LESLIE: Ken in Michigan is on the line and needs some help with a water softener. What can we do for you?
KEN: Well, I’ve got a 22-year-old house that we built and I had a contractor put the water softener in. And my question is: how do I go about cleaning it or do I know that it’s still working? Or am I just throwing money away at salt and dumping it in?
TOM: Well, if it wasn’t working, you would probably notice a difference in the – in your ability to use the water, in terms of whether it got soapy and just sort of felt right on your clothes and your hair and that sort of thing.
In terms of cleaning it, you know, there’s quite a few steps involved. That’s why most people have service companies that do this. But essentially, you have to siphon or get rid of the water out of the brine tank. And you need to be careful where you put that since it’s so salty it could damage your lawn, your landscape.
And then you have to clean it with a soapy-water solution. And then, generally, you have to put a bleach solution after that and let it sit for a while so it kills any bacteria. And then you have to rinse that whole thing and put it all back together. So, there’s kind of a lot of steps to it.
And do you know what – who made this brine tank, what the manufacturer is? Because I’m thinking you might be able to find step-by-step instructions on their website.
KEN: I just looked and I couldn’t find anything on the machine. And all I could find was a – it said Puretec. And so I’m not sure who made it or where it came from. I had – like I said, I had a contractor put it in about 22 years ago. I’m not even sure whether they’re still in business or not.
TOM: I’m not familiar with that brand but if you jump online, I found a couple of references to the procedure for cleaning those tanks. And one is on a blog called WaterTech, which seems pretty well written. So just Google it and I think you’ll find the step-by-step. But there’s about 10 or 15 steps involved in cleaning it correctly.
KEN: Alrighty. Thank you very much.
TOM: Alright. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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