At midnight Saturday night, it sounded as if our toilet were going to explode: air, lots of it, under pressure, along with gurgling loud gurgling sounds, was coming with the water into the toilet bowl.
I thought I would purge the air, but turning on all the taps just led to more than half an hour of continuing gurgling of air mixed with water--sometimes dirty gray--through all the taps, and gurgling in the hot water heater.

This device, with a shut-off valve, is outside the front door of our rented house. It has not been serviced in years, and the property manager has no idea what it is.



Is this a soft water system? Here is a photo of the electronic valve on top:


Behind that valve are two inline manual valves:


And this appears to be a main shut-off valve:



Shutting off this valve seems to have shut off all the cold water (and hot water) in the house.

I'm going to call a plumber, but I'd like to have some idea of what I'm dealing with.

Could this be backwashing dirty water under pressure into the cold water system?

Thanks in advance for your help.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sjtill,

Certainly appears to be a softener. I've never seen one installed in the yard before.

Not a plumber, but that is definitely a water softener.
The 2 manual valves on top are for bypassing the WS in the event you need to service it.

The arrows molded into the bypass valves indicate flow.
One from the main water supply from the street, well etc, and the other into the house water supply.
Rotating both into the bypass position will bypass the WS.
Our WS goes through a weekly regen cycle around 2 AM on Sunday morning.
It takes about an hour or so.

If the WS hasn't been serviced in years, such as having salt added to it, is isn;t doing anything anyway.
I would leave it in bypass and unplug the electrical and then decide the next course of action.

That is indeed a water softener control head, an older model FLECK. Look carefully at the 2 valves on the back and you'll see that they can be configured to totally bypass the unit. Most of them today use a single handle bypass but those will do. Getting the mess out of the house plumbing is going to take a little longer.

edit: Looks like Patrick and I were typing at the same time.

Wow, thanks for the quick replies!

So is the softener the culprit? Would I turn off both valves on the back to bypass? And what needs to be done to clean out the mess in the plumbing?
The property manager is usually very unhelpful, so knowing what's going on will put pressure on him to pay to get the work done right.

In a tap you will drink out of or shower with, I'd let the bypass/clean water run for a long time. If you aren't paying - run for an hour, to get some chlorinated water in the pipes.

If it stays gray or yucky - move.

Not a professional plumber but I would return the red valve to where it supplies water to the house.
I would then follow the advice from the other posters and turn both black valves so that the water flow is bypassing the WS.
I would then flush out all lines (hot and cold), faucets, shower and toilets by running water thru them for at least 10 minutes.

May need to drain hot water heater from bottom to get crud out...

I seriously doubt that water softener is introducing air into the system. I would suspect a main line was repaired between your home and the supply. Maybe the pressure fluctuation dislodged some trash from the softener or it could be from the main.

I would certainly bypass the softener if possible and flush up to the home through a exterior water spigot until the water runs clear. Then, flush all your plumbing fixtures.

Maybe even a call to the city.

It's from the city.

Anyway, I did bypass the strange water softener (no tank for salt??), turned on the water and let it run through all the taps in the house. Water is now running clean and clear.

Are you sure the water softener or whatever it is didn't cause this? There's some backwash cycle.

At minimum follow Mercury's advice above.

But, If it is not going to be serviced properly by someone (may have been on a contract at one time) it should just be disconnected and removed and the pipes connected underground and the power to it killed. Regardless of whether it caused the problem this time or not.

However, someone installed it for a reason at one time and if still workable it might be of some benefit to keep and use it. A google should turn up info on it and operating instructions.

This is a rented house; owner lives in Texas and property manager is not interested in any improvements. If we complain about something the bare minimum is done. For example: no regular service for heat and air. In homes we own and rent out, regular maintenance of these is done twice a year.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
It's from the city.

Anyway, I did bypass the strange water softener (no tank for salt??), turned on the water and let it run through all the taps in the house. Water is now running clean and clear.

Are you sure the water softener or whatever it is didn't cause this? There's some backwash cycle.

Not sure about your water softener, but in mine we have a brine tank that has to be serviced by putting salt into it. And that softener is inside our house! Admittedly, it has been a long time since I did anything on our system except adding salt and monitoring the self cleaning operations.

No idea where all the crap in your water came from but I would leave that "softener" on bypass for some time to see if it came from somewhere else. I cannot imagine a scenario in which you would bet dirty water/crap in your system.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
It's from the city.

Anyway, I did bypass the strange water softener (no tank for salt??), turned on the water and let it run through all the taps in the house. Water is now running clean and clear.

Are you sure the water softener or whatever it is didn't cause this? There's some backwash cycle.

I'd say that since you took the softener out of your home plumbing (bypassed) and all is now back to normal, yes, the softener did indeed cause it. During the regeneration cycle, the first thing the control head does is put itself in bypass internally through a series of valves/valve combos that are manipulated by the control head and its programming. A lot of crap gets dislodged and flushed during the regeneration - especially if you don't have a whole house filter ahead of the softener - but the home's plumbing is never exposed to the mess because of the bypass. Another thing that happens is a salt-water solution is drawn from the brine tank by a venturi-effect orifice in the control head. That solution is drawn for a programmed number of minutes and back-flushes through the softener medium to regenerate it. The brine tank always runs out of brine solution before the timer shifts to the next phase. Therefore, once it runs out of liquid to pull, the control head is drawing air. But that doesn't matter because it's all kept within the softener system and never gets into the home's plumbing...because the softener is bypassed...off line. All of the waste water generated during the regeneration is plumbed to its own drain, often the washing machine drain or similar. But that's OK, because the softener is bypassed. However, when something goes wrong with the control head's internal valving and seals then all bets are off. That is probably what has happened to you. The control head can be easily and relatively inexpensively rebuilt and the softener media can be replaced. The brine tank can be cleaned and charged with new salt and the hoses and piping from the brine tank to the media tank to the drain system to the whatever can be replaced as needed. Then you'd have a nice softener system. But if you're satisfied with the state of the water without the softener and it's not your softener and the landlord doesn't give a shit, why bother? But...if you do decide to work on it, you have one of the best softener parts and tech support outfits in the country right there in Florida at softenerparts.com owned by a very helpful guy named Andrew Cross.

Good luck.

FRANKT--

Thanks so much for the explanation! That fits perfectly with something I found online about the Fleck control systems, that the valves and seals go bad after 5-10 years. I'm sure it's at least that old.

By the way, "One hop from paradise" for me is San Diego, not Florida. We lived in Maui for years and it's just one non-stop Alaska Airlines flight from here to Maui.

You don't happen to know a softener guy in San Diego, do you?

Wow, SigForum comes through again! No amount of googling came up with your answer!

I would say that without the brine tank its definitely not a softner in the normal sense. That head could be just as much seen on an iron filter of some type. We have two tanks with heads like that in our basement. one is hooked up to a brine tank and the other isn't. I can't remember how the office said it worked but it seems like it is a non chemical way of decreasing the iron in the water.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
FRANKT--

Thanks so much for the explanation! That fits perfectly with something I found online about the Fleck control systems, that the valves and seals go bad after 5-10 years. I'm sure it's at least that old.

By the way, "One hop from paradise" for me is San Diego, not Florida. We lived in Maui for years and it's just one non-stop Alaska Airlines flight from here to Maui.

You don't happen to know a softener guy in San Diego, do you?

Wow, SigForum comes through again! No amount of googling came up with your answer!

Oh, OK, not sure how I arrived at Florida.

Regarding the valve & seal life, I have many more than 10 years on mine (FLECK 2510-SE) and it's still perfectly functional. Their rubber components seem to be most affected by the amount of chlorine in the water.

No, sorry, I don't know any softener folks in San Diego but I can assure you they're there. I don't actually know the guy I recommended in Florida, either, but I have interacted with him in the past and he seems to be a pretty stand up guy. Probably couldn't hurt to drop him an email and ask if he knows anyone in your neck of the woods.

Glad you're back to normal looking water coming from your faucets. The cold water lines will clear immediately obviously but if you've drawn some of that water into your water heater it could take a while to totally clear it if all you do is dilute it into extinction by just using the normal amount of hot water. The quickest way would be to kill the heating element and drain the tank as completely as possible then refill and turn the heating element back on. Either way, I wouldn't draw from the hot water tap for cooking or coffee for a while...cold water only for that.

Call the water company, bet there was a damaged water main near you. The air(rumbling) and mud(dirty water) enters the broken line then gets deposited on down the line. My water company has come by a couple times to see if I needed the pipes back flushed, after a major repair.

The water softener is connected between the meter and house entry point. You will hear rumbling from the bubble of air delivered by the water main to it. I turn off the water at the meter upon hearing rumbling, dirty water, and reduced flow. To give the mains time to push the CR&AP past my home.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Certainly appears to be a softener. I've never seen one installed in the yard before.

Common practice down south. Along with the well pumps/tanks sitting out in the front yards.

I see no place to put in chemicals on this device. The "tank" below the head is only about 2 feet high; the control head is held in place by plastic pipes.