Well, the Magill family moved into our new house Saturday. The neighbors are nice. The house is huge. We went from a two bedroom apartment to a 4bed plus bonus room. Fang has his own room now.
Anyhow, Friday night and Saturday were rough for Fang. My SIL came and wrangled the boy to keep him out of the way of the movers. It was a tough day to be one and a half, but he was a real champ. Saturday evening, it’s time for Fang’s bath, and I decide to give him a bubble bath. He like to play with the bubbles, and Mrs. Magill thinks the lavender help relax him. I put in three caps full of the bubble bath into the pouring water (note to self: get a new spigot with flow control), and the suds fail to appear. In fact, his bath is acting rather like soda water. I think nothing of it, and finish putting Fang to bed.
The next morning, I’m taking my shower, and I realized the shampoo isn’t getting a lather. “Ah-ha!” I think, “we have hard water.” I quickly start inhaling the fumes a deeply as possible… stupid comic books.
Long story short: We need a water softening system. I have no clue where to start. I know they have them at Home Despot, and I could ask them for help, but I figured I ask people who may actually know something.
So I put the question to the larger Dope community: What should I look for in a water softening system, and what should I avoid?
How much water that will flow through it per minute is important. How many “grains” of capacity is important. The ones that are able to keep track of your water usage and recharge automatically based upon need are nice. Cheaper ones are just on a timer.
I’ve had several water softeners over the years. By far the best is my most recent one which I got from Sears. (I have no connection or business relationship with Sears.)
Be careful of some of the water treatment companies that want to rent a softener to you for a lot of money.
Well, I installed some 2.5 GPM shower heads since I don’t need to be pummeled to death when I shower, so the flow should be lower than whatsome people use.
Sears… Good idea. The salespeople there generally have more of a clue than the Home Despot. (That’s a backhanded complement, if there ever was one.)
I’d never heard of that, since we’re planning on staying here for several years, I don’t think renting one would have been an option.
Option 1: One tank. On a timer, set to recharge the tank at some hour when you are not likely to need any water.
Somehow, we always managed to use more water than this could produce, and somehow, someone always needed to take a bath during the middle of the recharging cycle. So my folks switched to:
Option 2: Two tanks. When Tank#1 is exhausted, the system switches to Tank#2, and recharges Tank#1. The recharging cycle still cuts into the water pressure, but at least you have some water at all times. The two-tank system is more expensive, but much more convenient.
Are you on city water or a well? If you are on a well, you will need a filter on the front end of the system to keep sand out of the tanks. We cleaned that filter more often than we did any other maintenance. Hint: get 2 filters, so you always have a clean one handy when the other gets plugged up.
Water softeners basically trade the calcium in your water for sodium. So you end up with salty water. Not great for washing, but much better than the hard water.
You will need to get a “reverse osmosis” unit under the kitchen sink to filter out the sodium and give you drinkable water. Water the yard with hard water, bathe and wash with the salt water, and drink the RO Unit water.
I have heard of softeners that use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride. Their ads claim that they are more eco-friendly than the sodium systems. I have no clue whether or not that claim is true. I know lots of stores that carry salt pellets for the sodium systems, but I don’t know of any that carry pottassium. So the latter will probably be more expensive.
I don’t think reverse osmosis units are recommended if you are on a well unless the well is chlorinated. Bacteria can grow on the membrane.
Also, if you are on a well, you may need an iron filter before your softener. While a softener can handle some iron if you use the salt that is labeled for iron, there is a limit how much iron a softener can handle. If you do have to get an iron filter, it will also serve as the particle filter.