Culligan Water Softener Maintenance – Do You Need a Professional?

Culligan water softener maintenance is one of the reasons why so many people prefer a Culligan water softener.

Maintenance is one of the most important issues that one should address when buying a water softener. Many companies simply sell their water softeners and then leave the customer hanging from that point forward.

Culligan is different from most other sellers of water softeners in that respect. They offer a level of service that is unsurpassed, making ownership of a water softener an easy and hassle-free experience.

When you buy a Culligan water softener, maintenance can be included as part of a regular service plan. You can arrange for a water treatment expert to visit at regular intervals, delivering salt for the machine and checking it over thoroughly for faults.

For most units, routine maintenance involves refilling the salt and inspecting key components such as the valves to make sure that they are functioning properly. With any brand of water treatment system including a Culligan water softener, maintenance can be performed by you if you know what to do.

Culligan recommends that maintenance be done by one of their professionals, but you can monitor some of the settings yourself to reduce the frequency of service calls.

The first step is to measure the amount of hardness in your water. Culligan service technicians will measure the hardness for you, but you can also buy an inexpensive test kit that will enable you to test the water yourself. The number that relates to hardness will refer to either GPG or PPM. (grains per gallon or parts per million). This tells you at what level your water softener needs to be set.

Set the water softener to the same hardness number that you got in the test and the unit will soften the water accordingly. It’s important to know whether your water softener expresses hardness in GPG or PPM because you need to test the same way, or convert the test results to get the right number.

Converting hardness from one measurement to another can be done by using a simple equation:

To convert PPM to GPG, divide PPM by 17.1.To convert GPG to PPM, multiply GPG by 17.1.

The brine tank should be cleaned periodically to prevent dirt build-up from clogging the valves. Even though the salt may look clean, it is actually a raw material that is mined from the earth. Water softener salt contains fine particles of dirt that accumulates inside the tank over time.

You will eventually begin to see a discolored ring inside the tank that is evidence of this dirt. Regular cleanings will prevent dirt build-up from doing damage to the water softener.

It is usually a good idea to have a professional set up your water softener and make the initial adjustments. Once a water softener is set up properly, it generally does its job without much assistance from you. Aside from refilling the salt and occasionally cleaning the unit, there isn’t much that you need to do.