# Kenmore water softener brine tank full of water



## kb8wfh (Jul 4, 2013)

I have an Kenmore water softener that's at least 8 years old. It's been working fine until a couple of weeks ago. Water was hard and I noticed that the brine tank was half full of water. 

I found some instructions and videos on cleaning the softener, specifically the venturi as well as other screens. They were pretty gummed up but are all clean now. Nothing seems blocked and taking the unit apart, everything seems open and water flows through all valves and such. It all worked ok for about two weeks, then the water started getting hard again and the tank was filling with water again. I checked again the venturi, all seals and o-rings, all the valves and seals, discharge screen and the brine tank line and valves. All cleat and working. The mechanism motor works fine and the gears and main valve seem to operate fine. 

I'm at a loss to figure out what is going on. Any suggestions or recommendations?


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## Speedbump (Jul 5, 2013)

The venturi has to be clean as does the nozzle that feeds it.  Some bring tanks have overflow protection which is nothing more than a float that turns the brine refill valve off at a certain level.  If that thing got stuck shut, the nozzle/venturi could pull brine.  There could be some passages gummed up beyond the nozzle/venturi that is preventing flow.  

Eight years is probably a good long life for a Kenmore anyhow.


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## amovingtarget (Mar 16, 2014)

Hi,

Hope you got your issue resolved. Do you use salt pellets or solar salt? If you use pellets like these you may have some buildup at the bottom of the mineral tank that needs to be cleaned out as well.

You can read more about it here too: http://www.qualitywaterhome.com/information-articles/water-softener-salt-reviews/


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## garbert (Apr 12, 2014)

I have had 2 kenmore softeners. the same thing happens to mine periodically. I just unscrew the cap, take out the washer, screen and round washer. clean and put back in the regenerate. I never seem to find anything in mine, but there must be just enough to plug it up. I had more problems with morton pellets than any other salt, left a mess of paste in the bottom of the tank. had to shop vac out every year.


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