Our Culligan water softner (10yrs old) is making a gurgling noise in the brine tank (bottle that timer is attached to) and then there is air in all house faucets? Need to know what may be causing this. Have had Culligan man here 4 times and he has no clue. Any help would be great.

Answer:  It’s difficult to give a complete answer without some additional information, but if we assume that this happens only after a regeneration is initiated, it would appear that the check valve in your brine line is defective.

During a normal regeneration, all of the water (brine/salt solution) is drawn into the water softener resin tank until there is no water left in the brine tank.  At this point a check valve closes, and prevent air from being drawn into the household water, and fresh water continues to rinse through the bed to complete the regeneration process.  If a check valve is faulty, then it is possible that it is only partially closing, making the “gurgling” or “bubbling” sound, as air is drawn into the resin tank.  If our assumption is correct, then we would suggest that the brine tank check valve assembly be replaced to see if this corrects the problem.

it is not happening after regeneration only it is all the time, you can hear the water go into the resin tank and then you hear a gurggle and then you can hear the water going back into the lines. you  can also watch our water meter go forward and backwards when this happens. he has replaced the check valve in the salt tank and that did not help he has also replaced the main seals ( has multiple seals on it) and that has not helped. thanks for your help if you come up with anything else we would greatly appreciate it.

We have a drilled well 65 ft deep that gets water from a crack in the bedrock at about 40 feet. Water quality is bad – 1498 PPM sulfates, 1800 PPM TDS and 100 grains of hardness, the well makes about 3 GPM and is very consistent even in this year’s record drought. For many years we have used the well as a backup water source using the Rio Grande as our primary source. Recently things have changed and we need to use the well if possible as our primary water source.

Answer: You have two ways to proceed here:

1) Cation water softener – anion exchange system – pH neutralizer, with an point-of-use RO system installed at the kitchen sink to be used for drinking and cooking water.  The traditional cation exchange water softener will remove hardness (also required for pre-treatment prior to the anion exchanger), the anion exchange softener will remove sulfates, and the pH neutralizer would be installed into last position to increase pH to normal range (the anion exchange system will drop pH significantly).  The cation and anion softener will add a significant amount of sodium to the water, which you would want to remove with the RO system installed at the sink.  This is approximately a $5000 to $6000 dollar solution.  A twin tank 64K water softener with salt efficient Purolite SST-60 resin, 2 ft3 anion exchange system, and 2 ft3 pH neutralizer, approximately $5500.00 delivered.  Less expensive, makes the water usable – but not perfect (drinking/cooking water would be fine at the kitchen sink).

2) Whole house reverse osmosis.  As you mention, the other option you have would be whole-house reverse osmosis. In this case you would still need pre-treatment with a water softener as above, the whole-house RO system, and post treatment with a pH neutralizer.  More in the $8500 to $10,000 range. More expensive and maintenance intensive, but much better quality water.