The Softener Brine Tank Mystery
In celebration of Industrial Water Week, I asked my colleague and friend Gene Tonetti to write about his more interesting experiences in industrial water treatment. Here is one of the stories he shared. Enjoy and please comment about similar experiences you may have had!
A small hospital in southern Indiana had purchased new softeners. The new softeners were smaller than the original units; however, they decided to keep the old brine tank which was in good condition but oversized for the newer softeners.
As soon as the new softeners were commissioned, they began leaking 2 to 6 ppm hardness. The old softeners rarely leaked any hardness.
I was asked to determine why the new softeners were not producing the same water quality as the previous units. Inspection of the brine tank indicated the brine level was higher than normal in the still well and the tank was almost completely full of salt. The brine was tested with a salometer and was fully saturated.
An elution study was performed, and the elution curve immediately identified the problem. There was not enough brine for proper regeneration, and the contact time was very short.
I explained the problem to the operator, and he told me the brine tank was cleaned just prior to installation of the new softeners. During the cleaning, they discovered the salt platform in the bottom of the brine tank was severely cracked and they decided to throw it away. It was not replaced.
To prevent running out of salt on weekends, they would fill the brine completely full of salt on Friday afternoon. Since there was no salt platform, the brine makedown water could not effectively disperse throughout the salt and simply filled the still well. This explained why they had insufficient brine during regeneration.
I requested they lower the brine tank salt level and used a piece of tape on the exterior of the tank to mark the proper salt level. We then adjusted the brine tank float to the proper level.
After these adjustments were made, the hardness leakage problem was solved.
Gene Tonetti
#IndustrialWaterWeek
Owner, Agitators & Mixing Solutions
5 年Great insight
The Best water for you and your House!
5 年So the problem was the brine float valve was not allowing enough water to enter the brine tank because there was no longer a void under the brine grid for the needed volume of water? I'm interested how the brine tank bieing full of salt had an effect? Was it because the "fix" was to have the salt level low enough that the water level would rise above the salt level to alow for the additional water volume?
Industrial Water and Wastewater Treatment
5 年Perhaps it's the lack of detail, but the explanation that the lack of a salt platform prevents dispersion of water throughout the salt sounds erroneous. Many softener brine tanks operate successfully without salt platforms. Especially in this case where the softener bed size was reduced. Salt platforms can be used to successfully operate large softener beds with small brine tanks - albeit needing more frequent salt addition. It is important to insure that an old brine tank is compatible with the operating characteristics of a new regeneration control valve, however.
Senior Account Manager at ChemTreat, Inc.
5 年I'd say on a small steam boiler system, if there is a water treatment problem, about 90 percent of the time it is a mechanical problem with the fleck water softener.