You have seen the salt go down in the brine tank of your Kinetico water softener but you rarely hear it regenerating. Your Kinetico water softener does not have a computer to tell it when to regenerate, so when does your Kinetico water softener regenerate?
A Kinetico water softener will regenerate once a predetermined amount of softened water has been used. A Kinetico water softener will regenerate at any time of day when its water capacity has been reached and regeneration will only begin when water is being used or started manually.
Because a Kinetico water softener is a completely mechanical system using a series of gears and impellers to determine when it will regenerate, it will only regenerate when its mechanical valve tells it to.
How Can I Tell When My Kinetico Water Softener Regenerates?
Unless you actually hear your Kinetico water softener regenerating, you will probably never know exactly when it regenerates.
Unlike an electric water softener that will often show the number of gallons remaining before the water softener will perform its next regeneration or even a history of when the water softener has regenerated, a Kinetico has no indications of when it regenerates.
The gears and impellers that control when a Kinetico water softener regenerates are deep inside of its control valve and do not show any readings of when it has regenerated or when it will again.
Noticing a drop in the level of salt in your Kinetico water softeners brine tank is a good indication that your Kinetico water softener has regenerated recently.
How Often Does A Kinetico Water Softener Regenerate?
Because a dual-tank Kinetico water softener will regenerate at any time that the control valve determines that the soft water capacity has been exhausted, how often it will regenerate will depend on how much water is used, the resin capacity of the system, and the regeneration disc used in the system.
A dual-tank Kinetico water softener may regenerate many times more than a standard electric water softener if the amount of resin in one of its tanks is less than in the standard water softener tank.
Where a standard electric water softener can be programmed to only regenerate after a certain amount of time or gallons of water has been used, a Kinetico water softener will only regenerate when a preset amount of water has been used.
This could mean that a Kinetico water softener could regenerate once per week, once per day, or even several times per day.
A properly set larger size dual-tank Kinetico water softener will need to regenerate less often than a smaller size system but both systems can provide the same uninterrupted softened water.
A small dual-tank Kinetico water softener may have to regenerate more often than a larger-sized system, but if they both switch softening tanks when regeneration begins, they will both provide non-stop softened water.
Can I Change When My Kinetico Water Softener Regenerates?
The frequency of regeneration of a dual-tank Kinetico water softener can be changed, but only by changing the regeneration disc inside of the control valve.
These discs are simply discs that have few or many regeneration trigger points on them to make the water softener regenerate less or more often.
It’s not rocket science, but you do need to disassemble the control valve to some degree to change the disc and unless you know what you are doing, I don’t recommend trying this yourself.
In most cases, the disc that came with your Kinetico water softener is the correct size for your water characteristics and will never need to be changed.
Using a disc that will regenerate the system less often will likely lead to hard water because the water softener resin will not be regenerated often enough.
Can A Kinetico Water Softener Regenerate Only At Night Like An Electric Water Softener?
Kinetico does have an electric timer add-on feature to trigger your Kinetico dual-tank water softener to only regenerate based on time.
But doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of having a Kinetico “NON-ELECTRIC” water softener!
In my opinion, if you want to have a metered water softener that will only regenerate at night, you would be better off with a metered electric water softener, to begin with.
And a metered electric water softener is much less than the high sticker price of a Kinetico water softener.
Conclusion:
A Kinetico water softener does not have the programmability of an electric water softener!
A dual-tank Kinetico water softener can regenerate at any time of day and may regenerate several times per day if necessary.
A dual-tank Kinetico water softener will only start its regeneration process when water is being used or it is started manually.
The best way to know that your Kinetico water softener is working correctly is by testing that your water is soft and seeing that the salt in the brine tank has gone down.
My dad is 88 and has a Kinetico water softener and doesn’t understand why the regeneration process doesn’t automatically do it’s regen and has to manually trigger the regen process
Hello and thank you for the question.
First of all, is your dad regenerating his Kinetico water softener because he is getting hard water after a certain length of time, or is he regenerating it just because his Kinetico water softener used to regenerate every certain amount of days and it might be regenerating less often than it used to be because there is less water being used in the home than there used to be?
If he is getting hard water and needs to regenerate his Kinetico water softener because it is not doing it on its own then there is most likely some debris inside of the control valve that is preventing the water metering impeller from spinning and telling the system to regenerate after a certain amount of water has been used.
You could bypass the water softener and remove the 8 long screws on the outside rim of the control valve and carefully remove the top layer of the valve where most of the impellers are to see if there is any debris blocking the impellers of screens inside the 1st level.
I do recommend that unless you are pretty handy, you should call your local Kinetico service person to have the valve cleaned by someone who has been trained to take the valve apart. The valve is somewhat complex and you should only try to clean away debris in the valve by running it under some water of putting it in a bucket of water and moving it around to loosen up any debris.
I hope this was helpful.
Paul
Hello,
I bought a new house that already had a kinetico model 60 installed. House is on a well and is the first one I’ve dealt with. It appears to be functional after loading it with salt. Since we are also on a septic system, when it does cycle my pump activates and it seems to take a long time and a lot of water.
Question is how long does a regeneration cycle take to complete?
The other day it had plenty of salt and within a day, the salt was gone, but the water was too soft.
It has the #3 disc.
Regards,
Scott
Hello Scott and thank you for the question.
A Kinetico Model K60 should normally regenerate for only about 30 minutes or a little bit less and it should not use more than a few inches of salt from the brine tank providing that it is a standard 18″ round Kinetico brine tank.
If the system has not been maintained, the brine float may have gradually gotten higher which will give the system a higher dose of salt than it needs and your water could taste salty after it regenerates.
If you are using a lot of water, it may need to regenerate often which would use more salt.
But I would suggest that you contact your local Kinetico dealer to have the system checked. They should test your water and make sure the brine float is at the correct level.
They may need to clean the control valve if any of the moving parts are sticking or binding which could make the regeneration continue for longer than it should.
If there is a sediment prefilter, be sure to change it and use a polyester filter cartridge that you can rinse off and reuse rather than a cellulose (Paper) filter.
Also, check out my article How to maintain a Kinetico water softener and Are Kinetico water softeners worth the money
I hope this was helpful.
Paul
Does the model S650 twin tanks regenerate immediately one after the other, or one at a time depending on use of water?
Mine is on disk A–an 11 minute cycle. The raised dot on the meter is always facing down on “brine”. Should it ever be facing up ,e.g., after one cycle?I haven’t had to add salt after almost 6 months, when it was installed new. Is this normal?
Thanks for your comments.
Jim Chang
Hello Jim and thank you for the question.
The S650 comes in 2 models, the XP uses one tank at a time and regenerates one tank at a time right after switching tanks.
The S650 OD (Overdrive) treats water through both tanks at the same time and regenerates both tanks during regeneration.
It is not uncommon to see the raised dot in the same position as it is easy to only see it after 2 regenerations but if you have not added salt after 6 months, I believe that the system is not regenerating. I have seen this before although it is not very common.
I have found debris in the control valve that was blocking openings inside of the control valve preventing it from metering water correctly and therefore not regenerating.
I have also found the internal gears of the control valve out of alignment which prevented them from spinning freely.
You may want to test your water to see if it is hard and contact your Kinetico dealer about the problem. I would mention to them that the salt is not going down and the raised dot doesn’t seem to move. They should send out a technician under warranty and replace the control valve (if needed) under warranty by Kinetico as well.
I hope this was helpful
Paul
My Overdrive system has been running for days. I assume that’s not supposed to happen. Any ideas please. I could turn it off and on again. Or, I have seen the videos with the philips screwdriver – could I damage the system was trying that. Thanks for any help.
Hello Geoffrey and thank you for the question.
You could use a #2 Phillips screwdriver to advance the regeneration to the end but I would recommend that you bypass the system entirely by turning the large slightly curved lever to the “Yellow” position. You will likely need to contact your local Kinetico dealer for service and it is often best that the technician can see exactly what is happening to the system.
See the Mach bypass in this article: Are Kinetico Water Softeners Worth The Money
By bypassing the system, the technician can “turn it back on” just as it was so they can better analyze the problem.
If you can’t bypass the system, insert the #2 Phillips screwdriver into the center of the head, and apply downward pressure (You should feel a spring pressing down about 1/8 of an inch), rotate the screwdriver clockwise until you feel it hit the advance tab then advance the tab slowly until the regeneration stops then call for service.
I hope this was helpful.
Paul