How Do I Clear A Water Softener Salt Bridge?

Clearing a water softener salt bridge is just a matter of breaking up the dome of salt that has been formed in a water softeners salt tank, creating a void between the water in the bottom of the salt tank and the salt that the water softener needs to properly regenerate its water softening resin.

How do I clear a water softener salt bridge? To clear a salt bridge in a water softeners salt tank the salt at the top of the tank that has been bonded together by re-crystallization must be broken up and either removed or allowed to drop to the bottom of the tank for use by the water softener.

The clearing of a water softener salt bridge is actually very simple to do, but doing it properly to prevent damaging your water softener is very important.

There’s plenty of salt in my softener, why is my water hard?

If you are experiencing hard water, but your salt tank looks like it has plenty of salt in it, you may have a salt bridge. But if your water is soft, or if you are only experiencing occasional hard water, there is likely something else going on and there may be no bridge at all.

I highly recommend that you do not use any metal or pointy objects when working on a water softener because they are generally made of plastic and can easily be cracked or pierced with one simple misguided use of any tool.

A salt bridge can sometimes be cleared in a few seconds if the bridges layer is thin and fragile, but they can often become quite thick, and therefore they will need a bit of work to get them broken up and cleaned up.

What causes a salt bridge?

Before we start, it is important to understand what caused the salt bridge to form in the first place, and how to prevent more bridges from forming in the future.

The formation of a salt bridge is often caused by humidity in the air getting trapped in between the salt crystals or pellets in the salt tank. The humidity can dissolve a small amount of the salt and then re-crystallize, causing two salt crystals or pellets to become one.

When the humidity is high enough and the salt sits motionless for a long enough period of time, an entire layer of the salt can be partially dissolved and then re-crystallized.

When this happens, the salt can also re-crystalize on the side of the salt tank which will support this layer of salt, preventing it from dropping into the water below as it should.

Did the salt I used, cause a salt bridge?

I have found that the size of the salt crystals can play a part in the likelihood of a salt bridge forming. It is commonly recommended to only use salt nuggets or pellets in your water softeners salt tank because of the nuggets irregular shapes and the large rounded shape of water softener salt pellets.

Although any salt can cause a salt bridge, small salt crystals seem to have a more flat surface area to make contact between the crystals and therefore increase the possibility of the crystals bonding together and becoming a salt bridge.

Ok, now that we understand just what can cause a salt bridge, let’s check out a few things to determine if that is really why you are getting hard water.

First of all, have you heard your water softener regenerating lately?

If you have heard your softener working recently, but have not seen the salt level in your salt tank go down at all, there may be a salt bridge. But if you notice that the water in your salt tank is higher than usual, there may be something clogging the injector in your softener.

A salt bridge is very uncommon when the water level is high in the salt tank because the high water level will likely dissolve any potential bonding of the salt that could develop into a bridge. But if the salt seems to be dry, then checking for a salt bridge would be a good place to start troubleshooting your hard water issue.

Here’s what we are going to do to clear your salt bridge.

1: Shut the water going to the water softener off or bypass the system with the units bypass.

2: Use a broom handle or other smooth blunt tool and tap the top center of salt until it cracks and falls into the tank. Continue breaking apart the salt until it has all been cleared.

3: Either scoop out or use a wet-vac to remove the larger pieces of salt from the salt bridge.

4: Tap the sides of the salt tank lightly with a wooden or rubber mallet to remove any remaining salt from the sides of the tank. Leaving the salt on the sides of the tank can encourage a new salt bridge to for in the future.

5: Use some warm water to clean the sides of the tank and dissolve any salt from the bridge that has remained at the bottom of the tank.

6: Turn the water to the water softener back on or take it out of bypass.

7: Follow the directions in your owner’s manual to start the regeneration process of your water softener.

8: Regenerate the water softener a second time later in the day to be sure that all the salt in the tank has been used up.

9: Once you are satisfied that the salt tank is clear, add salt to the tank up to about halfway up, then let the water softener operate as normal.

To start checking for a bridge, get yourself a long stick that is not pointy or sharp and at least the height of the salt tank plus a few inches to spare, a wooden broom or mop handle works great for this.

Hold the wooden broom handle round side down, next to the outside of the salt tank, going the whole length of the tank from top to bottom.

Take some tape or simply make a mark on the handle about 12 inches below the top of the tank, marking the maximum depth that the handle should be able to go down the tank before it gets to 12 inches from the bottom of the tank.

This mark is to be kept above the top of the tank at all times to keep the handle from making contact with the bottom of the salt tank and potentially poking a hole in the bottom of the tank.

Breaking up a salt bridge properly.

Now, take your broom handle and press it into the center of the salt inside the tank. Use a stirring type motion to work the handle down into the salt, just as you might work an umbrella into the sand at the beach.

If the handle continues to work its way down into the salt with plenty of resistance to where your mark on the handle is getting close to the top of the tank, there is most likely salt going all the way don the tank and therefore, no salt bridge.

If you work the handle down a bit and then notice that it seems to no longer have any resistance going down, you may have reached the bridge and broken through.

Do the same stirring technique in a few other spots of the salt, as you continue to break through the bridge, you should hear and see the salt crumbling and collapsing into the water below.

Once you have cleared the majority of the bridge with the broom handle, you can remove any large chunks of salt that have fallen into the bottom of the tank as they will not dissolve easily.

You can use this salt on your driveway in the winter or you can break it up outside of the water softeners salt tank and then use it a little at a time back in the softener.

If the bridge does not break up easily after you have worked down the handle in several different spots, pour some warm water over the salt slowly in a circular type motion to dissolve the salt enough for it to be broken up with moderate pressure using the broom handle.

Clear any salt that is stuck to the sides of the tank with a smooth putty knife or spatula type tool, then you can add some salt to the tank to get it going again.

You may want to use some warm water to rinse off any salt left on the sides of the tank but only use just enough to clear the salt.

Adding salt to the tank after a salt bridge.

Only add a quarter tank of salt or so until you have used up the old salt, and then you can fill the tank to about 2/3 of the way up. It is best to only fill the tank to about 2/3, as this will not encourage more salt bridges in the future.

If you don’t overfill the salt tank you can use any type of water softener salt that you wish, the less salt that you put in the tank, the less likely that you will develop a salt bridge. My rule of thumb to prevent salt bridging is to add salt when the salt is at 1/3 tank, and only fill to 2/3 full.