The Lemon Fool

A water softener, 2 years old, hasn't had any salt put in it for at least 18 months, so it's been left in-circuit without the ability to regenerate. The house hasn't been used much in that period but there have occasionally been people using the system.

I filled it with salt a few days ago and triggered a manual regeneration. However, the water out of the taps is still hard even though hundreds of litres have been through the system.

Can the softener itself have been irreparably damaged by the lack of salt? Or does it need a few more regeneration cycles?

I installed my Wickes water softener in the mid 1980s. On occasions I have forgotten to top it up and maybe it ran for a months or so without salt.

Last year I decided to check the operation and its still working very effectively ( checked with those test strips). So I would give it another couple of manual regens and check again - assuming the test strips are OK (just a thought).

Of course now I have posted this my water softener will SCRAM tonight and meltdown ! S

The salt needs several hours to properly dissolve into the water at the bottom of the salt tank. So you need to wait before the regen will work.