said to be not advisable to make up baby formula milk with softened water.

You can have an inline filter on the drinking water supply. That will remove most of the chlorine and other extras in the water and make it taste better. It won't remove magnesium and calcium ions which are the main causes of hard water. Or you can just drink unsoftened and unfiltered mains water if you are happy with the taste of it. That is what everyone without a filter and or softener does.