On mine, the valve is just a bunch of in and out ports, and a motor turns a plate that opens and closes different ports to make up the different cycles.
Right.
There is a gasket in there that seals them all from each other, it wears out and then ports leak across each other.
Ours has multiple seals and spacers in the valve body to isolate the various ports:
And an epoxy-coated brass piston on a rod that the motor actuates to switch from one port to another:
Think that o-ring (above) is what seals the valve to prevent water leakage.
Brine valve assembly:
Usually just a new seal is all that's needed.
The other major item is to replace the resin beads, but do they really go bad. Really the only reason they go bad is if they aren't getting cleaned in the flush cycle.
Yes ... they can go bad ... depending ...
Chlorine in the water can make them go bad ... although that's not really a problem here for us since our water in un-chlorinated ... unless we shock the well and then don't run it with the softener on bypass to clean the chlorine out of the well before sending it through the softener.
The other thing is iron, which we do have.
Apparently it can build up on the resin beads so that they become less functional over time at removing hardness.
One of the hacks I've read about to handle that is to get some Iron Out and mix it up in some water. Opinions vary as to whether to pour in the brine tank and recharge or pull the valve on the resin tank and dump it directly in, let it sit for 24 hours and then run a recharge.
My manual has a nice breakdown of exactly what each cycle does.
Same here - goes over all the cycles and tells how to set the softener up initially, troubleshooting, etc.
Was able to confirm that what we have is the older 2500 valve, not the 2510.
