Water softener, yes or nay?

If you have city water, then there is no need.

Home Depot has good DIY triple-charcoal, or 3x Charcoal + Inverted Osmoses, however the later wastes a lot of perfectly good water.

If you have a meter, and are worried about the costs of the waste, think about the inverted osmoses - only 10% of the water will be kept, the other down the drain.
But if used only for drinking, soups, coffee, ice cubes, the waste is rather minimal.

Salt-based water softeners also waste a large amount of water, btw, many parts of CA have banned their sale.

It took me 3 hours, being cautious, to install the DIY kit. Filters can run you 50-100$ per year too. Still much cheaper than bottled water and more convenient.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PA @ Feb 1 2007, 01:41 PM) [snapback]384101[/snapback]</div>

Indeed! Last line, post #3.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Feb 1 2007, 06:15 PM) [snapback]384089[/snapback]</div>

It is such a pleasure to occasionally see Daniel told he is wrong with such eloquence. That is the price one pays for thinking they know everything. To the OP, I just like the feel of soft water, we then filter it (brita) for drinking.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Feb 1 2007, 02:52 PM) [snapback]384143[/snapback]</div>

Can't be right all the time. And I never claimed I knew everything. I just have a better understanding than some people do of the limites of my own knowledge, so that I usually talk about stuff I know about.

But I still don't like showering with soft water. Or with excessively hard water, either, for that matter.

 

I had always believed that the slippery feeling was due to natural skin oils not being stripped away, but recently I read something that made me believe this was actually incorrect. The person who wrote this claims to be a Chem. E. and states the the slippery feeling really is soap residue, not natural skin oils:

 

After thinking long and hard on this, I've decided to punt.

Might be that my psoriasis-ravaged skin just really enjoys having soap stuck to it. :blink:

No matter what exciting new stuff we learn about soft water here - I'd like to go on record to thank PC members for being a pretty dang good group of folks. Sure, it may be the pre-dinner beer talking, but I get the warm-fuzzies on PC more often than on any other forum that I visit. Lots of great info from lots of different walks of life. I can't remember the last time that I visited PC and didn't learn *something.*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 1 2007, 01:36 PM) [snapback]383994[/snapback]</div>

Evan

If you have free iron/rust in your well water, you almost certainly will have bacteria thriving in your water system. Ironically, the resin bed of the water softener is a perfect place for that to happen. So is the water heater, sometimes a monthly flushing is needed.

Are your water pipes copper or pex? When I built the house at my hobby farm, a little over 4 years ago, I used pex for all water piping. Once you get the hang of how to use the compression wrench, it's *much* easier than soldering copper pipes. It also resists scale buildup, rust deposits, etc.

Depending on water conditions, copper piping can contribute to certain odor/taste issues, and even encourage the sort of galvanic thing you see going on when you open the tap. Hint: black icky stuff pouring out at first.

Winnipeg has lake water from almost 200 km away: Shoal Lake, Ontario, which is near Kenora. It's nice for showering, laundry, and washing cars - no spots - but in summer with algae blooms it reeks. I use Culligan bottled water here, it's a 19 litre bottle that is filled right in Winnipeg from municipal water, run through RO filters and ozone sanitized. I use the Culligan water for making coffee/tea and for drinking.

Contrary to popular Priuschat legend, I don't drink alcohol 24/7!

Communities near Winnipeg, such as Niverville and Steinbach, have well water and you need at a minimum a good softener. I recall several years ago stopping at a restuarant in Niverville and the sink in the bathroom was red with rust.

My hobby farm well water tested very hard with high iron, so I put in a Sears iron filter and a Sears Ultrasoft 800 softener. Both are demand-regenerate, so they only recharge/backwash when necessary. Some folks don't like using iron filters, as you're playing around with potassium permanganate. Well, just keep the kids/pets away from it.

As a suggestion, if you're leery of the hassle/expense of an iron filter, consider using water softener salt pellets pretreated with citric acid. This can take care of a lot of rust/iron in the water and will keep the resin bed cleaner for longer life. I use Windsor Rust Remover pellets at the hobby farm:

http://www.windsorsalt.com/water_softening...oftening_1.html

Scroll down to the "Rust Remover Super Pellets." That is the salt I use at the hobby farm.

Neighbors that use regular softener salt claim they have to clean their resin bed every month. Resin bed cleaner is a mixture of sodium hydrosulfite and sodium metabisulfite, and it's pretty nasty stuff. The first couple years I cleaned my resin bed once a year, I haven't touched it in almost two years and everything seems fine with the Windsor Rust Remover pellets.

It's also a good idea to have a water filter rated for sediment before the water softener. Wells with submersible pumps can pick up all sort of debris, and heavy minerals with fine sand is a death sentence for a water softener resin bed.

Good luck!

j

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Feb 1 2007, 09:29 PM) [snapback]384234[/snapback]</div>

Hmmm next time I'm visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Santa Rosa, we have to get together. I prefer Heineken or Grolsch when it's cooler, Guinness Stout when it's hot, before din-din.

Hint: if I have more than 5 pre-dinner barley pops, I also experience the "warm fuzzies."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman @ Feb 1 2007, 06:37 PM) [snapback]384236[/snapback]</div>

Come on by! There's always somethin' good in the fridge to share! I'm more of a micro-brew guy than a commercial beer drinker, however. I'm blessed to live so near to where some of the best beer in the entire world is made. About 1/2 mile from here we make German beer better than they do in Germany.

The bad news is that Santa Rosa is close as the crow flies, but two hours away by land.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Feb 1 2007, 06:18 AM) [snapback]383832[/snapback]</div>

Most hotels use ion exchange softeners (salt). Often only the water leading into the hot water heater is softened, and the cold water is left hard, so the mix of cold and hot water gives you semi-soft water. Some hotels soften both to 3 to 7 grains hardness, rather than the near zero grains some home units provide, and that provides the difference in feel. The trade off for discharging a few hundred gallons of salt water down the sewer every month in "regeneration" is the fact that you can reduce your detergent use by about half. My sewer system ends up about two miles from me, discharging into the Pacific after treatment, so the salt does not have a negative environmental impact. Detergents do. So in my case there's a slight advantage to using a softener.

The magnetic softeners do not work. There have been some studies done by Consumer's Union, I believe, but like divining rods and breast enhancement cream, magnetic softeners do not attract serious grant money.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 1 2007, 11:01 PM) [snapback]384242[/snapback]</div>

Evan

Oh geez, that is strictly a no-no up here, not sure about the building code where you live. You’re not allowed to mix-n-match copper/PEX/copper etc, as you get very odd things happening to the copper pipe.

From what you’re describing, can I assume the majority of the potable water in your home is plumbed with cross-linked extruded polyethylene, or PEX? PVC is used for drain pipes, such as toilet and sinks/tubs, usually white in color and commonly 4 inch diameter. ABS is also common for drains, black in color.

Is it easy to get to the modification you described, or is it covered by gyproc and requires busting out a wall? When I designed my hobby farm house, the one piece Fiat tub enclosure all the connections face a closet in the guest bedroom. The master ensuite the connections face the walk-in closet, and either case I have a trap door that blends in but is easy to remove.

I used PEX for the shower connection too, it’s easy enough to find PEX fittings to work with showers, faucets, etc. I much prefer working with PEX for one simple reason: if you damage a pipe, you get a leak RIGHT NOW and catch it in time. Put a nail or a screw at copper, it may start leaking right away, in a week, a month, or a year, long after you forgot about it. Mold loves to grow in dark confined spaces, breeding like crazy.

Lucky mold.

With the color you describe, does that come from the tap or just from the shower head? Was the soldering done with old-fashioned lead-based solder or the newer stuff, which appears to cause odd corrosion problems depending on the water conditions and use of PEX.

One thing you really have to watch out for is a phenomena known as “pinholing†in which a weird galvanic thing can occur in an isolated piece of copper piping, and little pinpricks can start leaking.

Pinholing can also occur in older houses where the copper pipes were electrically tied together with bonding straps, and the electrical panel ground was then bonded to it. Modern electronics – at least those made before 1-2 years ago – had terrible PF correction, and it’s theorized the harmonics can set up a rare galvanic thing.

I hate doing plumbing but I’m fairly good at it once I have a few beers and calm down a bit. I used Wirsbo PEX tubing at the hobby farm, including their special crimping ratchet to make the joins. The tool cost $200 but when you consider I did it myself, it paid for itself many times over.

http://www.uponor-usa.com/index.php?id=2

If this link still works, it provides a good primer on how the different connecting options work

http://www.toolbase.org/TechInventory/tech...entDetailID=598

Here is an interesting court case on “blue water†or water quality problems from copper pipe:

http://www.chemaxx.com/corrosion3.htm

An interesting document from Australia describing what you appear to be experiencing:

http://www.southeastwater.com.au/sewl/inde...?link_id=30.381

I hope this helps. I also hope when you’re away from the home that the water is turned off. A pinhole leak can quickly create a lot of damage if unnoticed, especially if a joint gives way.

jay

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Feb 1 2007, 11:15 PM) [snapback]384248[/snapback]</div>

Oh boy, now I can almost guarantee a visit to your house!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Feb 2 2007, 02:54 AM) [snapback]384296[/snapback]</div>

They heat the potable water with large commercial water boilers in the utility area, and are concerned about the effects of scaling and early failure of the units. When my parents used to frequently travel - annually - to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN, it was weird to feel the shower that way. Rochester has hard water, and hotels like Kahler apparently treat the hot side only

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Oxo @ Feb 2 2007, 04:02 PM) [snapback]384592[/snapback]</div>

That's very true. Unfortunately with modern living, the same systems that would have been heralded as “miracles†80 years ago, can instead make us sick. Because they tend to concentrate the contamination, and can even encourage “benign†levels of bacteria to breed like crazy in something like a hot water heater.

A good example, at least here in Canada:

This can be a bitterly cold climate. I’ve decided not to drive out to the hobby farm this weekend as the forecasted lows will be -35 C, and the “high†a brisk -25 C. Too brisk for me, I’m staying in the city this weekend. Call me a sissy, but I’m going to curl up with the cat and a good book.

It can cost a lot more to heat houses here in winter, than to cool them in summer. Indeed up until around 10 years ago, central A/C for homes was viewed as a luxury, rather than a “necessity†of modern living. So the focus was on building energy efficient homes.

That means the walls are made from 2x6 studs instead of 2x4 studs, and are stuffed full of insulation. A heavy polyethylene film is then applied to the interior side to act as a vapor/air barrier. The bottom sill is sealed to the plastic with something called Acoustic Sealant, a flexible black gunky stuff.

The seams in the plastic film are sealed with a tape product called Tuck Tape. Even the electrical boxes are special airtight enclosures, and they are also Tuck taped to the vapor barrier. The building exterior envelope is wrapped in a Tyveck house wrap, also Tuck taped at the seams. The house envelope is literally airtight.

Windows are made usually from PVC and are usually triple pane sealed units. Overall you end up with an extremely airtight home, which can cost ½ to heat compared to an old fashioned home. But until very recently nobody paid any attention to the health aspects of living in such a home.

It has been found that with no attention paid to IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) issues, the interior environment of such a home can be downright dangerous. This is also an area with a lot of radon in the soils. A tightly sealed home can also allow dangerous levels of mold to grow behind the walls.

So they had to dream up the Heat Recovery Ventilator – another expensive gadget to build into the price of your new home. Extractor vents are located in the basement, bathrooms, laundry room, and kitchen. The HRV draws the stale air through a heat exchanger, and draws in fresh outside air, which is usually put into the furnace return air duct system.

Oh, let’s not forget that dangerous molds can also grow in the central A/C evaporator, so if you’re handy you sterilize it yourself before the start of every cooling season, or pay some character $$$ to do it for you.

 

So I was right that the sliminess I feel is soap residue. But the hotels, rather than having a different kind of softener, are controling the amount of hardness, to give a better feel to the water while still protecting their plumbing.

Altogether a very interesting thread. Thanks to everyone for all the information.

 

I have a 360 foot deep well on my property, very hard water with slight sulpher content. We use a water softener for the house and a small under sink reverse osmosis system for drinking water and cooking water.

Our water was so hard that dried beans placed in a soak would remain dry and hard. Bean soup was not possible in our house. Now it all works fine and salt consumption is approx 80 pounds every 3 to 4 months. Potasium salts work but don't seem to charge my unit to a similar capacity that a sodium based salts do. Many commercial units used in hospitals and large hotels use magnesium salts.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman @ Feb 1 2007, 09:37 PM) [snapback]384236[/snapback]</div>

In my experience, and I've seen many bacteriological reports on well water, you're likely to have some sort of bacteria in your well water anyway. Probably E. coli. Most types of E. coli are very common and harmless.

We should remember that most of our ancestors who lived before the days of treated public water supplies (80 years ago and more) would have almost certainly have drunk heavily polluted water all their lives which would have come from wells, rivers, streams, rain water tanks, etc. Occasionally this led to epidemics but usually it didn't.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Feb 2 2007, 08:22 AM) [snapback]384413[/snapback]</div>

I'd love to find out. So far, we have one comment that supports the "slippery soap" situation. I can find about 500 online comments that say the opposite. So I'm going with "the jury is still out" on that one. And you'll notice that I'm also not as confident as I was initially.

For the record, I LOVE the feel of soft water. The softer the better. I like that I use so much less soap, I like how it cleans the clothes. I like how it feels in the shower. I like it for brushing my teeth. I like the smooth feeling it leaves on my skin. The only thing I don't like about it is the waste of water that is required to make it, and hefting the 50# bags of salt!