A water treatment system service and maintenance plan is an economical interference-free manner in order to ensure that the water treatment system is operating at the desired performance. Our approach is – on a local basis including much of southern California – to use contractors’ help. More often than not, we are able to provide a plumber or a licensed technician that will work on our behalf to get the equipment repaired. We are available from 8am-5pm, Monday to Friday to answer all your questions!
Dime Water, Inc. provides pre- and post treatment instructions with every system at the time of the shipment. Our staffed engineers will be in touch with you to answer all your questions about pre- or post treatment. If you have any questions, call and talk to our water treatment experts.
COMMON ISSUES WITH RO UNITS
The number one problem is that people throttle the drain or turn the drain down too far and that prematurely destroys the plugs, the membrane. Another issue we often run into is that clients have either inadequate or no pre-treatment and a typical RO unit is going to fail prematurely. The third thing is the control system; there are digital, electronic and electro-mechanical control systems and if the controls aren’t working very few suppliers will provide adequate wiring diagrams and information. We at Dime Water, Inc. give out all the information possible to keep the control systems working or to be able to diagnose a problem of the control system. Another problem that we run into has to do oddly enough with the weather; when the water gets cold the production starts to go way down and people are not aware of it so it’s kind of a false problem – usually around October they start calling that their water production is going down; in these situations there is nothing wrong with the unit it is just that the water is getting cold.
No water or poor water flow from the pump system: the high pressure pump could have a poor power going through it, we often run into that the voltage in the house or the voltage in the building has dropped because it’s like in hot weather everybody’s got their air-conditioner on and the voltage goes down and the pumping capability goes down. It could also be a tear in the pump, it’s old and has to be replaced.
Feed water valve is plugged or closed: the type that we use has a bypass in the valve so that you could turn a little lever or turn a little dial and force it to open that way; otherwise all you can do is replace it.
Pre filter or carbon post filter is clogged: you have no choice but to replace it.
Water pressure: typically 20-25 psi while the unit is running.
RO membrane is broken: there is no repair, if it is dirty it can be sometimes cleaned but if it is not producing at all or producing high TDS water it should be replaced.
Air pressure in holding tank is not correct: if the air pressure is too high the RO unit gets a back pressure and the result is poor quantity of water produced by the RO unit; if the water pressure is too low in the tank, then toward the end of emptying the tank you’re going to get dissatisfied with the volume of the water coming out of the faucet.
Airbladder in holding tank is ruptured: the air will eventually saturate and dissolve into the water and it is just a matter of time and the tank will be totally full of water and no pressure to force it out, so you won’t have water coming out at all; you need to replace the tank, or some bladder tanks have replaceable bladder in them.
No water to drain, drain flow restrictor in clogged: this needs to be fixed in a hurry because when you don’t have enough water going to drain, very soon you are going to destroy the membrane.
No water to drain, air gap faucet is clogged: you will get a buildup of airborne bacteria that just grows and grows in the lines and eventually plugs it and there is no water to drain.
Check valve on RO membrane housing is stuck: if it is stuck in the closed position all you can do is replace it; if it’s stuck in the open position you got to be very careful because in a short period of time, we are talking hours, it’s going to destroy the membrane.
The automatic shut off valve is malfunctioning: there is a single little diaphragm in there and if the diaphragm is ruptured you are going to have to replace the valve, there is really no way to repair them.
Low water pressure from the dispensing faucet: if it is toward the end of the tank, in other words you get a few glasses of water and then the water slows down it just means that you have a very low pressure in the tank and you need to increase it; typically you should have in the neighborhood of 10-15 psi in the bladder tank when it is totally empty.
Water TDS in the RO system is high: one reason is that you might have low pressure in the unit, the other problem could be that the water is warmer than normal and the TDS goes up; another reason could be that the product water tube is not fully engaged with the housing, so you are getting some mixing of raw water with product water, and the last thing would be that the membrane itself is now defective.
Taste and odor in the product water from RO: this means that somewhere you have a growth taking place in the tank and what you should do is either try to sanitize the tank, which is quite difficult or just replace it. It is probably more economical to replace it than it is to try to sanitize it.
Drain water overflows at air gap faucet: it is the buildup of the airborne bacteria and microorganisms in the air; you have to take a pipe cleaner and try to unplug it or try to kill the bacteria with bleach or hydrogen peroxide;
Faucet drops or leaks: typically it is just a little spring loaded valve what most manufacturers sell and you don’t have to replace the faucet, what you do is turn the water off at the tank and at the inlet to the RO unit and then pull out the dispenser spout and then if you look you’ll see that there is a way to unscrew the valve and put in a new valve repair kit.
Dime Water, Inc. provides pre- and post treatment instructions with every system at the time of the shipment. Our staffed engineers will be in touch with you to answer all your questions about pre- or post treatment. If you have any questions, call and talk to our water treatment experts.
What can you check if the water softener is not working?
Look for the bypass valve, almost all water softeners are installed with a bypass valve; the bypass valve might be open and that is why there is no soft water.
Look to see if there is adequate amount of salt in the brine tank; the salt level always has to be above the water level, if not, you are not getting saturated brine you just regenerating with water and you are going to have hard water.
Check the valve itself – the water softener is plugged in an outlet that’s on a switch, so when you turn the light off you turn off the water softener and there is no electricity to it and therefore the unit will not regenerate the way that it should.
Especially if you are on city water the chlorine in the city water will eventually wear out the water softener resin so keep that in mind because it will shorten the life of the water softener.
Water hardness can change so if your unit is set up for one hardness value and over a period of time the water hardness got greater, the water softener does not know that and you are going to end up with frequent hard water coming out of the unit.
Check the controls, these might be set up improperly.
Check the drain line – if you moved something around in your home or garage or basement you could have pinched or obstructed the drain line and once that is obstructed the unit will not regenerate properly, it will consume salt.
Common Issues with Water Softeners
System is not sucking water from brine tank
There is an injector that creates the suction; in the injector because of dirt in the water or iron in the water will often become plugged; the injector has to be cleaned.
Over a period of time the tube going from the control valve to the brine tank can age and get a crack in it and instead of drawing in brine just draws in air
If for whatever reason your water pressure is gone way down then you are not going to draw in brine
Look for the obstruction of the drain line
Error code on the digital meter
Check the manual of instructions and see what different error codes mean, then correct the problem (there are about 2-10 codes that can appear approximately – there are no standard codes you need the manufacturer’s own manual)
Getting resin in the house after installing the water softener
This means either that the unit was installed backwards with the inlet and outlet reversed and that will cause the resin to go out (we put upper screens on our units to prevent this) or the lowest distributor got broken out of carelessness, also if the unit froze in transit that could cause the problem as well.
Possible of elevating the drain line above the water softener
It takes 21/2 feet of elevation to act as a 1 pound backpressure so if you got reasonable pressure in your home, meaning somewhere between 30-40 psi, the elevation of a drain for 8-10 feet is not going to make any difference at all.
Dime Water, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of highly engineered residential reverse osmosis systems. Choose from our standard product line of reverse osmosis systems or choose to utilize our in-house engineering team to design a custom engineered system based upon your needs. If you can describe it, then we can most likely engineer and build it.