Water softeners are great, they help you enjoy softened filtered water and eliminate all the contaminations, or hardness dissolved in water that could otherwise have an impact on your life.
They are one of the low-key appliances and hardly require maintenance.
You just top up the brine tank with a salt bag after 2 or 3 months, and maintenance after regular intervals of time, you would not find them disturbing you and your peace.
But it is not always the same. Sometimes, they do disturb you and disturb you hard.
As most of the consumers don’t know how they work, that’s when they malfunction, it becomes hard even to diagnose it.
The better it is you take interest in them and check how they look on a good day so that you could diagnose where the problem is.
Mostly it is the brine tank that put you in distress, it is like a heart in our body, if it is at its peak of functionality, every other part would be performing.
To keep it at the peak of its performance, you should learn everything about them including how much water should be in the brine tank after regeneration.
Many novice users fill the brine tank with the water, with less to no sodium solution left, and some leave no water in the brine tank.
So, in this post, we will put a detailed guide about the water level in the brine tank, as well as the peak functionality of the brine tank.
How much water should be in the brine tank?
As mentioned, a brine tank is one of the key parts of a water softener.
It holds salt, water mixes that salt and travels towards the resin beads tank where it revitalizes the resin beads and flushes the minerals gathered on the resin beads.
If there is no water in the brine tank, how would the brine solution form out?
In other words, the whole functionality of the water softener is dependent on the smooth functioning of the brine tank.
On the other hand, if there is too much water in the brine tank, that too would bring no benefit but harm. Striking just the right balance is the key, neither too much, nor too less.
The amount of water in the brine tank depends on the type of salt you are using, and the type of water softener as well.
There are two types of the brine tank, let’s discuss that, and learn the water quantity in the brine tank.
Wet brine tank
Well, the wet brine tank does not exist now, unless you had one year back. This type of tank holds water for 24-hours, and the quantity of water depends on the size of the water softener.
On Average a wet brine tank can have 3 to 6 gallons of water in it, again it depends mostly on the size of the water softener you have.
Wet dry tank
Contrary to the name of the dry brine tank, they are not dry. They come with a digital valve that helps the system to regulate them.
As I mentioned, the brine tank requires water to make a brine solution, but once the regeneration happens, it gets tried, the tank will empty of the water once the regeneration completes or is carried out.
So, check what type of brine tank you have? Does it have a digital valve on the top, if you are not sure, contact your manufacturers or read the user manual, I am sure you will find it out quickly?
How much standing water should be in the brine tank after regeneration?
When regeneration is carried out, the brine tank gets emptied out once. This is the completion of the regeneration cycle when the brine tank is provided with the water so that it could provide the brine solution if anytime the regeneration could initiate all over again.
So, to make this brine solution, there must be standing water in the brine tank.
Standing water in the brine tank
Water standing even after the regeneration in a brine tank is normal. It depends on the type of water softener you have and its brine tank that determines the quantity of water.
But, the presence of more than required, or lesser than required can be a sign of something going wrong.
Too much water standing in the brine tank, water is not emptying out of the brine tank even when regeneration is carried out, or your water tastes different than before, there can be a problem in your brine tank.
As I mentioned, your brine tank after regeneration should have 3-6 gallons of water. If it is more than this, there may be one of the mentioned problems in your water softener.
- Safety valve issue
- System malfunction
- Drain line issue
- Clogged salt in the brine tank
- Brine drains line issue
Any of the issues can make your water softener performs not at its peak, or does not perform at all. You should fix the water standing issue.
If you can diagnose it on your own, that’s good, if not then hire a professional right away.
Considering how much water your brine tank requires
How much water your brine tank requires depends on several factors. It depends on the size of the water softener, its type, brine tank type, and many others.
One thing you should keep in mind is, the water level in your brine tank must never be full.
It should be lower than the salt line, so what should be the ideal water level, with respect to your water softener type, this is what we are going to consider here.
Type of Softener
Water softeners with a dry brine tank contain almost no water even after the regeneration. They require water when initiating the regeneration process. In those softeners, it is pretty normal if you have no water or very little water.
Now, how much water these types of softeners require for regeneration depends on the quantity of salt. So, here you hardly see any water level, here if you see any water level, that’s something you should think about, or ponder upon.
If it is a wet brine tank you own, here the water should at least be one-quarter full at a time, if you see that no regeneration is processing, you should check the water hardness level, and fill up the brine tank with the required salt level.
Regeneration setting
In some cases, water softeners allow you to change the salt settings. If you have done that, and if it is against the requirement, you might have more water standing in the brine tank.
As you have set your water softener to a lower salt setting, and it requires more than this, that’s why less water is being consumed or flushed, and more is standing in the brine tank.
The best would be that you let the water softeners do their job. All modern systems come with auto programs, based on the hard water settings and water consumption, so if you try to take control, you are likely to get things rolled incorrectly.
If you don’t have a water softener with automatic settings. Here you might have to take control, so you check different settings and test your water on different settings until you get the smarter and desired results.
The salt level in the brine tank
Now you have seen the ideal height of water level in a brine tank, or how much water should be in the brine tank to make the softeners function at their peak.
Let’s see the salt level required in the brine tank, to clear things confusing most of the users.
The salt level in the brine tank depends on three factors;
- Water consumption
- The hardness of the water
- How many people live in the house
The ideal salt level in a brine tank is one-quarter, if you measure it, it should be six inches from the top.
So, when you have the required amount of water in the brine tank which is a few inches above the salt line, then you would not have any problem with water softening or water softeners functionality.
Does the brine tank full with the water in the regeneration?
During the regeneration process, water softeners refill the brine tank with water after the regeneration cycle.
You have to drain this water along with the brine solution. You can either initiate an artificial regeneration or can suck the water up out of the tank.
Is standing water in the brine tank a sign of a problem?
The water softener brine tank holds the brine solution and salt. Water remains there for coming regeneration cycles, if there is too much water standing in the brine tank, it can be a sign of a problem or issue.
A few inches of standing water would not be a problem, in some households which use less water, the level of water standing in the brine can be higher than regular.
How much water does the softener use during the regeneration?
The regeneration process initiates after a set amount of time has passed or gallons of water reached, if it has happened, softeners have reserves of 20-25 percent of the water before regeneration.
That means, during the regeneration they use around 40-60 gallons of hard water.
How do you fix too much water in a brine tank?
With too much water in the brine tank, you would not be getting the required softened water. That means the salt quantity in the water softener is not enough.
So, if there is too much water in the brine tank, go check the salt level and top up the brine tank with salt.
Conclusion
Water softener brine tank water level is one of the most important things, in making or breaking your water softener performance. If there is too little or too much water in the brine tank, that can be an indicator of many issues.
The water level in the brine tank after regeneration should be above a few inches from the salt level. So that when the next regeneration cycle initiates, there are already sodium ions available for exchange.
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