Whole-house water filtration/softeners

[the_mother_thing]

Hubby & I are in the mountains for a few days, and cannot get over how much better our skin & hair feels (not to mention how much clearer my diamonds look! ), and it has got to be the clean water. We have hard water at home, and want to look at filtration/softener systems. I had one years ago when I lived in Tucson, but that was 20+ years ago, and I am sure the technology is much improved/better.

Anyone else have one? Which kind, brand, etc? Thanks much for any feedback, testimonials, etc.

 

[OoohShiny]

I live in an area with ridiculous levels of limescale - after about 5 showers you can see it building up again on the shower door glass

When I go to areas with soft water, it seems weird to not need so much shampoo / soap to get the same amount of lather! Plus it always takes ages to rinse off, it's quite annoying. lol

It also tastes different - I like my water with an 'edge'!

I like my water hard

 

[the_mother_thing]

@OoohShiny you water rebel you!

It really is quite noticeable ... the more I think about it, I realize the impacts on more than just us ... our dishes (e.g. in the dishwasher), shower glass doors, sinks, pipes, etc. But the glaring difference was on how clean my rings look now. I might have to bottle some of this water up & take it home when we leave tomorrow.

 

[OoohShiny]

Perhaps you should look for distilled or demineralised or de-ionised water! Although I'm not sure of the differences... lol

 

[MissGotRocks]

My best advice is to have your water tested to see what is really in it. We have well water and thankfully it was always good water. We have a deep water artisan well. However, there was some iron in the water as well as lime. We were worried about the pipes or staining or whatever (probably overreacted) so we had a commercial water filtration unit and after 20 years, it started to go bad. We decided to just try a water softener to see if it was enough without the whole filtration thing. Luckily, because our water was not terrible, the softener has done the trick. It is a Kenmore unit from Sears. The water also goes through a filter that was part of the first unit and we do keep up with changing the filters in it.

Without it, the water does have an 'edge' to it but doesn't taste bad. There is a difference though in skin and hair and we much prefer the soft water. I love the cleaner feel of it and the lather you can get from soap, shampoo, dishwashing liquid, etc. We have neighbors who don't have anything and they are just fine with their water. I guess it all boils down to personal preference.

The point of all of this again is to say that if we had our water properly tested from the beginning, we probably wouldn't have needed all that we did. Fear makes folks do all kinds of crazy things I guess. You really need to try to find an independent lab to do that because the water companies like Culligan and such will always find 'stuff' in your water because they are trying to sell you their systems.

 

[Arcadian]

I have a whole house filter, (easy enough to install yourself, and actually quite cheap) but I do not like soft water. Yuck!

 

[the_mother_thing]

@MissGotRocks Thank you! Independent water testing is definitely on the to-do list, but I’m not sure who to contact for that. I will do a little googling later this week to see who does it in our area. I think a softener will do the trick, but there have been some other issues with the water in our area on occasion that might make me feel better having the whole filtration part added as well. Will have to see what comes of the testing, and some research into historical water issues where we live.

And I didn’t think to look at Sears but will keep them on the list. I am familiar with Culligan, and I had Rainsoft when living in AZ. I know Lowe’s & HD sell systems as well. But not sure what the difference is with all of them when it comes to the different filtering media, as well as the salt vs non-salt softener systems.

 

[missy]

I agree with @MissGotRocks. Get your water tested. We did here in NJ and got a recommendation from friends who had done it the year before and after they had the whole house filtration system put in they had it tested again from another company so there would be no bias involved. Now we also have a whole house filtration system. Ideally I would have wanted a reverse osmosis filter but it slows down the water considerably and I like water pressure to be decent.

I just asked my dh to share the info with you and he said the company we used to analyze the water is not in business for consumers anymore. Check out Consumer Reports and other independent publications and see if you can find a good company and also of course recommendations from people in your area who have done this. Good luck.

 

[Karl_K]

Getting it tested is good advise.
I cant stand the taste of soft water to drink so what I would do is filter the cold as needed with cartridges and soften the hot.
Then add reverse osmosis for drinking water only if you want.

 

[Gussie]

We have a Kenmore softener system too. We have horrible hard water. A kitchen faucet broke 2 years after it was installed due to hard water buildup. My shower door was never without spots. The softener does the trick and glasses are cleaner, everything is cleaner. We use potassium chloride instead on sodium chloride because dh is on a low sodium diet. The water tastes great!

 

[MarionC]

I had a system installed when I built my house 18 years ago. It’s a huge salt-
based system that works well, but it is a pain to fill with 10 forty pound bags at a time.
Is there a whole house system that does not need salts?

 

[OoohShiny]

I had a system installed when I built my house 18 years ago. It’s a huge salt-
based system that works well, but it is a pain to fill with 10 forty pound bags at a time.
Is there a whole house system that does not need salts?

IIRC the reverse osmosis systems that @Karl_K mentioned use the least additives, because they basically suck out stuff in a given amount of water by passing a lot more water past it (if that makes sense

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that it is requires the least amount of chemicals or salts or whatever, so would be my preference, but it does involve using a lot of water in the process, AIUI, which is unlikely to be do-able if you're on a metered system or in a drought area!

 

[Karl_K]

Yea a whole house reverse osmosis is usually not a good idea because it wastes a lot of water and takes a lot of energy. It may be against the law in some areas.
That is why a lot of people use it for drinking water only.
For drinking water it gives the cleanest water, some people find it to clean and use a system to add minerals back in.
It all depends on what your starting with.

A split system is what I would do if I had a house.
Depending on the water i may soften both the hot and cold but bypass the softener to a reverse osmosis system for drinking water.
In other cases I might just soften the hot and filter the cold with or without a reverse osmosis for drinking water.
In other cases a full house filter may be enough.
It all depends on the water.

 

[the_mother_thing]

So much great information shared here; thank you all so much! I started researching independent water testing in my area and not turning up a whole lot. The county has links to some, but it’s odd - one tests for this, another tests for that, another tests for something else. And turning up actual websites for true, independent water testing businesses isn’t yielding much either.

I thought about just calling the Culligans, Rainsofts, etc. out there, and just have them come do their test (hey, it’s free, right? ) and compare their results to see how pseudo-honest they are being.

Is there any sort of reliable, at-home water quality test I can buy and perform myself to at least see those results?