If you think that you hear your water softener regenerating every night, chances are you just happened to notice it regenerating and thought that you just heard it recently and are wondering if it does regenerate every night. So does my water softener regenerate every night?
A water softener will regenerate every night if enough water is used to trigger regeneration or it is programmed to regenerate every night. Water faucets or toilets that do not shut off completely can cause a water softener to regenerate every night because of the extra water being used.
Not all water softeners operate in the same way, and not every home has the same quality water. Your water softener may need to regenerate every night to ensure that your home has enough soft water to get through an average day.
How to determine if your water softener is regenerating every night.
You don’t have to set your alarm clock for 2:00 AM so you can wake up and check your water softener to know if your water softener is regenerating every night.
There are a few simple ways to determine if your water softener is regenerating every night that you can do during the day.
- Check if the salt in your brine tank has gone down
- Check if your water softener capacity is near 100%
- Test for HIGH TDS in your water in the morning
- Check your water meter in the morning
How to check if your water softener used salt overnight.
Because a water softener will use salt from its brine tank when it regenerates, the level of salt in its brine tank will drop overnight if your water softener has regenerated.
By simply using a yard stick, tape measure, or even a piece of string, you can measure the level of salt in your brine tank from the top rim of the tank to determine if the salt has gone down which would mean that your water softener regenerated during the night.
Check how high the salt is in your water softener’s brine tank in the evening and then again in the morning. If the level has gone down, your water softener has regenerated overnight.
Check if your water softener’s capacity is always near 100% in the morning.
Many digital water softeners will display the remaining capacity of the water softener resin as time goes by and the resin removes hardness from your water.
This capacity number will vary from one home to another but your maximum capacity may be something like 1500, 2000, or 3200 gallons for example.
To determine your water softener maximum capacity you can manually regenerate your water softener or simply check it after it has done a regeneration on its own.
Let’s say (for example) that you have found that your water softener displays 2000 gallons of capacity right after it has regenerated.
If you find that your water softener displays a capacity of near 2000 gallons every morning, it is very likely that your water softener is regenerating every night.
Is the number of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in your water high every morning?
Your water will likely contain a slightly higher number of TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) after it has gone through its regeneration process. This is because there will normally be some sodium leftover in your water softener tank after the water softener has regenerated.
By testing your (COLD) water for Total Dissolved Solids with a TDS meter in the morning and comparing the reading to the number of Total Dissolved Solids in your water later in the day after a substantial amount of water has been used, you can see if your water softener has regenerated during the night.
If the number of TDS in your (COLD) water is higher every morning than it is later in the day, it is very likely that your water softener has used salt from its brine tank which means that it has regenerated.
Did your water softener use a lot of water overnight?
If you have a water meter in your home you can keep track of how much water has been used overnight by comparing the water meter reading in the morning to the reading from the night before.
You will often use some water during the night, but if you find that the meter reading is far more than you would expect, it is likely that your water softener has used water during the night because it regenerated.
Should My Water Softener Regenerate Every Night?
Your water softener could regenerate once per month or several times a day. This will all depend on the capacity of your water softener, the volume of water that is used, and the characteristics of the water being treated.
In general, a mid-sized water softener treating water with a total hardness of 10 Grains Per Gallon (GPG) for a home with a family of 4 will have to regenerate about once every 10 days.
This is based on the average adult using approximately 75 gallons of water per day with a water softener that has a capacity of 32,000 grains. So as you can see, how often your water softener will regenerate depends on several factors, any one of which can change how often your water softener will need to regenerate.
If you know how much hardness and iron is in your water, the capacity of your water softener and have a water meter, you can calculate very precisely how often your water softener should be regenerated by using a simple calculation.
Let’s say that your water has 10 grains per gallon of hardness in it and .5 parts per million of iron.
Your water meter tells you that you are using an average of 250 gallons of water each day and going by the owner’s manual that came with your water softener, it has a capacity of 32,000 grains (a very common size).
By knowing the “Total Hardness” of your water, the resin capacity of your water softener, and the average amount of water used in your household, we can determine how often your water softener should be regenerated, and if it is regenerating every night.
First, we have to figure out the total hardness of the water to be treated.
Total water hardness is the regular hardness plus anything else in the water that will be treated by the water softener. In this scenario, we have .5 parts per million of iron to be considered for the total hardness.
A basic rule of thumb is to calculate each 1 part per million of iron as 4 grains per gallon of hardness.
Since we have .5 parts per million of iron for our scenario, we need to add 2 grains per gallon into our hardness setting, bringing the total hardness number to 12.
The “Total Hardness” of 12 is our regular water hardness of 10 plus 2 to allow for our .5 parts per million of iron.
How to determine how often your water softener needs to regenerate.
Since we determined that the average water consumption in the home is 250 gallons per day, we are now going to divide the 2,666.66 potential gallons to be treated by 250, this will tell us how many days of soft water capacity the water softener can treat before it will have to regenerate it’s water softening resin.
2,666.66 divided by 250 equals 10.66 days of treated water between regenerations unless there is a change in your water usage or water characteristics.
If you already have a water softener and are trying to set it properly, check your owner’s manual for the total capacity of your particular unit.
If you can’t find your water softener capacity, you can use this chart to help you determine the approximate capacity based on the size of the water softener tank.
I have “BOLDED” and “Italicized” a few of the more common sizes for you and the amount of resin in the tank is the “Suggested” amount based on the size of the tank. The resin capacity is the approximate capacity for a properly operating water softener.
Common Water Softener Tank Sizes And Resin Capacities.
| Tank diameter | Tank height | Resin in-tank | Resin Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 inches | 35 inches | 0.64 cubic feet | 20,480-grain |
| 8 inches | 44 inches | 0.75 cubic feet | 24,000-grain |
| 9 inches | 35 inches | 0.75 cubic feet | 24,000-grain |
| 9 inches | 40 inches | 1.00 cubic feet | 32,000-grain |
| 9 inches | 48 inches | 1.00 cubic feet | 32,000-grain |
| 10 inches | 35 inches | 1.00 cubic feet | 32,000-grain |
| 10 inches | 40 inches | 1.00 cubic feet | 32,000-grain |
| 10 inches | 44 inches | 1.25 cubic feet | 40,000-grain |
| 10 inches | 54 inches | 1.50 cubic feet | 48,000-grain |
| 12 inches | 52 inches | 2.00 cubic feet | 64,000-grain |
| 13 inches | 54 inches | 2.00 cubic feet | 80,000-grain |
Water Softener Regeneration Frequency Calculator
Enter the following information to determine approximately how often your water softener should regenerate:
Other Reasons Why Your Water Softener May Need To Regenerate Every Night.
There are some other factors that may affect how often your water softener will have to regenerate.
Water softener resin can become damaged over time and can lose its hardness removing effectiveness. As the resin becomes less efficient, it may have to be regenerated every night in order for it to soften your water.
Over time the water-softening resin that is in your water softener tank can become less effective due to chlorine, acidic water, or iron.
As water softener resin loses its efficiency, the water softener will have to be set to regenerate more often as the usable capacity of the resin will decrease.
If your water contains a high level of iron, the iron can sometimes remain on the water-softening resin after the system has completed its regeneration cycle.
If the iron is not completely removed from the resin, it will inhibit the resin capacity and the system will need to regenerate more often than the original settings called for.
Does a non-electric water softener regenerate every night?
A non-electric water softener will more than likely not regenerate every night.
Since a non-electric water softener will only start its regeneration cycle when water is being used, it is highly unlikely that it will regenerate at night since that is normally the time of day when the least amount of water is being used.
But that doesn’t mean that a non-electric water softener is not regenerating every day! Many people who own a non-electric water softener do not know when their water softener is regenerating unless they are showering or using a large volume of water for some other purpose.
Simply washing your hands, flushing a toilet or even the refrigerator making ice cubes can trigger a non-electric water softener to regenerate.
When the meter on the system reaches the correct gallons used, the system will regenerate regardless of the time of day or if the water is being used.
Why does a water softener have to regenerate?
Remember that a water softener is removing hard minerals from your water and the minerals don’t just vanish into thin air, they have to be removed from the water and then discarded.
When the water softener is in service during the day, water is flowing through it and the hardness is being removed and held in the system’s tank.
The regeneration process usually takes place at night and this is the time when the hardness that is contained in the system’s tank is rinsed out and the tank is left clean so that it may remove more hardness.
Using a process called ion exchange, the hardness that is in the untreated water gets pulled out of the water and accumulates on the water-softening resin that is in the water softener.
Picture what a nice clean tennis ball looks like, and then picture what it would look like after being rolled around in the dirt for a while. It now has dirt on it that has collected on it as it made contact with the dirt.
This is very much the same as water-softening resin collecting hardness on it when it comes in contact with hard minerals.
When the water softener regenerates it is removing the minerals that make the water hard from the water-softening resin so that it can continue to remove more as more water goes through the resin.
Now picture the tennis ball being nice and clean again after being washed off. That is similar to what the regeneration process of a water softener does to the water-softening resin beads.
The frequency of how often your particular water softener will have to regenerate will depend on how quickly the water-softening resin needs to be cleared of the hard water minerals.
How can I make my water softener regenerate every night?
Most water softeners only regenerate when they are nearing their maximum capacity to be as efficient as possible but if you would like to have your water softener regenerate every night, check your owner’s manual for how to set your softener by day rather than by gallons of use or you can increase the hardness setting on the water softener.
Setting regeneration days on a non-metered water softener. Manual water softeners that do not meter the home’s water usage often have a small dial that has a series of pins going around it.
These pins can manually be pulled out to indicate that the water softener should regenerate that day, or pushed in to have the water softener skip that day.
There is no special tool or technique to setting these pins, if you want your water softener to regenerate every three days, just pull every third regeneration “trigger pin” out, and leave the first and second ones in.
If you would like to have your water softener regenerate every day, simply pull out every pin and your system will regenerate every day at 2:00 am, providing that the time is correct on the system’s clock.
For best results, you should estimate how many days of soft water capacity your water softener will provide, and set the system to regenerate just a little more often than actually needed.
Does Water pH affect how often a water softener regenerates?
Test the pH of your water. Why is this important?
It is important because if your water is acidic (a Ph less than 7.0), you should look into installing an acid neutralizer before the water softener. But what does a water’s Ph have to do with a water softener?
In order to neutralize the acid in your water, an acid neutralizer uses calcite. Calcite will neutralize the acid, but in doing so, the calcite will add hardness to the water.
How much hardness will depend on how acidic the water is which will determine how much of the calcite will be dissolving into the water at any given time. Test your water hardness before the water goes through any water treatment including sediment filters.
If you find that the water has a Ph of less than 7.0, install an acid neutralizer, and then re-test the water hardness from a kitchen faucet or anywhere after the neutralizer with the softener bypassed.
This will give you a total hardness reading so you can program your water softener correctly. Now we have to divide the total capacity of your water softener, which is 32,000 by the amount of total hardness to be treated. 32,000 divided by 12. Which gives us 2,666.66.
This is the number of gallons of water that the water softener will be able to treat before it has to perform its regeneration process.
Is your NON-DIGITAL manual water softener programmed to regenerate every night?
Many people think that if they have a metered water softener that doesn’t have the ability to override the metering digitally, they can’t make their water softener regenerate more often than the metering tells it to.
Well, that is only half true, we may not be able to manually make the system regenerate more often, but we can adjust the settings to make it think that it has to regenerate more often.
If your water softener has a dial that you set the hardness on, you can always set it much higher than needed to make the system regenerate more. But if you set the system for the correct hardness and amount of people in the home, you should have soft water without regenerating too often.
Some non-digital water softeners will do this using a series of tabs that you can set for the days that you want your unit to regenerate. But for most digital water softeners, you simply have to get to the correct setting as shown in your owner’s manual, and set it to regen daily.
Is your DIGITAL water softener programmed to regenerate every day?
One of which is its ease of programming. One example of this is the “Days between regeneration or (day override) function. This function allows the homeowner to easily set the water softener to regenerate every preset number of days rather than regenerating based on water usage alone.
By pressing the + and – buttons at the same time for three seconds, you can enter part of the systems program. The first setting that you will see is the pre-set hardness set at the time of installation.
If you like, check your installation paperwork from when the system was installed to make sure that this is correct. If it is not, you can change it by pressing the + or – buttons to set it to the correct hardness.
Pressing the NEXT button one time will bring you to the Days Between Regeneration function. This is normally preset by the manufacturer to be between 7 and 14 days.
This is to make sure that the system will regenerate often enough, even if there is not much water being used.
How Can I Check If My Digital Water Softener Is Set To Regenerate Every Day?
Some more advanced digital water softeners have the ability to show your water usage and regeneration history. But most standard water softeners will only show you the number of gallons of soft water available until the system will need to regenerate.
Each water softener brand will show this information differently, so check your water softener owner’s manual to find out how to check the gallons till the next regeneration for your system.
If you check the gallons to regeneration each day for a few days, you should see the number of gallons till regeneration gradually decreases.
But if you notice that the number of gallons until the next regeneration remains about the same every day, it is possible that your water softener is regenerating every night and therefore re-setting the number of gallons until the next regeneration each night.
How Can I Set My Digital Water Softener To Regenerate By Number Of Days?
If you would like to make your water softener regenerate every three days (for example) even if the water volume does not call for it to regenerate that often, simply press the + or – button to set the days between regeneration to the number of days between regeneration that you desire.
Press the Next button and you will proceed to go from one function to the next. Continue until the time of day is displayed, and you are done.
For the most part, I recommend setting your water softener to regenerate based on the volume of water used and not by pre-set days, simply to maximize the efficiency of the system and to minimize salt usage.
Test your water for hardness, iron, and Ph. Then set your water softener per the test results and it should deliver softened water to you without interruption.
If you find that you do not have softened water every few days, then simply increase the hardness setting by a few grains of hardness until you have soft water every day.
Related Questions:
Why does my water softener regenerate every day? If your water softener is set to regenerate based on the volume of water that is being used in the home, your water softener is regenerating every day because it is registering that the amount of water used per day has reached the maximum capacity of water that the system can soften.
If your water softener’s regeneration cycle is set manually, then it is either set to regenerate every day or there may be something wrong with the time clock or computer that makes it think that it should regenerate every day.
Many water softeners can be set to either regenerate by metered water usage or by preset days. Be sure that you have yours set for the proper function that works best for your situation.
