How To Maintain Your Water Softener. It’s Easy!

UPDATED: January 9, 2023

You just closed on your new house. Congratulations!

You love all the new fixtures and appliances, but what is that thing in the basement that has water pipes going into, and out of it? A WATER SOFTENER, what’s that? And what do I have to do to maintain it? Don’t worry, it’s easy. How Do I Maintain My Water Softener?

Never let your water softener run out of salt, use the correct salt for your system, change your sediment pre-filter regularly if you have one, clean your salt tank once a year, clean the outside of the system once a year, and sanitize the inside of your water softener once per year.

There is actually not all that much that you have to do to maintain a water softener. The key thing is to get into the habit of making sure that you add salt to the salt tank when needed. But there are a few other things to know, to help prolong the life of your water softener, and make sure that it is operating correctly.

The basics of maintaining your water softener.

1. Maintain the proper level of salt in the salt tank: No less than 1/3 full and don’t overfill it

2. Use the correct type of salt: Solar, crystals, or pellets

3. Change your sediment filter regularly: As needed, every home is different

4. Clean your salt tank once per year: Remove dirt from the bottom of the tank and clean the sides

5. Clean your water softener, inside and out: Sanitizer inside, disinfecting cleaner outside

What you need to do to maintain your water softener

Never let your water softener run out of salt!

A water softener removes minerals from your water and collects them on its water-softening resin. The minerals that have built up on this resin need to be removed in order for it to collect more minerals as your water flows over it.

This is what the salt of a water softener system does. The salt clears off the minerals from the resin so that your water softener can continue to soften your water.

If your water softener has run out of salt, see my article What Happens When A Water Softener Runs Out Of Salt.

Your water softener can also remove iron from the water in the same way.

And this iron also needs to be cleaned off of the resin for the system to continue to remove the iron from your water.

The salt in your system’s salt tank is what accomplishes this.

Your water softener adds water to the salt tank to dissolve a portion of the salt to create a brine.

Brine is water with a very high concentration of salt in it. This brine is the cleanser that cleans off the resin that is inside your water softener. If you regularly let your water softener run out of salt, you can shorten the life of its water softener resin.

That’s why it is so important that you keep an eye on your water softener salt. You don’t have to check it every day, and certainly, don’t lose any sleep over it, but don’t forget it.

Check your salt level once a week, at first!

As a new owner of a water softener, or if you have moved into a new home that has a water softener, I recommend checking the salt level weekly.

After a while, you will get familiar with your system’s salt usage, and it will become second nature to know when to add salt.

But at first, I highly recommend making checking on your water softener’s salt level a weekly routine, until you become accustomed to how your water softener works, and how much salt it requires.

Just as you check how much gas you have in your car, you should also be checking how much salt you have in your water softener’s salt tank.

Use the right salt for your water softener.

You can find many different types of water softener salts at your local big-box store, but which one should you use, and why are they different?

For nearly all water softeners, I recommend using “Solar” salt. This is often found in a blue or blue and white bag. It’s very pure and reasonably priced.

This is the purest type of water softener salt that you will generally find, which gives you more brine for your buck. It also contains fewer impurities and debris which could cause problems in your water softener.

If solar salt is not available, my second choice is to use salt pellets. Salt pellets are also very pure but do not provide as much brine per bag as the purer solar salt.

This is because the pellet salt contains a binder, which allows it to hold its’ pellet shape. This binder does not dissolve in water, and in time, will build up on the bottom of your water softener’s salt tank.

Because this binder is a very fine powder, it can form a cement-like block at the bottom of the salt tank. This block can be very hard to remove and may require chipping away at it in order to remove it in smaller chunks.

If neither of these two salt types is available, you can use salt that has an iron remover additive in it.

This is not usually necessary, and for some situations, the iron remover can cause odors in your water, and even a build-up inside of your systems control valve.

In most cases, using water softener salt with an iron remover in it will work just fine, but they are often more expensive than the blue bag salt, and an iron remover is usually not necessary.

Check out my article Should I Use Pellet Or Crystal Salt For My Water Softener?

Prevent salt bridging.

A salt bridge is when the salt in your water softener salt tank sticks together and clings to the sides of the salt tank.

When this happens, the salt at the bottom of the tank will get used, but the salt that is stuck to the walls does not drop down to the bottom of the tank.

When the salt doesn’t drop down, the water softener will not get the brine that it needs to remove the hardness that has built up on its water-softening resin.

Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to help prevent a salt bridge from forming.

Don’t overfill your salt tank:

You may think that filling your water softener salt tank to the very top is a great idea because it means that you will have to add salt less often.

While this may be true, overfilling your salt tank to the brim can also encourage salt bridging to begin.

If you take a look inside your salt tank, you will see a white tube going up the inside wall of the tank.

If you fill the tank with salt above that tube, the salt that sits on top of that tube will not go down and is a perfect starting point for a salt bridge to form.

Humidity in the air can cause the salt crystals in your salt tank to dissolve slightly and then bond together. If your salt stands in the same position for several days, many pieces of salt can bond together in this way and form a crust.

After a while, the salt underneath this crust will get used up, but the layer of crust at the top doesn’t move.

At this point, the water softener looks as if it has plenty of salt, but in actuality, there is no salt at the bottom of the tank where it’s needed. If you believe that a salt bridge has formed in your water softener brine tank, see my article about How To Clear A Water Softener Salt Bridge.

Don’t mix salts:

You have probably seen all the different types of water softener salts in your local big box store. One says crystals, another says solar salt, and then there is pellet salt.

While using any one of these on their own is usually just fine, mixing them together can cause a problem.

Because of the different sizes and shapes of different salts, they can easily mix together filling all of the gaps between the larger-sized pellets with the smaller-sized crystals.

When this happens, water has trouble flowing through the salt.

But the worst thing about mixing salts is that the small-sized salts will bond with the larger pellets and become a big block of salt, otherwise known as a salt bridge.

If you have different types of water softener salt that you would like to use, be sure to use only one type at a time.

Use all of one type of salt, and then let the salt level drop down to about 1/3 full, but do not let it get empty. To learn more about why you should not let your water softener operate without salt, see What Happens If My Water Softener Runs Out Of Salt.

After the salt has gone down to about 1/3 full, put in 2 bags of the new salt, and then wait till the salt level drops down to 1/3 full again.

At this point, all of the old salt should be used up without letting your water softener run out of salt, and without causing a salt bridge.

Now you can fill the salt tank up to 2/3 full, which is the level that you should fill the tank normally.

Clean the walls of the salt tank when you add salt:

There is no need to spend much time doing this, just check the walls of your salt tank every time you add salt to it. If you see a little build-up of crusty salt, wipe it off with a damp, lint-free towel. That’s it!

By keeping the walls of the salt tank clean, there is less chance of a salt bridge forming from the salt that has begun crusting up on the walls of the tank.

Change the water softeners pre-filter regularly, if you have one.

Not all homes will need to have a water sediment filter, so you may not have one in your home. It is just a simple filter to prevent dirt and sediment from getting into your home.

Municipal water suppliers will usually filter the water before it comes to your home, and well water doesn’t always have sediment in it. But if your home has a sediment pre-filter, make sure to change your whole house water filter as needed.

I can’t even begin to tell you how often I get a call about poor water pressure in a customer’s house.

Luckily, in most cases, it is just because the customer’s sediment pre-filter has gotten so clogged up, that the water has trouble flowing through it.

In other cases, it’s not so simple!

Sometimes the poor pressure in the home is because of sediment that has plugged up all the water fixtures in the entire house.

And all because they didn’t change their water sediment filter soon enough.

It developed a small tear, allowing the sediment to get past the filter and into the plumbing of the home, where it blocked faucets, showers, and even the water feeds to the toilets.

Worse yet, if the sediment gets into your water softener, not only will it affect your water pressure, but it could also ruin your water softening resin in your water softener and clog your control valve which can often lead to the replacement of your water softener.

If you don’t have a sediment pre-filter, but think you would like to have one, check out my recommended whole-house filter systems.

Make sure that you are using the correct filter.

Not all water filters are created equal, and they are not supposed to be!

It all depends on what your particular circumstances are.

What are your trying to filter out and what are your water demands are two very important questions to ask yourself when choosing a water filter for your home.

See my recommended whole-house filters to learn more about the different types of filters used to filter incoming water.

Any time you add a filter, or filtering system to your home’s plumbing, it will affect the water pressure in the home.

Using a water filter that is designed to filter out very fine particles when you don’t have very fine particles, just reduces your water pressure.

If you are looking into purchasing a new water filter for your home, going a bit larger in size is not usually a bad idea, but using a filter that is too fine may be going overboard.

Municipal water is often sediment-free, or at least it contains very little sediment. But municipal water is often chlorinated. Using a large 4.5″ diameter by 10″ high Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) filter will often be perfect for the job.

Well, water will generally only require a filter for sediment. A 4.5″ diameter by 10″ Pleated Polyester filter will take care of most well water sediment issues just fine without experiencing a significant drop in water pressure.

Make sure your drain line is anchored securely and kink-free.

Every time your water softener regenerates, there is a surge of water running through its drain line.

An air bubble or a sudden change in water pressure due to water being used elsewhere in the home can cause the drain line to jump.

Over time, just a little jump in the drain line each time that it regenerates can eventually cause the drain line to pop out of the drain pipe.

It’s not hard to guess what will happen next if this happens. Your water softener will discharge its wastewater and cause a flood.

A drain line that has developed a kink or sharp bend in it can also cause this jumping effect, and it can inhibit the water flowing through the water softener.

When the water flow is restricted during a water softener’s regeneration process, the water softener will not be able to regenerate its water-softening resin correctly.

This leads to hard water and water that tastes salty or metallic.

Securing your drain line does not have to be a major project. A few wraps around the drain line and then taping it to the drainpipe with some duct tape usually does a fine job.

Straighten any sharp turns or kinks in your drain line, and secure it here and there with a few wraps of duct tape, and it should be working just fine.

Check the bypass once in a while.

We all hope that nothing will ever go wrong with our home appliances, but the fact is that with any device that has moving parts, things can go wrong.

This is why your water softener should have come with a bypass valve.

A bypass valve allows you to divert your water from going through your water softener should your water softener develop some problem where you need to stop the water flowing through it, but still provide water to your home.

A water softener bypass is often a single lever, two knobs, or a sliding bar that you push from side to side.

The bypass will be located where the water pipes meet the water softener, usually on the top back of the system.

Because the bypass is designed to divert the water flow, it is normally under pressure from the water, and this can make it a little difficult to move if it has been sitting in one position for a long period of time.

In order to help make sure that your bypass will operate correctly when the need for it arrives.

I recommend that you move the bypass lever, knobs, or bar back and forth a few times every few months to keep it operating smoothly.

There is no need to work it very often, just a few times a year should keep it from seizing, and becoming difficult to move.

Give it a deep cleaning once a year.

Even though your water softener pretty much takes care of itself with the exception of needing salt added periodically.

A water softener will only remove the majority of hardness from its softening resin during regeneration.

Running a deep cleaning water softener sanitizer through your water softener once a year will help to extend the life of your water softener resin, allowing it to remove hardness more easily from your water, and therefore extending the life of your water softener.

Clean the outside of your water softener.

Because there is cold water constantly running through the inside of your water softener, condensation from the air surrounding it can accumulate on the outside of the system’s tank and plumbing.

When this happens, it creates an ideal place for mold to start developing.

In order to prevent the start of mold from growing on the outside of your water softener system, clean the outside of the water softener tank, salt tank, and pipes with a disinfecting cleaner.

Give your water softener a good cleaning once a year and a quick wipe-down whenever you see the beginnings of any kind of discoloration forming.

Some water treatment systems may need annual maintenance.

A water system that is treating water that contains iron, manganese, sulfur, or other particles that can cause build-up inside of a water softener system, may require a bit more maintenance in order to perform its job correctly.

Screens, injectors, and other internal parts of a water softener may need to be cleaned or replaced.

If you are comfortable with working on basic plumbing and have an understanding of how a water softener works, you may be able to do this basic maintenance yourself.

But if you do not feel that you are the person for the job, call your local water treatment professional to have your water system maintained annually.

Not everyone’s water is the same, and therefore not all water softeners need the same care. To learn more about if your water softener may need annual maintenance, and why. Check out Do Water Softeners Need Regular Maintenance?