Home water treatment

I have had extensive experience with several water softening companies.
Most of them, not that impressive.
The only softener I would recommend is Kinetico.

I used to live on a farm where the water was harder than the ground...
Culligan, Rain Soft, and one other I can't pull up now could not even begin to touch it (and, the Rain Soft system corroded within weeks).
The Kinetico worked, and worked flawlessly, for over 5 years.

 

I noticed that Kinetico uses the water flow to power the electronics. I like smart engineering.

 

I much prefer water you don't have to chew first. After moving from the Prairies to the coast, I have no complaints at all with what comes out of the tap. Do you get enough real rain water to store in barrels, at least for the plants?

 

our hardness level was 52,000 PPM.

 

Kinetico gets my vote. We have their water softner and their RO filter for our drinking water.

 

Tripp - it depends on what you are trying to solve for.

It sounds like hard water for you. While I can't speak for softeners, we have a whole house filter that filters for basic particulate and chlorine. This is nice because it keeps chlorine off your body in the shower and also out of the air from the steam in the shower (ie - inhalation). Then on our kitchen sink I have an additional GE filter that filters pesticides, etc.

I really wanted a water a whole house filter that could do it all, but sadly couldn't find one. There are basically 2 NSF standards - one for odor and taste and one for chemicals/purity. The throughput on the chemical/purity filters is apparently so low that you really can't get it for whole house (at least not that I could find for our water volume).

Anyway, here are a few of the more interesting bookmarked webpages I saved. Use at your own risk / discretion...

NSF Certified Products - Drinking Water Treatment Units

A guide to help select the best drinking water treatment methods to treat tap water

Water pseudoscience and quackery

Drinking Water Treatment Methods

Good luck!

PS - although for drinking water I think reverse osmosis works the best (in terms of taste) you are probably aware they waste several gallons for every one purified.

 

I did a standard soft water treatment system, using salt, from this place:

Water Softeners - Water Softener - Commercial Water Softeners - Saltless Water Softner - Water Conditioner Purifier

I've got medium hard water, 9 grains? memory is foggy. Did research and the Fleck brand valves were mentioned to be much better than stuff sold at big box stores. Website above sold Fleck and was very easy to deal with. My house is 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath and the system cost about $500 installed by me. Six months and no issues, works great, I'll probably use one maybe two bags of salt a year @$5 a bag.

Salt soft water systems do alot of filtering but they also sold an add on fancy filter which I did not buy. Calcium was my problem and it is gone.

 

One thing I noted on the page directed above is that it is a clock system. In other words, it regenerates the resin bed on a set time regardless of use (every three days or every four days...). For a somewhat more, but I think it is well worth it, get an 'on demand' system. It only regenerates when a certain amount of water passes through the system (depending on the hardness setting you program into the softener) and therefore is much more efficient at its salt use. The on demand system still has a clock but it uses it only to regenerate the bed in the middle of the night when it is unlikely you will be using any water (regeneration usually takes a few hours).

Rick
#4 2006

 

We have a Rayne Water system ... had multiple people out and weren't as impressed with any of them as much as we were with Rayne. Their equipment also comes with a lifetime warranty which helps to put to ease the pain of the initial cost.

 

huh? whats that about? why on earth would rain barrels be illegal?
i have several hooked up - they're great for the garden.

 

Gotta love the "first use" doctrine (or whatever it's called; my memory is foggy of my environmental law class......) A way a friend explained it to me is that somebody else already owns a drop of rain that falls on your property.

Anyway, do you know what substance is used to soften the water, Tripp? I'm sure the technology has advanced since I took my freshman chemistry class, but I seem to recall that water softening systems increase the amount of sodium in your water, which is a concern to some.

I've lived on the Great Plains for pretty much my entire life, so I'm used to hard water. I actually think soft water feels slimy.

 

There is the potassium chloride option instead of regular salt.