I have a Kenmore(sears) water softner that is about 7 years old. Over the past year it has been acting up and will not provide soft water. Lately it has been so bad that when you shower it feels like it stips all the oil from your skin. As before I looked into the softner and it is 3/4 full of water. Should I shut the bypass and let it run to drain water?? HELP:eek: :eek:

If you shut the bypass if will not drain the water out of the brine tank when you run it. I believe the problem is that the venturi valve is either pluged and it is allowing water into the tank, but not sucking the brine water back into the valve assembly. There is a diagram in the owners manuel that shows how to clean the venturi . It is easy to do and takes about 2 minutes to do, just make sure you reassemble it in the same order

Thanks. I will try that today and I might have a salt blockage in the bottom that might be causing that ploblem as well. The base is hard as a rock about 8in from that bottom