So your are suggesting that throwing some borax in with my dishwasher detergent will be an effective way to keep the dishwasher healthy…by passing the need for a softener in this respect?
The general opinions looks like water softeners are good and useful. I currently am leaning towards getting one. But does anyone have any good, non-anecdotal data?
It’ll keep your glassware clean. I’d use one of the products specially made for dishwashers though. 20 mule team belongs in the clothes washer.
Touché. I had no idea that there was strange feeling for people accustomed to soft water, although logically there would be. For the record, I don’t feel sticky at all after having bathed and rinsed at home, and in fact, most places. For some reason, our annual water quality report makes no claim for hardness, so I can’t confirm whether my water is hard or “middle of the road.” In fact, I’m going to guess “middle of the road,” because in the past – and I can’t remember where – I have bathed and rinsed, and had felt rather sticky afterwards.
I never liked the taste of softened water. It tastes soapy to me. Then again, I can’t ever remember having to have plumbing replaced due to deposites, so I must have grown up with some pretty soft water to begin with.
That is the way your skin is *supposed * to feel when it is clean and wet. Hard water makes it more difficult to rinse away soap residue, and that is why your skin feels less slippery.
I can do arrant nonsense, and that wasn’t it. I just misremembered my research, which was done over six months ago. We had to research a lot of odd things when we were looking for a house. We decided to not look at houses that were on wells, because who knows what we’d be drinking? I also now know just about everything there is to know about septic systems, which we did end up with.
In the future I’ll do everything I can to make you feel good all the time. Or will I? 
Wow, it’s jump on me day. I should have said "I remember finding out that most manufacturers. . . " or “it seems to me that something something.” Hey, I’m just saying what I remember. I don’t have a dog in this fight. If I remember wrongly, sue me.
Didn’t realize water softeners were such an emotional hot button. . . .
Either that, or the excess base in your soap is no longer neutralized by the crap in your hard water, and your skin is dissolving.
On a slightly more serious note, I doubt that our skin has evolved to thrive in the total absence of divalent cations, such as are present in most natural water sources.
With the exception of rainwater.
You’re right, it was a little harsh, especially with you being a guest and all. Sorry. Edit my first line to read “Actually, that turns out not to be the case.”
Hey, you made an extraordinary claim. I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer is going to sell a product that would make your tapwater harmful to the point that they would advise you not to drink your own home’s water, but I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if you can provide a legitimate cite. This is GQ – you gotta come up with better than “it seems to me that something something.”
I think that about as far as you can go would be to say that most manufacturers also recommend that you buy one of their reverse osmosis systems in addition to a softener. They do crank out some damn tasty water.
You shouldn’t drink softened water. The Ion Exchange that softens the water replaces Ca[sup]2+[/sup] ions with 2Na[sup]+[/sup] ions (Na[sub]2[/sub]C0[sub]3[/sub]). Excess sodium is bad for people, so you shouldn’t drink it. We have a tap for drinking water with hard water.
Plants are the same.
We have a water softener here in the south of England - I would not be without it.
Si
I’ve worked for a water treatment company in varying capacities for 15+ years. It is a small operation with a a few of the most knowledgeable people in the industry. We install and service many different types of systems overall softeners are #1. In new england hard water is not as much a problem as iron and manganese are. A majority of the systems are for those purposes.
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Softeners do pay for themselves with the savings in detergents and soaps alone. Recomended amounts of soap with softened water:
If you usually use a half dollar size amount of shampoo it should be decreased to the size of a dime
Whatever the minimum amount of laundry detergent listed should be cut in half to do a large load.
For washing your hands a quarter push on a soap dispenser is sufficient. -
Many people do not like the feel of washing with softened water. When washing with hard water residue will be left on your skin causing a squeaky clean feeling. When washing with softened water you loose this effect and since skin is naturally oily your skin may feel slick like soap has remained on you.
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Hardness can precipitate out of water and cause problems with pluming. It is most commonly causes by heating the water. Such as in dishwashers and water heaters. This is more a problem in area’s with very hard water. Not something I see as much around here.
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Watering indoor plants with softened water can be bad for them if you do not take other actions. The sodium in the water is not sufficient to hurt the plants directly but it does cause crusting in soil. if a indoor plant is regularly watered with softened water the crust can prevent the soil from aerating. So if you water plants with softened water every few months till the top 1/2 of soil and it will not be an issue.
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The amount of salt added to the water is minimal. It is well below a level you could taste. Only people with very specific medical problems would be effected by the added sodium. If you drink 8 8ounce glasses of softened water a day you’d typically consume less sodium then that found in a slice of bread. If the added sodium is an issue for anyone sodium chloride(salt) can be replaced with potasium chloride for regeneration.
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No scientific study has found softener discharge to be harmful to septic systems. In the studies done it has been found to be beneficial to percolation do to the hardness added.
This site can provide a lot of info on softeners and their effects. It is generally non-biased and sticks to actual data as requested by the OP
If anyone needs additions data feel free to ask.
Okay, for my own edification and possible re-education I’ve just spent 20 minutes Googling the subject. Discounting the sites of manufacturers and sellers of water softener systems - 95% of the hits - I’ve found a lot of discussion over whether it’s safe to drink the water. There also seems to be a lot of buzz about the effect of the brine on septic fields, plants close to where it is discharged, etc.
I share those concerns, even if there is no actual proof that the softened water is bad for us or the environment. IMO the water coming out of our taps is already so full of crap that to add another factor to it doesn’t make sense. I do understand that some people have wells that produce godawfully high levels of minerals and metals, and all I can say to that is that I’d never have a well for that reason and many others.
At the end of the day everything on these boards is opinion, so that to come up with something better is neither possible nor desirable. Links are just pointers to someone else’s opinion. We all pays our money and takes our chances.
Thanks boytyperanma
Protecting plumbing and appliances was our main motivation. Given that we have a water meter, the 50 odd gallons per flush has to be worth it to us. We have a flow meter controller, so it only flushes if it needs to.
Si
I guess this this part I still have a problem understanding. I bathe to get that crap – bodily oils – off of me. I don’t want to feel that after showering. I wonder that in a harder water situation that it’s only the soap residue. It’s not like I have an inviolable layer of soap scum completely covering me making me unable to feel the oil underneath. The fact is, the oil isn’t there. On the contrary, when I was in the soft water situation in Nevada during Christmas, I semi-panicked that I couldn’t “get the soap off” before it occurred to me that soft water was the cause. Mechanical friction (e.g., digging at my hands with my nails) removed the scummy feeling. Vigorous drying with the towel removed the scummy feeling. I guess that I assert that I want to get the scummy feeling off of me, and it comes off just fine in a hardish-water shower. Let’s not confuse things; my hard water may not be hard at all; it’s just not softened. Someone mentioned a sticky feeling after hard water bathing; I’ve experienced that, just not with water in my own area. So, I’m guessing I’ve got middle-of-the-road water.
Boytyperanma,glad you posted,you’re the one I hoped would answer.
OP,if you went to your doctor and asked for meds for some condition,he/she would likely want to test for said condition first,to see if you indeed needed them.
Without knowing what your water contains,it’s impossible to treat it.
I suspect the entire “hard water” scare has been created by water softener companies. While it’s quite possible to have so many minerals in the water that the lifespan of pipes and appliances are shortened (always due to well water), in general minerals in the water do no harm to us at all.
This is probably going to be my last message on this thread but I want to say again that IMO the real issue with our water supply is the chemicals, drugs, microorganisms and other nasties that are not dealt with by municipal authorities, and if we do anything to treat our water it should be in an effort to purify it. Creating extra salts to be dumped into the environment just so we can have that slimy feeling on our skin seems irresponsible at best.
Just stopped by to add that in the two weeks we’ve been without softened water I can see deposits on the bathroom vanity. They remain after I wipe up the current splashes. And there had been no deposits at all in the prior 3 1/2 years. 