Water softeners

[BEG]

Anyone know anything about them?

Our house in CA had one. I swear the water in Fullerton was the hardest water in all the places I have ever lived. It was a standard water softener that you poured salt into. Our new house in Austin is plumbed for a water softener. I can tell the water is fairly hard here so we are going to put in a softener. I think the one in CA was a whirlpool and I have no idea how much it helped as I didn't know what the water was like pre-softener. The faucets and glass shower doors spotted very easily and there was a ton of corrosion in the pipes when my husband remodeled that bathroom. Our toilets would get those water lines in them (the kind from calcium build up) quickly if I didn't clean the toilet often. Also our pool had so much buildup where there was a waterfall and another water feature. I realize that the pool wouldn't have been in the water softener loop but it showed just how hard the water was.

I would appreciate anyone's advice on what to get or not get. Anyone tried easy water (the one that Glenn Beck advertises)?

[Rugnuts]

scientifically i do not know how the easy water thing could work.

i dont necessarily know about different brands, but whatever you get, make sure to test your water and set up the softener to match. when i moved in to my new house i just hooked mine up and ran it. after my neighbor was talking about how our water wasnt really that hard i looked into my settings. i got to dial down the usage and get by with half the salt i use to use. plus look at the salt tank. get a big one. i bought a little compact thing that holds a bag and a half, it sucks.

[Chris_]

There is a local company here (Rock City Machine) that advertises nothing but water softener products and services.  Is there anything like that in your area?

[CG6468]

The Easy Water will NOT work with high iron content water.

[DLR Pyro]

The water in Orange County is generally hard.  I live in Dana Point and put a softner in a few years ago mainly because the heat exchanger in my tankless water heater was getting clogged with scale deposits and had to be flushed out annually.  I put in the GE SmartWater softener unit I bought at Home Deopt and haven't had to flush out the heater since.  As an added bonus, our glass shower doors and faucets dont have ugly spots on them anymore.  It was a fairly easy install that took me about 3 hours to complete with a minimal amount of swear words needed to complete the job.

I also use potassium chloride in the softener rather than sodium chloride.  It is twice as expensive but is better for you healthwise.  Since it is just my wife and myself, we don't go thru alot of salt so the added expense of the potassium hardly noticeable. 

[Eupher]

scientifically i do not know how the easy water thing could work.

i dont necessarily know about different brands, but whatever you get, make sure to test your water and set up the softener to match. when i moved in to my new house i just hooked mine up and ran it. after my neighbor was talking about how our water wasnt really that hard i looked into my settings. i got to dial down the usage and get by with half the salt i use to use. plus look at the salt tank. get a big one. i bought a little compact thing that holds a bag and a half, it sucks.

I bought a Kinetics about 8 months ago and I LOVE IT. But Rugnuts is spot-on -- before you even think of buying a softener and possibly a Reserve Osmosis drinking water unit, GET YOUR WATER TESTED. Alternatively, you can go to your county or wherever the water is tested - usually on a monthly basis - and get a copy of the past 3 monthly reports. They'll provide that data free.

Those water reports will give you what you need to order a water system that will tackle the issues that are inherent to your area. Whether it's hard water, cysts, sediment (as was our case), chlorine, iron, or whatever, there are various treatments and filters that will deal with those issues.

My unit is outfitted with the usual salt transference process (the salt chemically bonds with the nasties that you want to get rid of) and is flushed down your drain when the system regenerates. You want to get a system that regenerates only when it must, otherwise you're wasting a lot of water AND salt. My Kinetico unit uses about 20 lbs. of salt per month.

One word of caution, though. If you get a water softener, you'll want to consider getting an RO unit too. Otherwise, you're drinking a slight amount of salt with your treated water. As we have parrots, that really isn't a good idea, so we opted for an additional RO unit. Best-tasting water you've ever seen and you KNOW it's free of all the crap that is normal with tap water.

[BEG]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  This is why I love the mens here at CC. 

[CG6468]

We had a 25 year old Culligan softener that just wasn't cutting it any more. Its age didn't justify having any work done on it. Plus, it was a manual softener that I had to program for every night, second night, etc., depending on what the water usage was.

We had it replaced by the company that delivers our salt (and the guy carries it down into the basement for us) with  Fleck Model 5600STX Downflow unit that's completely automatic. We've had no trouble with it at all. Sometimes I don't quite understand the electronic reading, but I just let sleeping dogs lie and it works perfectly. I set the time on it to 1/2 hour between standard time and DST; that way, I don't have to fiddle around with resetting the clock when DST comes and goes, since the 1/2 hour makes no real difference. We use about 10 bags of salt every 3 months; most of the time it's just my wife and me, but when the kids and grandkids come..............  

We also had them replace our 25 year old Culligan RO unit with a Puromax RO unit. We get at least 4x the flow from the new RO system than we did with the Culligan, even when the Culligan was new.

And Eupher is spot on with his advice to install the RO unit. Absolutely. Our water is so hard that my wife was leery of the sodium content in the softened water, so to the RO we went!

An added benefit: My wife loves the softened water. No more shower spotting problems, etc.

[DLR Pyro]

An added benefit: My wife loves the softened water. No more shower spotting problems, etc.

...but it does take a bit getting used to the slick feeling on your skin when using soap.  Feels like the soap residue is still on your skin, but from what I have read, soft water removes soap more efficiently than hard water, just feels funny for the first few weeks.

[Eupher]

I bought a Kinetics about 8 months ago and I LOVE IT. But Rugnuts is spot-on -- before you even think of buying a softener and possibly a Reserve Osmosis drinking water unit, GET YOUR WATER TESTED. Alternatively, you can go to your county or wherever the water is tested - usually on a monthly basis - and get a copy of the past 3 monthly reports. They'll provide that data free.

Those water reports will give you what you need to order a water system that will tackle the issues that are inherent to your area. Whether it's hard water, cysts, sediment (as was our case), chlorine, iron, or whatever, there are various treatments and filters that will deal with those issues.

My unit is outfitted with the usual salt transference process (the salt chemically bonds with the nasties that you want to get rid of) and is flushed down your drain when the system regenerates. You want to get a system that regenerates only when it must, otherwise you're wasting a lot of water AND salt. My Kinetico unit uses about 20 lbs. of salt per month.

One word of caution, though. If you get a water softener, you'll want to consider getting an RO unit too. Otherwise, you're drinking a slight amount of salt with your treated water. As we have parrots, that really isn't a good idea, so we opted for an additional RO unit. Best-tasting water you've ever seen and you KNOW it's free of all the crap that is normal with tap water.

Oops, let me correct myself. We bought a KINETICO. Kinda spendy, but I liked their design features.

[Wineslob]

Be careful with RO water. It's quite corrosive. Not that it will hurt you, but since it's deionized water it will "pull" metals/minerals from almost anything metallic. We have an RO unit at work (it's a commercial unit) and any steel the water gets on will rust immediately. You can watch the metal rust in just a few min.

Personally, I think the water tastes like crap (I've drunk it). 

[Rugnuts]

...but it does take a bit getting used to the slick feeling on your skin when using soap.  Feels like the soap residue is still on your skin, but from what I have read, soft water removes soap more efficiently than hard water, just feels funny for the first few weeks.

i dont feel clean without that squeakiness from the soft water.
its how i tell when we are outta salt in the softner.

[Eupher]

Be careful with RO water. It's quite corrosive. Not that it will hurt you, but since it's deionized water it will "pull" metals/minerals from almost anything metallic. We have an RO unit at work (it's a commercial unit) and any steel the water gets on will rust immediately. You can watch the metal rust in just a few min.

Personally, I think the water tastes like crap (I've drunk it). 

Hmmm. Not seen that with stainless and as I don't have any high-carbon steel knives in my kitchen and the cast iron skillets I have are washed and dried immediately after use, I don't see a problem with metal stuff in or near our water.

As to taste, to each his own.

[Chris_]

Be careful with RO water. It's quite corrosive. Not that it will hurt you, but since it's deionized water it will "pull" metals/minerals from almost anything metallic. We have an RO unit at work (it's a commercial unit) and any steel the water gets on will rust immediately. You can watch the metal rust in just a few min.

Personally, I think the water tastes like crap (I've drunk it). 

This came up as a topic of discussion on Car Talk last month.   Ray came across a claim someone else made that distilled water leeched metals and minerals from the cooling system.  I don't remember anyone mentioning deionized water at all... the argument centered on whether or not to use distilled.

[IassaFTots]

Haven't noticed that with my RO, Wineslob.  It tastes really good too.  I gave up my useless garbage disposal for the RO unit under my sink, and haven't missed it at all. 

In the process to get a full house softener.  It is on my list. 

[Rugnuts]

This came up as a topic of discussion on Car Talk last month.  Ray came across a claim someone else made that distilled water leeched metals and minerals from the cooling system.  I don't remember anyone mentioning deionized water at all... the argument centered on whether or not to use distilled.

FWIW

i did a science project 20 years ago (5th grade, lol) of how different water affects rust

i placed steel wool in tap (well, un-softened) tap (city water) distilled (bought) and sea water (atlantic ocean, daytona beach, december)

sea water rusted first, well and city water about the same, and distilled took longer to rust.

[CG6468]

...but it does take a bit getting used to the slick feeling on your skin when using soap.  Feels like the soap residue is still on your skin, but from what I have read, soft water removes soap more efficiently than hard water, just feels funny for the first few weeks.

Yeah. You feel like the soap's not all washed off. But once you're used to it, going someplace where the water isn't softened you notice an immediate difference.

[CG6468]

We've noticed no corrosion from DI water at our place.

[Wineslob]

Curious, those that use an RO system, whats your rejection? I'm thinking that an industrial unit has a higher rejection rate. Ours is 98% and approx 50% of the processed water (it has all the impurities) is pumped into the city drain.
I'm guessing that household units are different.

[Eupher]

Hmmm. I dunno about any sort of "rejection" rate, but if an increase in water usage is any sort of gauge, before the softener/RO unit went in, I had about a $30-35 per month water bill. After the unit went in, I had a big spike (attributed to a leaking toilet) of not quite $100 one month, but normal is about $38 per month now.

When I have to change the RO membranes out (at 500 gallons of RO water, which at our rate will be in about a year or so of usage), that'll cost me about $80 IIRC.

[Wineslob]

Ok, that answers my question. The unit we have is HUGE compared to a home unit. The osmosis membranes (2) are approx 6 inches in dia and 4 feet long. We have not had to replace them yet, and they've been in place since the late 1990's
 The rejection water is that which has the removed "stuff" in it and is pumped to the sewer. The water that goes into our holding tank (5000 ga) is 98% "clean",  no minerals, chemicals, metals etc. Thats why it's "corrosive". It's deionized and as such wants to "grab" ions from metals.

[CG6468]

Curious, those that use an RO system, whats your rejection? I'm thinking that an industrial unit has a higher rejection rate. Ours is 98% and approx 50% of the processed water (it has all the impurities) is pumped into the city drain.
I'm guessing that household units are different.

I just don't know. We're on a well system so I notice no extra water usage.

[Janice]

We use the KINETICO same as Eupher. Got it about 15 years ago - love it. Cost about $5000 for everything.

The main unit softens all the water before it comes into the house and the RO unit handles the drinking water at the sink.

[IassaFTots]

I didn't notice any spike in my usage.  Perhaps a dollar or more, but not anything actually noticible. 

[Eupher]

We use the KINETICO same as Eupher. Got it about 15 years ago - love it. Cost about $5000 for everything.

The main unit softens all the water before it comes into the house and the RO unit handles the drinking water at the sink.

We spent about $2500 for both the softener and the RO unit. But I did NOT want the RO unit under the sink (there's enough crap down there already -  ). So I had the guy mount the unit in the basement and plumb it in right after the softener. I have two lines running off the RO unit - one to the upstairs kitchen sink (used most often) and one to the downstairs kitchen sink (we have a full kitchen in the basement, which is rarely used).