Topic: Calling the Culligan Man..

[CaféElite]

I hoping you guys can help me out here. I bought my house a year ago and it already had a Culligan water softener setup. At the time my water was all nice and pretty so it fell into the out of sight out of mind category. Tonight I noticed my water was not all that pretty so decided to do a little investigating. In the picture the large white container which im assuming should have something interesting (some form of salt?) is empty minus being about a 1/4 full of water. Whats the thinner of the two containers contain?

Is this as easy fix where I can just add something to it? Do I need to clean it or change the settings on the little panel? Give it the boot and move to a different system? Do I really need to call the culligan man, I would prefer not to.

Thanks!

[Duke McDukiedook]

No manuals for your unit left behind by the owner?

You should be able to find some material online for your model of softener.
I think they use salt to help neutralize the calcium chloride and manganese and magnesium that are often in excess in public water.

[BlindJoe]

Buy 2-3 of these at the grocery store and put it in the big white thing, repeat once a month.

[Don R]

Yep. You might check the timer to make sure it's still set properly. So it will re-cycle at night. Those bags make good trunk ballast in the winter too. Unless they split open.

[Damfino]

I'm not positive, but I believe the thinner cylinder is actually your filter. Filled with a certain type of sand that the water filters through.

[Steve F]

The large container is for the salt which is used to "regenerate" the resin in the smaller tank.  The smaller tank is holds the resin that is used to attract the hard water particles and hold them.  This tank is non user serviceable, and you don't mess with it.  The salt or brine from the larger tank is used in the regenerating process and releases these contaminants and they get "backflushed" out and down the drain.
As suggested, search the internet for an owners manual for your unit.

[CaféElite]

This tank is non user serviceable, and you don't mess with it. 

Does it need to be service at all and if so do you know the time frame or will the panel on the front indicate?

Thanks to everyone that has responded, normally I would have just went out and read up on it but my work has pretty much all of my free time occupied at the moment. I have not even got to mount my new MotoGP pipe to my 550

[Steve F]

This tank is non user serviceable, and you don't mess with it. 

Does it need to be service at all and if so do you know the time frame or will the panel on the front indicate?

If the thing was filled with good quality resin, and it hasn't been contaminated with motor oil or something other than the supply water, it should last for 20 years easy.  You also have to regenerate it by keeping softener salt in the brine tank.  My softener has a lifetime GUARANTEE (not a warrantee but a guarantee) that the resin will never fail under normal use.  If the word GUARANTEE tells you something about how long it's been in service, they haven't used that term for 30+ years.

[Kframe]

The only thing (usually) end-user-serviceable on these things is the filter screen up in the control head.
There is a cover that pops off, and after relieving pressure (you need a manual) you can unscrew a thing and pull out a screen that usually is caked with brown/black crud. 

Somewhere on the control head (the thing on top of the thin tank) will be the make/model/serial # and with google you should be able to download a manual pdf. 

If you haven't added salt in a year, the resin will be thoroughly depleted and may need a few regenerations in a row to get back to normal. 

There is also a setting on most units that controls how much salt/brine is used each time, and your local municipal website/water dept. may publish the level of water hardness in your area, measured in grains per gallon or parts per million.
The harder the water, the more salt you need to soften it. 

-K

[CaféElite]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their replies and providing such great info. I ended up pulling down the manual which is pretty much worthless but gave just enough info for me to decode the front panel. I broke down the brine tank and it cleaned it out. At one point I thought about just replacing a few of the plastic parts since they were so nasty but after a good scrubbing most came out fairly clean. The manual said only to add 6" of clean water then fill the container full of salt. I had only picked up 5 bags of salt at home depot which got me about 3/4 of the way to the top. I had it go through the regen process which was around midnight at that point and then had the process go again at 6am when my alarm went off. At this point I can only assume everything is working properly.

Kframe.. I looked to the part break out of the control head and I do not see what your referencing. I didnt think about checking with the local water dept regarding the hardness level so I will check that out and compare against what the manual suggests for a setting.

[Duke McDukiedook]

JCW puts out a yearly report, it should be in one of the letters they send out to you.
You could also email or call them for that info.

[tramp]

thats why i rent from culligan
no fee for repairs

[Rushoid]

You don't have to fill the brine tank completely with salt. The water in the bottom will dissolve only so much at a time so even 1 bag would do the trick. the only benefit to filling it is more time between fills. As stated earlier, it might take a few regeneration cycles before your water is soft again. Culligan systems are pretty reliable so if it's regenerating like you said you should be in good shape. There is a manual bypass on the resin tank head but if you didn't move it, and you had soft water before, it's probably ok. Call Culligan though, they might do a courtesy call to test your water and system.