Approximately 3 years ago my business was ATTACKED by a water
softener that I had purchased about a year before. The name of
the "manufacturer" is Alamo Water Refiners located in San Antonio,
Texas. The name of the "Distributor" (agent for Alamo) is Bob
Johnson and Associates, headquartered in Houston, Texas.
It sprang a leak and sprayed my entire equipment room doing
some damage. I was a thousand miles away at the time so I called
the distributor that sold it to me, and asked that he go out and
correct the problem. His man removed the brass control head from
the fiberglass tank, replaced the O-ring seal, and reinstalled
the control head. He did not realize that he had twisted the pickup
tube that goes from the top of the tank down into the gravel bed
in the process of removing the head. The twisting of the tube
caused the thin plastic filter "bulb" on the bottom of the tube
to shatter.
Because of this, when the softner was returned to service,
the gravel and resin in the tank were sucked up and sent downstream
into every valve, pump, and every other element in the system.
This resulted in massive, catastrophic damage. Crankshafts were
broken in cat pumps, solenoid valves were clogged in the open
position. Pump valves were destroyed in a wholesale manner. We
were totally out of business for over 2 weeks.
In spite of completely disassembling ALL of the plumbing and
equipment and rebuilding it all, we continued to have problems
for 2 years. We installed a major downstream filter between the
softener and the equipment after first realizing what had happened,
but the "junk" had permeated the system so completely that it
just kept showing up in valves and pumps as if by magic.
I would not have been as bothered by this if the distributors
office manager hadn't told me that this was about the 4th time
they knew of this happening!!! It had happened 3 times before
they worked on my softener! And they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to
prevent all this damage when they worked on my softener. I have
since found that were even more occurances than they knew about.
What could they have done? Well, first of all, they could
have told me about the previous occurances and recomended a down
stream filter be installed to prevent damage if the filter bulb
were inadvertantly damaged.
They could have REQUIRED that I install (or pay them to install)
a downstream filter in order to protect both my equipment and
prevent any liability on their part, or else they could refuse
to do the work. They could have required that a full disassembly
of the tank be a part of the seal repair in order to verify that
the filter bulb was intact and not damaged by the removal of the
control head. In spite of full prior knowledge of the possibility
of this damage, they did NOTHING.
The distributor assured me that the manufacturer would reimburse
me for the expense of repairing the equipment. That proved to
be a hollow promise. The manufacturer would not respond to my
letters or my phone calls. I originally sent the manufacturer
a bill for about $2,700 for parts and labor. At that point, I
had no idea that we had not actually removed all of the contaminates
from the system and that there would be ongoing problems for at
least the next 2 years.
BUT, I would have signed a release at that point if they had
paid me the $2,700. They didn't. I sought out an attorney that
would handle the matter for me. The matter drew on and on and
time passed. It became clear that the damages were much worse
than originally thought. The losses eventually reached almost
$40,000 with loss of business included, etc., etc.. I won't go
into all the details, but suffice it to say that the insurance
company for the distributor eventually settled for $11,000, and
the manufacturer's insurance company settled for $7,000, for a
total of $18,000!
I lost a lot more than that because of their poorly designed
unit and the inept work of the distributor's service people, but
they had no intention of paying me ANYTHING AT ALL. What's worse
is that they had no intention of changing the design or their
approach to working on the units. The attitude was that if it
destroys your other equipment that's tough! They literally didn't
care.
Throughout this process, I have learned more than I wanted
to know about water softeners and the water softener industry.
One thing I have discovered, is that it seems that there is just
ONE manufacturer of water softener control heads in this country!
The name of that company is "Fleck". That head is sold to numerous
so called "manufacturers" that combine that head with a tank,
and possibly some other off the shelf components, and market the
whole thing as their own brand name such as "Alamo". There are
variations of the head depending on size, or some of the functions,
but they are all made by Fleck. None of the people outside of
Fleck are really engineers it seems. They've just found a really
neat and convenient way to be in business as a "manufacturer"
without having to really manufacture anything.
As a result, they have settled into matting the control head
to a tank that is not compatible for the purpose, and the result
is that a lot of people have problems with the "head to tank"
seal. When this problem is subsequently dealt with, the under
designed thin plastic "filter bulb" on the pickup tube fails resulting
in the kind of damages I experienced.
I have had NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER that my winning lawsuits
have changed the attitudes of either the so called "manufacturer"
or the local "distributor". They are still not warning their customers
of the potential time bomb if their water softener requires service.
The manufacturer has changed NOTHING about the head to tank seal,
and has not changed a thing about the design of the "filter bulb"
to prevent it from disintegrating when the softener is serviced.
Additionally, there have been NO warning stickers applied to the
equipment and there has been nothing added to the instructions
to inform owners, installers, or service people about this potentially
serious problem.
The service people are now using grease on the o-ring connection
of the pickup tube to the control head in spite of specific instructions
in the installation manual NOT to use grease on that connection.
The grease prevents the plastic pickup tube and o-ring from sticking
to the control head. That sticking is what causes the pickup tube
to twist the filter bulb. Since the filter bulb is buried in the
gravel in the bottom of the tank, that turning causes the filter
bulb to disintegrate.
So that's my sad story. Why have I burdened you with it? I
feel this story needs to be told. I feel that other carwash operators
should be able to protect themselves from this kind of unnecessary
and very expensive damage. It made my life a living hell for 3
years. The water softener distributors aren't going to warn anyone.
The car wash equipment distributors apparently aren't going to
warn anyone.
I would assume that the "Forum" was established and intended
to be a line of communication whereby carwash operators could
share information that is mutually beneficial. In spite of feeling
that the distributors and "manufactiurers" are handling this matter
in a highly unethical manner, I don't want to cause any specific
distributor or manufacturer any particular grief. The carwash
owner operators can protect themselves very easily and the existing
softners can continue to serve their intended purpose. But the
operators need to know about this problem before it happens to
them. They need to know that they desperately need a downstream
filter.
They need to know what to look for and what kind of instructions
to give anyone servicing their water softener. And I also think
they need to know what to do if it does happen to them. They need
to know that they do have legal recourse if they are damaged as
I was.
Talking about businesses being unethical is a nasty subject,
and one I do not like having to talk about. Talking about lawsuits
is just as bad or worse. But these distributors & manufacturers
need to have their feet put to the fire, or at least their customers
need to be informed as to the possibilities.
I have gone into detail here, all of which might not be necessary
in order to inform the wash operators and equip them to protect
themselves.
I've been in this business for 30+ years and I was one of
the founders of the Southwest Carwash Association. Maybe you have
heard of this softener problem happening before? I know that I
had no way to comprehend how finacially damaging this water softner
thing could be until it happened to me. Since then, I have talked
to several other operators that say the same thing. This is really
a VERY serious matter with reasonable and reachable solutions.
But nothing will happen without communication.
