House in Progress Diary

I'm totally ignorant on water softening~ why must it bypass the drinking water?

Hi N--

It doesn't have to...it's a preference. Water softening treats the water with salt. I don't like the taste of softened water and you normally don't want to introduce that kind of salt into your lawn. That's why many folks either set up a bypass for exterior and kitchen tap lines. Or they install a reverse osmosis for the kitchen tap.

Have you tried Angieslist?

The first thing I did when I bought my 1912 bungalow was put in a water softener. I went to Sears, picked one out, had their guy install it, and have been very happy with it. That was two years ago, and I have no complaints. We have the soft water going everywhere except the kitchen faucet's cold tap.

What about a recommendation from a professional association? A local group might be best, but at www.wqa.org, which appears to be a nonprofit professional organization of residential, commercial and industrial water treatment folks, a search for Illinois found dozens of listings of suppliers, some of whom list employees who are certified water specialists, installers, etc. Certified doesn't necessarily equate to reputable, but it's a start. From there, you could do like you might with any contractor and seek references, a customer or two the company has worked with (and, hey, you might make a friend and comrade in home improvement). I'm not sure if your city or state has a professional builders' association, but that might be a place to look, too.

Getting a softener was the first thing we did when I moved into our bungalow. We have a Genises model. The Northern Illinois water is really awful. I have the entire house on "soft" water, including to the outside for plants, etc. Hasn't harmed anything in the 13 years I have lived there. Just uses a little extra salt. However, I am not an avid lawn waterer - I let nature take its course. I use it mostly for flowers, of which I have many!
We also use it for drinking water - I like the idea of having just the cold water to the kitchen be "hard" no one ever gave us that option.

Have you thought of a Culligan-like service and renting the equipment? They also deliver the salt and put it in for you. That way, if you don't like it you can just have them take it out and try something different.

I don't know whether our water is hard or soft, and after researching on Google, I still don't know. It tastes funny, though. I've always been a big water drinker, and it's really affecting me! It's a faint taste - maybe similar to a soapy taste - and I could swear the TEXTURE of the water is different.

I think this month's Chicago Magazine has a source that might be helpful. This month's issue is How to Fix Everything and I swear I read something or saw an ad in there for a local/neighborhood-type listing that gives referrals for all kinds of services related to home repair. The referrals are from homeowners. When I get home, I'll look at the magazine and see and post something here if my search is fruitful.

back in Colorado, no one I met ever mentioned hard or soft water. I didn't even know there were such things as water softeners. Then I moved to Nebraska, and everyone talks about it! At first it dried my skin out, but now I'm used to it. I got a free little test strip from Menard's and our water is so hard it's off the charts [ or should I say, off the strip! :) ]
we filter all our drinking water for cooking. And we buy bottled water to drink [ bottled water isn't big out here either. ] [ regional differences are so fascinating..]

Actually, in the softener we had a previous home, the salt was only used in the "backwashing" process, and not in the "softening". The water passed through a filter for softening. Once a week water was sent into the salt tank, and the brine was forced backwards through the filter and down the drain with the week's gunk from the filter.
That being said, our kitchen cold tap was not run through the softener.
Aud

www.angieslist.com

I see someone else mentioned it already. I haven't used it myself.

*If* you decide to soften the water going in to your hot water tank, make sure you check the condition of the water tank's anode *anually*.

Most water tanks say that their warranties are *void* (!) if you soften the water heading in to them. Rightly so, because the super-conductive softened water can dissolve a protective anode in under a year (instead of six).

Fwiw,
.../j

Anyone who has worked in a "lab" probably found out de-ionized water tastes AWFUL...our taste buds seem to like the Calcium and Magnesium ions ("hard water") That is why the cold water - drinking water - is usually bypassed. The calcium and magnesium components form the soap scum you get on your shower walls. I do alot of my cleaning with cheap vinegar - the acid (low pH) "dissolves" the buildup (bathroom, kitchen, coffeepot, squeaky clean hair). (PS Love your site!)

i have installed tons of these. the salt brine is pushed into the media. the salt deionizes the media. fresh water flushes the brine. water is used in the house while the media bonds with charged particles. the cycle repeats. the number of grains the unit is sized on is how many particles it can atract before it needs to recharge. the smallest one you can get to last a day is best. old units used as much as 50 gals of water to recharge. if the unit recharges during the day you will have hard water for up to an hour. smaller ones take less time. all plumbing code requires that hard water be used outdoors, because of the waste of recharging.
the problem with old units was a magnet in the head getting coroded by the brine (iron magnet/salt water) most new units are bullet proof.
take a water sample in a ziplock to a couple of places and make them tell you how many grains you use in a day. they like to massivly oversize them so it only recharges weekly. theyle ask you how many bedrooms you have. what you need is how many grains you have in a gallon and how many gallons you use in a day. (use your watermeter on the house)
once you have it calculated got to sears or home depot and get the "smart one" it will recharge on demand. they even have ones with weekly calanders now. if you work 8 hrs and sleep 8 hrs then that only leaves 8 hrs when you dont want it to recharge.
When i went to get sized they wanted me to but 44000 grain for 1000 bux. I bought a 24000 grain for 350 bux it recharges about every 2 days.
if you have it installed by a plumber he will reqire seperate hard and soft cold water system. so be prepared to replace 1/2 the plumbing routed outside. there is a loophole in wi plumbing code that allows a tech. to install their perticular plumbing fixture. (water softener, irrigation, waterheater etc.) the ones who sub for the likes of the big boxes should not be allowed. please dont let them do your house.
my aunt had one do her house. only some of her water was softened. then the guy came to hook up april air and tapped the hard and ruined the april air. i didnt know she had done it. I had to go and spend 2 hrs and 50 bux to fix it. a plumbing shop wouldve charged 400 bux+. then the april air needed waranty work.
oh yea. if your water seems deionized it isnt. deionized water is h3o. sometimes the hardness is bonded with something to stabilize it then the softener dehardens it and leave the stabilizing agent with the h2o wich is just as bad for your plumbing. crosslinked polyethelen fused with zink lined fixtures is the only thing that can handle deionized water.
There are new water softeners that handle other contaminates but i have no experience with any of these and kaukauna water would require none such.

as for drinking water. the hardness can masque the clorine. the best (wich i have) is softened water through general media to a double reverse osmosis filter. the general media makes the reverse osmosis filters last longer. the clorine is what always scared me. because of the cost of the filters it supplies the kitchen cold and the refrig only.

Thanks, everyone, for the input! Two interesting places that I forgot to tap which also proved to be VERY helpful...so I'm putting them down here for posterity.

For Fleck Controls discussion... click here

For Fine Homebuilding discussion... click here

You might want to check with the BBB for persons or companies with a satisfactory (or higher) rating. I've also had lawyer friends check LexisNexis to find out if the company was sued and what happened.

Just be surfing around in net.
I definitely found a very informal place with a lot of good stuff for everybody.
I will certainly visit your site again sometime.
Really good work.