Water Softeners & snake oil

[GlueGuy]

My Dad's place had high iron content, and installed a water softener. The water came out "soft", but it really didn't do much for the iron content. I think you need something better than that. I think that RO would do the trick, but putting the whole house on it would have to be a sem-industrial unit.

 

[RPM]

Egon,

Regarding ... <font color=blue>If you have septic and field system and do not reqire softening why overload the disposal system with salty water? </font color=blue>

Excellent question - that's one of the considerations. With 3 kids and #4 on the way, we are already loading up our drain field pretty well with all the wash and bathloads of dirty kids. That would be one of the pros for getting an iron filter only.

Patrick

 

[ronjhall]

Patrick
As you have found they were not under softener. It's always interesting how treads start with one header and end up discussing all other types of subjects.
I have had several different types of softeners over the years. My latest one has been the best. It has two regeneration tanks. When its time to regenerate, the tanks switch. That way you are not using any water that has not been softened.
The softeners that have plastic valves (Sears is one of them) are not recommended for use with red out type softener salt.

 

[Egon]

Patrick:
Also :
The salty water is not really environmently friendly if run out on the ground.
May effect the anerobic/ aerobic action of the septic tank and field.
The well must produce more water to support a softener.
The cation echange produced by the zeolite raises the sodium content of the water which would mean the addition of a reverse osmosis system for drinking or cooking water.
I have no knowledge of iron filters so will keep quiet on them.

Egon

 

[Egon]

Patrick:
Forgot to mention that there are two types of iron, mineral iron or bacterial iron each needing a different treatment approach.
Egon

 

[Richard]

>>and Potassium in your drinking water is better than sodium<<

Is this to say that the water that comes out of your faucets tastes salty?

I'm on a well, have calcium in my water and on my list of acquisitoins, is a softerner. Our water currently tastes very good, just has calcium. So, if we add the softner, will the taste change??

Richard

 

[JoeR]

The taste of my water didn't really change, and I too had calcium in the water. The water gets "slippery" with the sodium in it... No taste. If the softening level is too high, the water can get very soft. I backed my softening level down, just to the point of 0 hardness in the water. My fist setting was 25 grains per gallon (gpg) which was too soft. I went down to 15 gpg, and tested the water again. I noticed the hardness was back, so my final setting is 17 gpg. This has turned out to be perfect. According the the literature, a gallon of water has the same sodium content as a piece of bread. Some people with severe health problems are required to watch sodium intake, that is why potassium could be an alternative.

Joe

 

[WVBill]

I installed a Sears water softener (demand type) when we moved in 3 years ago.
It was really easy to do.
It has worked fine since. I've used the Potassium Chloride instead of Sodium Cl mainly because the discharge is easier to deal with. Like someone said, Potassium is a fertilizer. I only go thru a 40 lb bag every 2 months or so. There's only two of us so we don't use as much water as a big family.

For the first year, I just ran the discharge into the floor drain which goes out under the footer and away from the foundation in the footer drain. But I didn't think that was a long term solution (i.e. the footer drain is not really designed for 60 gallons of water every 7 or so days year round.). When I plumbed my basement bath, I re-routed the discharge to the effluent pump so it now goes up and out to my septic. This has the added effect of flushing out the effluent tank with "clean" water each week. This was another reason to use the Po instead of Sodium.

I have a lot of red-clay sediment in my well water, so I put two Omni-pur whole-house water filters in parallel ahead of the softener. I use the paper (R1, I think) filters so that the two in parallel leave me with plenty of flow. The outside faucets are plumbed out ahead of the filters/softener.

 

[beenthere]

Plumb the house so you have un-softened drinking water, especially if you like the taste now. I don't soften the drinking water, or the water going to the toilets or outside. I can tell the difference when drawing a glass of softened water, and much prefer the un-softened. It could be a developed taste though, if softened was the only choice.

 

[DVerbarg]

Beenthere,

Why do you not run softened to toilets? My toilet bowls and tanks would be rusty orange if I did not run softened water to them (they would turn orange in just a couple days before the softener was installed).