Your checking your water softener brine tank like you always do as you pass by it. You know that your water softener uses water to dissolve salt to regenerate its water-softer resin, but is there enough water in your water softener brine tank or do you need to add water to it?
A water softener will add a set amount of water to its brine tank to create a brine for its regeneration process. Water only needs to be added to a properly operating water softener brine tank when it is first installed or when the water has been removed to clean the tank.
There may be times when you think that there is not enough water in your water softener brine tank when it is actually just fine. But occasionally there are reasons why you will need to add water to your brine tank to get it operating correctly.
When you may think that you need to add water to your brine tank, but you don’t!
You may have a “Dry” brine tank system.
Many newer water softeners have changed to a “Dry” brine tank system.
This means that instead of adding water to the brine tank at the very end of the regeneration process and then letting the water sit in the brine tank until it is needed for the next regeneration process, the water softener will leave the brine tank empty and only add water to it shortly before it will start its regeneration process.
Generally, the water softener will only add water to the brine tank, about 4 hours before it will need the brine to regenerate its water softener resin.
It does this so water does not sit in the brine tank for long periods of time which can cause it to have odors and create excessive humidity in the tank which can encourage the development of a salt bridge.
So if you have a programable water softener and you don’t see any water in the tank when you go to add salt to your brine tank, it may very well be perfectly fine because the water softener will not be adding water to the tank until it is needed.
You may not need to add water to your brine tank even if you have a “Wet” brine tank system.
There are many cases where there actually is the correct amount of water in your brine tank but you just can’t see the water or it may not look like it is enough water.
The water level is lower than the level of salt.
You should never let the level of the salt in your brine tank get below the level of the water in the tank. In many cases, the level of water in your brine tank will be about halfway up the tank or less.
So if you are diligent about adding salt to your brine tank and never let it go down to the level of the water, then naturally, you will never see the water that is in your brine tank.
Many people who are doing the right thing and keeping their brine tank full will never see water in their brine tank when there is actually plenty of water in it to create the brine needed for their water softener.
Maybe your water softener was not drawing all of the brine correctly, until now!
Have you serviced your water softener recently or had it serviced by a professional?
If so, your water softener might have been leaving more water in your brine tank than is actually needed, until now!
Inside of a water softener, there are parts that can get clogged, and when they get clogged, they are unable to use all of the brine from your brine tank.
When this happens, your water softener adds the correct amount of water to your brine tank on top of the water that was left in the tank so now the water level can be much higher than it actually needs to be.
If your water softener was not drawing all of the brine from the brine tank, the water level might have been too high, but now that it is working correctly, the water softener is using all of the brine for its regeneration and when it adds water back to the brine tank, the water level is at the correct level which is too low for you to see since the salt is higher than the water.
This does not mean that you have to add more water to your brine tank, it simply had more water in it than it needed before your water softener was serviced.
There may be more water in your brine tank than you think!
A standard brine tank can be anywhere from 14 inches square to about 18 inches round and about 35 inches deep.
That’s a pretty big area for the water in your brine tank to be, and just a few inches of water over an 18-inch diameter area is quite a bit.
And in many water softener brine tanks there is a plastic grid plate at the bottom of the tank that allows water to pass through but keeps the salt from sitting at the very bottom of the brine tank.
In most cases, you will not have to add water to your brine tank even if you only see a few inches of water above this grid plate because the grid plate is about 4 inches above the bottom of the brine tank which means that there is plenty of water beneath the grid plate that you will never see.
When you WILL need to add water to your water softener brine tank.
You should add water to your brine tank when you first install it.
Of course, a brine tank has no water in it when a water softener is first installed and your water softener will need water in the tank to create brine to regenerate its water softener resin.
Unless your water softener is set to add water just before it regenerates as a dry brine tank system, there will be no water for the water softener to use when it does its first regeneration.
How hard your water is and what size water softener you have will dictate how much water it will need on a regular basis for it to properly soften your water.
Your water softener will add the correct amount of water after its first regeneration but you should add about 5-6 gallons of water to your new brine tank so your water softener will have its first dose of brine ready when it needs to regenerate its resin.
Add water after cleaning your brine tank.
Cleaning your brine tank is often not necessary, but it can be a good idea if you get sediment or debris in your brine tank from the water in your home.
Just like when your water softener is new after you clean your brine tank, you will need to add water back into the brine tank in order for your water softener to continue to soften your water.
Before cleaning your brine tank, take notice of how high the water is in the tank so that after the brine tank is cleaned, you can add water back into it at the same level that the water softener has been adding.
There may be times when you should add water to your brine tank.
Adding warm water to break up a salt bridge.
Occasionally, a salt bridge may form on the top of the salt in a brine tank.
This is when the salt binds together and creates a dome of salt that does not drop down into the brine tank. When this happens, the water softener will not get the brine needed for regeneration because the salt has been used up and the dome of salt has not dropped down.
In some cases, you can simply break apart the salt bridge with your hands or a broom handle, but if the salt bridge is thick, pouring some warm water in the middle of the salt bridge will help dissolve the salt and help you break up the salt bridge.
Add some water after using a water softener resin cleaner.
Using a small dose of water softener resin cleaner annually to your brine tank is an easy way to give your water softener resin a “Deep Cleaning”.
All you have to do is pour the resin cleaner into your water softener brine tank and it will work its way down into the brine and it will go through your water softener the next time that it regenerates.
Although it is not absolutely necessary, I find it to be a good idea to add some clean water to the area where you poured the resin cleaner to get as much of it down to the brine as possible. Just pour a few cups of water over the area where you added the resin cleaner to wash the resin to the bottom.
Add some water with bleach to sanitize your water softener.
Chlorine bleach can harm water softener resin if it is exposed over a long period of time so I don’t advise adding bleach to your brine tank often, but adding a quarter cup of sent free household bleach once in a while can help to eliminate odors from your water softener and prevent organic growth inside of the system.
Just pour a quarter cup of sent free household bleach into your brine tank and then follow with a few cups of clean water to rinse all of the bleach to the bottom of the tank and you are done.
You should not have to add any water to your water softener brine tank on a regular basis. A properly operating water softener will add the correct amount of water that it will need to perform its regeneration process on its own.
If you feel that your brine tank is not getting as much water as it should, you should first test your water.
If your water is soft, then your water softener is getting enough brine (saltwater) to regenerate its resin. If your water is hard, then your water softener may need to be serviced. But for the most part, rarely should you have to add any water to your water softener brine tank.
Hello,
Can I add solar salt to the tank if it has some pellets of salt still in the tank?
Thank you for any help,
Sherry
Hello Sherry and thank you for the question.
You can add solar salt on top of salt pellets. I recommend that you let the pellets get down to about 1/3 of the way up the tank to prevent the two salts from mixing too much.
Anytime you are going to use a different form of salt in your brine tank, you don’t want to allow the two forms of salt to mix together too much because the smaller sized form may settle between the larger type of salt and they can stick together and form one big clump of salt.
Add one bag of the new salt on top of the older salt once it has dropped to about 1/3 of the tank or a little less and then what until the new salt has dropped to the same level so that you know that the old salt has been used up and then go ahead and fill the tank with the new salt as usual.
Hope this was helpful!
Paul