Do You Really Need A Whole House Water Softener?

When your home has its own well, or you live in an area that is prone to hard water, you might find it necessary to install a whole house water softener.

If you’ve never experienced hard water before, you might find the whole concept of installing a whole house water softener a bit overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be.

Do you even know for sure if you have hard water? Some telltale signs of hard water are: a white chalky film covering bathroom fixtures and dishes, dull looking laundry, or a slimy feeling on your skin after showering. Over time, this chalky film that you see on your tiles and dishes is actually accumulating in places where you can’t see it.

This hard chalky substance, known as mineral scale, also accumulates inside the pump of the washing machine, the dishwasher and inside the pipes themselves, reducing water flow until the pipes eventually clog. This is known as hard water, and it is caused by excess levels of minerals in the water supply.

The question of which brand of whole house water softener to buy is not necessarily as important as determining the size of unit you will need. It’s important to choose your water softener according to the amount of demand there will be on the unit. For example, a large family home with more than one bathroom will have a higher demand than a small summer cottage. The unit needs to be able to keep up with the water demands of the whole house.

Water softener units are available in a variety of different sizes and capacities. Though it may cost a little more to buy a larger unit, it may be necessary if you have a large family or a large house.

A water softener of inadequate size for the household will run out of softened water and need to be regenerated more often. Frequent regeneration means buying more salt or whichever water softening medium you decide to go with.

Most whole house water softener units use salt to remove the minerals, namely the calcium, from the water by replacing the calcium ions with less troublesome sodium ions, although potassium chloride can be used in place of salt.

Water softener salt is available in several different forms: rock salt, evaporated salt and solar salt. Rock salt is salt in its raw form, directly from the salt mines. It is the least expensive but is less pure than the other forms of salt. It contains traces of other substances found in the earth from where it was mined, so these substances are left behind in the tank after the salt has dissolved.

Using rock salt means you have to clean the tank of your water softener a little more often than you would with the other types of salt.