My plumbing company is recommending a water softener with an option for a filter. He said that we had hard water which would shorten the life of the copper pipes (house is 30 years old). The filter would also take out most of the chlorine. Here are the testing numbers he got:
Almost nobody “needs” a water softener. Many people “want” them or have them. I’ve certainly enjoyed mine over the years.
If $4K is whogas money, I expect your life will be improved with a softener. If $4K means you put off the replacement car for 4 years, do without the water softener.
They can be turned up to the point the water feels utterly unnatural. Which I agree is unpleasant. Many techs do that because they sell more supplies that way. But they can be used to offset nasties in your local water, leaving you with what amounts to nearly pure water without dissolved geo-origin gunk in it. For that they are sensible modern conveniences.
I suspect the environmental harm of water softeners used properly pales to insignificance beside the environmental harm of how much fresh water each of us heedlessly uses every day, softener or no.
Jesus–here’s what we bought for our insanely hard water–like 165 grains: Home Depot. Works great and installation was like half a day? It was during our build, but still–an inlet, an outlet, and a purge. That’s kinda the big deal–the brine has to go somewhere, but if you can gravity feed it, no big deal. The RO system is great for coffee and tea and the whole house filter is key. Unless you don’t have access to your water system, even a full day should do it. And they’ve had phenomenal customer support.
We lived with hard water for a long time in CO and you get used to it in the shower, but I got sick of everything being rimed up. Replaced faucets and tea kettles many times. Now I feel weird showering under hard water!
That was my experience. Moving from a serious hard-water area with zero treatment to a semi-hard water area with softener was night and day.
Both as to perception of water chemistry while using it, and as to long term maintenance effort of plumbing facilities in general which was frankly slashed,
No, no, no. We have excellent water quality here (I used to play in a band with the county’s director of water quality). None of those are a concern.
The big selling point was extending the life of the pipes. And I don’t know how big a problem that is given the level of hard water we have. He warned me that eventually pinholes would start to pop up everywhere. Sounded like sales pitch bullshit to me, but I’m not a plumber.
I have been in places that have soft water, or use water softeners, and after I rinse soap off my skin it still feels slimy, like the soap isn’t washing off. I’ve been told that the minerals in hard water creates friction, which is what gives you that “squeaky clean” feeling.
We are on a well. And in our part of Ohio, the water is hard and full of iron, so having a water softener is pretty much a necessity, IMO.
When our old Culligan water softener finally failed around 2015, I went to Lowes and bought a Whirlpool unit for around $500. Installation was pretty simple, and did it myself. It worked fine for about five years, and then failed. And I discovered why: I never cleaned it with Res Care on a regular basis, and I never replaced the venturi screen on a regular basis. So it was my fault. I bought another one in 2020, but now I am keeping up on the PM. It’s been working great. Best $500 I’ve ever spent.
I hate our water in its natural (hard) state: the sinks and toilets become unsightly with iron stains, and the soap & water is not sudsy/foamy when taking a shower. I love out water softener. YMMV, of course.
Yep. We got one (wasn’t sure we even needed it either) and it was terrible. We had them come and turn it way down, and now we’re quite happy with a little softening.
Doesn’t sound like you need a water softener. If you live in a hard water problem area it might increase the value of your home, but I’d ask a realtor about that instead of a plumber.
First, go to your water utility’s website and check their tests, they usually do them quarterly or something like that. They should have a hardness measure for your location.
Second, get a second and third quote for a softener install if you think you need it.
We got a whole house water filter system along with our softener. Where we live, that’s a nice thing to have. Not sure if it’s an integrated thing, or just two things we got at the same time.