Water hardness

[MinnesotaEric]

Sold my home and should be closing on my new property in a couple of weeks. Had a water test done but it does not say what the hardness of the water is.

Just wondering if this is a separate test or can it be determined from the supplied information?

Here is a snipe of the water test results;


View attachment 487826

My local Fleet store tested the hardness of a water sample I brought in.

 

[speedbump]

Having lived the last 20 years on wells and having water softeners I would never go back to water without softening!
I put a Whirlpool from Lowe's ($349.00 on sale!) in my last house about 3 years ago and it worked so well that I put the same kind in my new house a year and a half ago.
Old house had iron, new house is just HARD and both houses have great water afterwards.
I also used a carbon filter on the iron house which made a big difference. I drank many gallons of that water!

The bad thing about carbon and iron is that the iron plugs up the carbon and shortens it's life quite a bit. But a softener is a softener. There are better and cheaper heads out there, but no matter how long they last, they all do the same thing and operate the same way.

 

[Stimw]

The bad thing about carbon and iron is that the iron plugs up the carbon and shortens it's life quite a bit. But a softener is a softener. There are better and cheaper heads out there, but no matter how long they last, they all do the same thing and operate the same way.

I just used the changeable carbon filter cartridges that sell for about 2 for $10.00
I also learned to put a regular filter before the softener to keep from stopping up the softener orifices with any sand or sediment.

 

[speedbump]

I just used the changeable carbon filter cartridges that sell for about 2 for $10.00

I never give much credit to those 10" filters. They were designed as one faucet filters. Now they call them "Whole house filters"

 

[JRobyn]

I use a small filter with a relatively coarse spun media cartridge as a "roughing filter" before my larger whole house filter. I can change the inexpensive little cartridges 2 or 3 times before I change the big one. It's great at catching the larger junk.

 

[teejk]

I think you can get a pretty good idea of "hardness" simply from your local geographical map...have owned houses in limestone country...high ph and the typical water softener was required... and now live in granite country...low ph and the typical water softener would be a waste of money but more expensive systems are required.

 

[brokenknee]

thanks for the replies, the house I am buying does have a rented water softener so I would have to assume it does have hard water. I think water softener rental is way overpriced so I plan to purchase a water softener and install it myself. I have basic plumbing skills and have installed water softeners in the past.

I have never had a water test performed like that before and was expecting it to show how hard the water is. I was hoping for the water hardness so I could set the softener correctly.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a brand of softener? I would like to stay under $700, It is my opinion that the water softener companies are overpriced. I would think I could get something comparable online for a lot less.

 

[Mendonsy]

The Whirlpool softeners that Lowes carries seem to work well and aren't terribly expensive. I have one that is just over two years old and has worked perfectly so far. As I recall it was under $400.

 

[Stimw]

I bought a Whirlpool from Lowe's ($349.00 on sale, $399.00 regular) at my last house and was so happy I bought another one for my current house!
Also talked a friend into buying one so that's 3 that work great.

 

[Gunny]

I'm working on my second Whirlpool softener. The first one lasted about 16 years so when it went bad early this spring, I just bought another one. I figured that 16 years was a pretty good ROE and by buying another one of the same size, it was a 15 minute job to jerk out the old one and roll the new one in place.