Anyone know obvious resons for a softener with auto head to be using extreme amounts of salt? we have re-built the piston assembly inside the head less than a year ago, also changed regineration setting from 6 days down to 3 days but still using much more salt than normal.

Most likely is that the float on the brine valve has slipped or is set wrong and is allowing too much water into the brine tank.

Chuck

read the 'how much salt in the brine tank' post...somewhere in there, there's a paragraph, or two, that addresses this problem.
by the way, looks as if folks are still making comments on that post, but if you click on the name of the last poster, it doesn't show the comments, takes you to the first page, but doesn't show comments made by last poster
ANY COMMENTS ON WHY THIS IS HAPPENING ?

Check the timer settings when installed, providing the same head-unit is being utilized. The water level may be somewhat over per manufacture specifications (for whatever reason). Also, (in the brine tank) you can look down the float mechanism container and see what the water level is as compared to the salt level, It should be around an inch or two above the lower salt level.

The spammers have been hitting that original brine tank post quite often. Those posts get deleted and makes it look like the post is still active even though it really isn't.

How much salt is too much? The amount of salt you use is dependent on the amount of water in the brine tank. The more water in the brine tank, the more salt you will use. You should not be using more than 15 pounds of salt per cubic foot of resin.

The amount of water that gets in your brine tank is dependent on how much time your softener is set in the Brine Refill step of the regeneration and the flow restrictor to the brine tank. You may have a bad flow restrictor allowing too much water in the brine tank. Or, your time is set too long. But, if you have not changed the time, I would bet on the flow restrictor. High water pressure may also force more water into the brine tank.

As Chuck mentions, some brine tanks have a float to turn off the water if the brine tank gets too high; some softeners do not have a float and may eventually overflow the brine tank.

Keep in mind that getting too much water into the brine tank will reduce the time the softener has to rinse out the brine. If you don't fix this, you may have brine left over in the softener at the end of the regeneration. This left over brine will be flushed to the RO and could cause the RO product water conductivity to increase.

thanks K-tech, that explains that.

florian, good explanation, as usual. i enjoy your 'lenghty' , yet informative answers...good job, and keep up the good work !!! we all appreciate it.