How To Put a Clack-Based Softener or Filter Through an Abbreviated Backwash

It can be a useful diagnostic tool to force a water softener or other water treatment system through an abbreviated regeneration or backwash where it is walked from stage to stage. This article shows how to do this for a system that uses a Clack control valve. The common reasons to do this are:

• To depressurize the system before working on it
• To attempt to free trapped debris from the internal mechanism
• To double-check that the system is going through the expected regeneration stages and times

For the purposes of this article, there are two types of Clack control valves - ones that have a REGEN button on the front display and ones that do not.

For Clack Controllers WITH a REGEN Button

1. Press and hold the REGEN button until you hear the system's motor engage, then release it
2. You'll likely hear the internals of the control moving for a while but will eventually come to rest, and you'll see a countdown timer on the screen
3. At this point, you can press the REGEN button again to advance to the next stage of the regeneration manually
4. Press the REGEN button at each stage until you're out of the regeneration / backwash process

For Clack Controllers WITHOUT a REGEN Button

1. Press and hold the UP and DOWN buttons at the same time until you hear the system's motor engage, then release
2. You'll likely hear the internals of the control moving for a while but will eventually come to rest, and you'll see a countdown timer on the screen
3. At this point, you can press the DOWN button again to advance to the next stage of the regeneration manually
4. Press the DOWN button at each stage until you're out of the regeneration / backwash process

For most systems that use the Clack control valve, you'll know when you've exited the regeneration backwash process because you'll see either "Softening" or "Filtering" on the left side of the user display and you'll see the time of day on the screen.