how to stop ecowater softener from running when water is off

12 years ago

I'm trying to figure out how to stop my series 3000 on demand system from running when I'm out of town and have the water turned off. It has done this twice even though the unit did not indicate it was going to regenerate when I left.

I've been told by ecowater representatives that it won't run if the water is off but that is simply not true. I learned myself about a setting for max days recharge and thought that might be the problem. I called ecowater representative again and they said yes that maybe the problem - make sure it's set to auto.

So I checked and it is set to auto so that isn't the answer. One question I have is what does the Auto setting do for max days recharge? Does it then only recharge on demand if needed or does it do something else in terms of max days?

I would like some way to simply stop the thing from running when I'm gone as I could do with my old mechanical unit because the water is unusable after it runs with no water supply. Then you have to wait several hours for water because you have to immediately recharge upon returning home which is a real PITA.

Anyone know how to solve this problem?

Comments (3)

User
12 years ago
Change the Set Max Days/Recharge setting from AUTO to 1-15 days.

I'm surprised the ECO people didn't tell you.
3katz4me
Original Author
12 years ago
Okay so how will it work then and why would that prevent it from running when I'm not home. I could be gone when it hits the max # of days. Or am I not understanding how this works.
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User
12 years ago
The AUTO setting for Max Days/Recharge lets the water use (on demand) trigger regenerations but it will not put regenerations off indefinitely if no water is used. I suspect it overrides at 15 days and tries to regenerate. If you shut off the water and it tries to regenerate you might have problems.

The control valve on that softener has the provision to set the maximum number of days that it will go and then force a regeneration if water use doesn't trigger one first. Unfortunately the limit is 15 days on your ECO. Other softeners have a wider range, Fleck 7000SXT goes up to 99 days, and that would do what you want but your ECO won't.

If you're going to be gone longer than 15 days then the only thing you can do is shut off the water and pull the plug on the softener. With no power the softener won't regenerate.

The down side to pulling the plug is that the control valve may lose all it's settings.

So, here are your options...

1. leave the water on and set the Max Days/Recharge setting to # of days days. When you return change the setting back to AUTO. Even if you're gone longer than 15 days you'll cut the regenerations to a minimum.

2. shut the water off and pull the plug on the softener AFTER noting every setting so you can re-program the softener if it loses the settings.

3. buy a softener that allows you more flexibility in programming to do what you want