Water Softener Brine Tank Not Drawing Brine

Brine Tank Not Drawing water, no suction

If your softener is not drawing water from the brine tank there can be a few symptoms:

  • Water is not being softened
  • No salt usage
  • Overflowing brine tank

If you are having any of the issues above, follow the steps below to determine the issue.

  1. Manually start a regeneration cycle with the system by holding in the extra cycle button in for 5 seconds. Then wait, water will start to flush down the drain line under pressure. Once the screen starts a countdown from 10 minutes, press the extra cycle button one time.
  2. Once the screen starts to count down again, this will be the BD cycle. Watch for first 5-10 minutes to see if water is being drawn out of brine tank.
  3. If water is not being drawn out, remove the brine line from the brine valve in the brine tank, see if there is suction on that brine line during the BD cycle. You can stick it in a glass of water or directly into the water in the brine tank to see if it will draw water up.
  4. If there is suction, but not drawing water out, try replacing the brine line and making sure it is COMPLETELY seated in the safety valve. Refer to Brine Tank Overflowing for further instructions. If it is completely in the valve and still isn’t drawing water out, then it will be your float valve in the brine tank. The float valve can stick closed which would not allow water to draw out, move up and down to open and close it, if it does not work, then replace the brine valve.
  5. If it does not have suction on the brine line, then you have a plug in the tubing or the injector on the control head will need cleaned, remove tubing, make sure it is clear. Remove injector nozzle, throat, and screen; clean or replace them as necessary.
  6. Another important thing to check if no suction from the control head during brine draw, check your drain line from the softener. Make sure it is not clogged somewhere along the line. Also make sure the tubing is not kinked or collapsed if using soft tubing. Also check the rise, how far it travels up from the control. It should not go more than about 4 feet.  During brine draw, the system uses a slow flow of water down the drain to help create the suction. If there is an issue with the drain line,  you may not get any suction at all or restricted suction.