Ok folks, just bought a house, it hasn't been lived in in about a year (though it did have periodic maintenance done to it).

It came with a kinetco water softner, on opening the water softner, there was an intense odor of ammonia from it.  My maintenance guy said it was so strong he nearly passed out.  After adding more salt (seems there was salt sitting in it for the past year), it is still smelling of ammonia.

Do water softeners produce ammonia?  If not, anyone know what is going on with it?

Thanks in advance.

No, never had that , and have had one for a few years, the salt tank should be emptied and washed out.

Yuck! You need to clean that puppy! It should detach easily so you can dump it out and start over.

The water softener should only have clean salt water in it.