Ensuring your water softener's plumbing has been set up correctly is essential for it working properly. If the softener's plumbing is set up backwards, that can result in several issues. Let's go through a few steps together to test the direction of flow through your softener.
1. First, you'll want to make sure your softener's plugged in, and not currently recharging. If it is recharging it'll have a 'Recharge Now' or 'Recharging' indicator on the screen.
2. Now, you'll want to turn off all the water in the home - so no one should be using the shower, washer, dishwasher, etc. during this time.
3. Confirm the softener's bypass handle is pulled OUT at the back of the unit. This ensures water is passing through the unit.
4. Check to see if there's a 3-valve bypass on your home plumbing. If so, the incoming/outgoing valves should be open, with the center valve closed. NOTE: This test will not allow anything to exit your softener, we're just letting water into the unit and out the drain.
5. Go ahead and press and hold the Program button until ‘000’ appears on the screen, then let go. If you notice that the ‘000’ is counting, that means there's still water flowing/turned on somewhere in the home. Take a minute to go find out where and turn it off.
6. Hold the Recharge button down until you hear the motor start, then let go. (Note: If you hear a large flow of water exiting the drain hose here, the softener’s Clean feature may be enabled. Skip to step 9.)
7. You can press the Recharge button once to advance to the Brine cycle and wait again for the motor to stop.
8. Press Recharge again to move ahead to the Backwash cycle. After the motor has stopped, you should be able to hear and see a continuous heavy flow of water to the drain.
9. Does the ‘000’ number count continuously as the softener is in this Backwash cycle?
- YES - Water is entering the softener through the outlet port, and the unit is likely installed backwards. If you need additional guidance on next steps, feel free to Contact Us.
- NO - The softener is installed correctly, and the water is passing through the unit in the correct direction.
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