Think you can live without water? Think again!
Maybe you like taking a shower without feeling dry and itchy afterward. Maybe you manage a hospital, and need soft water so your staff can properly lather their hands. Or maybe you own a restaurant, and refuse to serve food flavored with calcium and magnesium.
Whoever you are, your water softener is paramount to carrying on as normal.
And it’s not the only drinking water system you count on. The reverse osmosis (RO) system under your sink or down in your basement has a huge job to do: limiting your exposure to arsenic, radium, lead, and many other chemicals that have no business inside your one and only body.
Your comfort, your plumbing and your health all rely on drinking water system maintenance. It ensures that your appliances continue to function as they should, and saves you the inconvenience and expense of emergency water system repairs.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the importance of maintenance – and why you should choose Ben Holzer Unlimited Water LLC if drinking water quality matters to you.
Water Softener Maintenance: Highly Important
Now, you’re obviously not going to call a water softener technician whenever your brine tank is low. You may not be a handyman of any sort, but you have practiced the art of adding salt to things since you were old enough to sit at the dinner table. Breaking up salt bridges is within your abilities as well. That said, you may decide to hire a pro to clean your water softener’s brine tank and check on the state of its resin bed.
- Check your water softener for salt bridges every 2 to 3 months. Hardened layers of salt can keep the water level too low to reliably recharge the resin media. Poke a broom handle down into the brine tank. If you encounter a hard surface that isn’t the bottom of the tank, break it up with the broom handle. Pouring one gallon of warm water into the tank can help break down a stubborn salt bridge.
- Clean your water softener’s brine tank every 12 months. Doing so prevents softener salt from breaking down into unpleasant sludge that impairs the regeneration process.
- Check your water softener’s resin bed every 12 months. A water softener is useless without its resin: a substance that will break down too quickly when exposed to high concentrations of chlorine and iron. If your water softener is consuming salt and still producing hard water, then replacing its resin bed – or the water softener itself – is necessary. Unless you’re a skilled DIYer, you really want a professional water system technician to take care of either type of replacement.
Reverse Osmosis System Maintenance: Equally Important
If you hate the idea of ingesting toxic heavy metal, then you’ll love the results you get from maintaining your RO system. With proper maintenance, you can reasonably expect your RO system to last over a decade!
- Change your RO system’s filter every 6 to 12 months. A new sediment filter will ensure your RO system doesn’t clog up with dirt and silt. A new carbon filter will ensure your RO system continues removing chemicals you don’t want to ingest. The system’s RO membrane should only require replacement every two years so long as sediment and carbon filters are kept up to date (make sure to flush an RO membrane for about 30 to 40 minutes before drinking any water that passes through it). If you have a four-stage RO system, make sure to replace its granular activated carbon (GAC) filter annually.
- Clean and sanitize your RO system every 6 to 12 months. Your RO system is designed to sanitize your drinking water. But it too needs sanitization, or else potentially harmful bacteria inside it will spread until they contaminate the water. The exact steps for cleaning an RO system depends on its make and model; consult your system’s manual for the correct instructions.
RO system maintenance is within the abilities of a layman DIYer. But it does take time and some technical expertise, and your RO system can become damaged if it is maintained incorrectly. If you want to rest assured the important job is done correctly, then an RO system specialist will give you real peace of mind.
Ben Holzer Unlimited Water: Your Lifeline to Quality Drinking Water
If you live or do business in the greater Perham, MN area and want to achieve peak water system performance, then Ben Holzer Unlimited Water LLC is at your service. We’re standing by to deliver softener salts, perform any maintenance and repairs your water systems need in order to provide effective and reliable performance, and replace your old water softener and RO system when repairing them no longer makes sense.
Contact us today for all your drinking water needs in Otter Tail and Becker County!