If you have a water softener, you have probably heard it regenerating in the middle of the night several times, but it is usually done regenerating by the time you get up in the morning. Then, one morning you wake up and you hear that it is still regenerating.
How Long Does It Take For A Water Softener To Regenerate? A water softener can take as little as 19 minutes to regenerate, or as long as 120 minutes, depending on the model of water softener, and the programming of the water softener. The characteristics of the water and size of the system can have an impact on the length of regeneration.
The whole purpose of a water softener regenerating is to revitalize the water softening resin inside of the water softener. How efficiently a water softener accomplishes this can vary from model to model. It all depends on your particular water treatment needs.
What happens when a water softener regenerates, and how long does it take?
Because water characteristics are different from one location to another, the frequency of a water softener regeneration may change, but the length of water softener regeneration should remain the same as it is originally programmed.
If you have noticed that your water softener is taking longer to regenerate, or it is regenerating in less time than it once was, your programing may have changed or it may have been reset to the factory pre-set programming due to a power outage, or computer problem.
Different brand water softeners may have slightly different settings for their particular systems, but the ion exchange process of regeneration usually consists of three basic cycles.
Backwash cycle 1:
The first cycle is a rinsing cycle to remove any debris that may have deposited on the water softening resin inside of your water softener.
Because this cycle is usually a strong flow of water flowing backward through the water softener, it does not have to be a very long cycle, and usually lasts for anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes.
Because this cycle uses a strong flow of water very quickly, it makes a pretty loud sound for the entire duration of the cycle.
Brine rinse cycle:
This is the longest of all of the water softener regeneration cycles, and this is where the water softening resin actually gets regenerated. Because there is lots of hardness to be removed from the water softening resin, it takes a long period of time for all of the brine to be used.
There are some systems that do this cycle as a second half of the first backwash cycle, and therefore this cycle can be as little as 18 minutes, but on most water softeners this is a second cycle that is separate from the other cycles.
This cycle is for drawing the brine from the brine tank and using it for the ion exchange process that replaces the hard ions that have built-up on the water softening resin with sodium ions from the brine.
This is actually a two-part cycle because after all of the brine has been used to regenerate the water softening resin, clean water then rinses away the majority of the brine.
This is the longest cycle by far and can last as little as 18 minutes, but it can also last as long as 90 minutes with a larger water softener that is treating water that has a high amount of hardness and iron in the water.
This cycle uses water at a much slower pace than the first backwash cycle. Although you can certainly hear the water flowing through the water softener the entire time that it is in this cycle, it sounds more like a garden hose running, than a roaring river.
Backwash cycle 2 (final rinse):
This rinsing cycle may be called different names depending on the manufacturer, but in this final cycle of a water softener, the main objective is to rinse away any leftover sodium from the water softener and get it ready to remove more hardness and iron from your water.
This cycle uses clean water to give the resin a final rinse, and put the water softener back into the in-service position, to soften incoming water.
The average water softener doesn’t take long to do this because the second cycle has already done the hard part of cleaning the hardness from the water softening resin.
In about 4 to 8 minutes, the water softener will rinse the resin one last time, and the regeneration process will be complete.
Because the water softener also uses a strong flow of water the whole time that it is in this cycle, you will notice that the sound of the water flowing through the water softener will be louder than the previous cycle.
Different brands of water softeners work with different combinations of these basic cycles, and these cycles may be programmed differently for different water characteristics, so the total time that it takes for one water softener may be different than another of the same type.
So, as you can see, the regeneration process of a water softener can vary slightly from one system to the next, but generally, the entire process should take between 19 minutes for a small and very efficient system, and up to 120 minutes for a standard water softener that would be used for an average residential home.
