Been searching the 'Net for info on hard/soft water, and have found charts showing the levels of hardness shown in ppm or GPG.
However, have not found anywhere what might be considered the optimum level of softness with a water softener. We live in a very hard water area so got a softener several years ago. It seemed quite satisfactory until a few months ago when it malfunctioned, and the service people installed a new regulating device.
Since then, it has used a considerably increased amount of salt, and the water feels way too soft (slippery). I used a test strip and it showed the ppm to be between 0 and about 50, or the GPG between 0 and 3.
The company is perfectly willing to come make a service call (for $55!), but hesitate to do this unless there may be some detrimental effects from too soft water.
Is this possible? It is impossible to get a straight answer from any softener company and don't know where else to try to get an answer, so will be most appreciative if anybody has any information.
Softened water should be between 0 and 3 GPG – anything over 1 GPG, in fact, is still hard water. Your softener uses the salt to clean the ion-exchange resin of the minerals it has removed from the water; if it’s taking more and more salt to do this, you may have exhausted the resin and need to replace it (I am not a plumber or water softener person). I have no idea of any difference in “feel” between hard and soft water; my experience with “slippery” water is that this happens when the water has a too-high pH and is saponifying the skin oils. Water softeners are supposed to clear the salt out of the resin, but there may be excess salt leaching into the water, and there’s a whole world of chemistry that might be happening if the resin is only exchanging the cations.
