No Salt Systems for Water Softening

I see ads for "No Salt" needed water conditioners. 
How do they work without using salt?

1. Many dealers will advertise a no salt water conditioner. Any brand of water conditioner can be operated without using salt. This is done by using a salt substitute, potassium chloride. It generally cost twice as much as regular salt ( sodium chloride ), and can be difficult to find in some areas. Also, it is recommend to increase the salt setting on your control valve by about 10 % , when using a salt substitute. This is because it is not as efficient in provided the needed negative ions to the resin beads as regular salt.

2. Some companies offer catalytic filters and/or magnetic devices to soften your water that do not use salt, or anything else to regenerate their product. Buyer beware! If a technology had been developed that could replace a resin based water conditioner, then everyone would be selling it. I know I would. Those salt bags are heavy :)

For more detials, I'd recommend this webpage written by a retired chemist. http://www.chem1.com/CQ/

Salt is Not Going Down

My Valve appears to be operating but the Salt is Not Going Down.
What could cause this problem?

The salt not going down could be due to many different reasons.

1 ) Valve is not regenerating due to a problem with Timer Motor or a bad gear in the timer assembly ( common in Autotrol Timer Assemblies ).
2 ) Salt may be Bridged ( become solid ) above water that is at the bottom of the salt tank.
3 ) If you have been using Pellet salt for many years you could have a lot of undissolvable residue at the bottom. This residue will not dissolve and also can block water flow in and out of the salt tank.
4 ) The Valve could be failing to draw the brine solution out and if you have a float shut off in the brine tank, it would be prevent the salt tank from overflowing ( which it would do if the float shut off was not there ).
5 ) The brine refill control could be clogged, prevent water to refill the salt tank.