I have one of the in-tank water softeners. I've had it for a while without any problems, but with the big tear down, descale, leak repair, etc etc, I decided to check it out. I pulled the softener apart, and poured the contents into a measuring cup. There's a plastic o-ring gasket that holds in a filter to keep the softener granules from your boiler in there. Mine was naaaasty - all kinds of black gunk growing in it. I smashed it around in a cup of lemon juice for a while and it came out sparkling clean. There's also bits of organic (?) material that start to accumulate in the softener, so flush those carefully out of the measuring cup while your at it. Cleanliness is next to Caffeineiness.

Geoff

Those softeners do not last long. You have to recharge them every few weeks IIRC. You simply soak them in a salt water, strong salt water. You have to make sure you do not use table salt which contains iodine (hence its name, iodized salt) and anti-clumping agents. Use a pure salt, crystal diamond kosher would work, and is darn tasty for cooking.

After a long soak (overnight would probably work) you rinse the out to get the excess salt off the filter. The resin beads absorb it and exchange salt for other minerals until the salt is depleted, then they lose their effectiveness and need recharged.

If it came with the machine, and is older than 2 months and have not been recharged, it is useless to have there.

Speaking of things that make you go "eww-w", one of my buddies pointed out that slime builds up in the water intake lines. He cleans them every month using the brushes made for CamelBak hydration systems (for cyclists). The same eww-w builds up in city water mains; our city flushes the lines twice a year, alternating chlorine/ammonia so the buggers don't become resistant.

My softener had instructions from 1st line on recharging the softener. Service interval was 1 month. It said to use regular table salt, which I had been using. Maybe that's been bad, but any iodine and anti-clumping agents in the salt would hopefully be washed away with the rinse. I often use kosher salt in the kitchen to act like a cool food network chef... it might be more 'kosher' and not have the additives. Actually, instead of soaking in salt water, I've just been popping the cap off and dumping some salt in with the granules to do the soak (we have very hard water here). Then follow with a fresh water rinse until the water doesn't taste salty anymore.

Geoff

PS - and Dan - seriously, knock it off with the grody descriptions of the sludge that's in the water supply. I'm having a hard enough time getting the 8 glasses a day...