Water Softeners

We had the usual home visit from the water treatment company (you know, sign up to win a car and you get harrassed by them to do an in home demonstration that shows you how awful your water is). After he showed us how hard our water was we decided it was time to investigate water softeners, but not at his prices. Sheesh. It was over $1000 plus regular visits for salt, etc. Surely there's a better way.

So we went to Sears and looked at their units. We looked at Menards. Home Depot. Everywhere we could imagine in the home improvement world that would give us price, size and feature comparisons. We ended up spending about $400 on a unit that would handle water for 4 people and we could get our salt at Sam's Club for about $3 a bag (they usually average around $5 a bag in my area) and it would cost us only $20 a year or less to maintain the system. Definitely a bargain.

You might be wondering, why do I really need a water softener?

If you have noticed spotty dishes, soap scum, soap left over in the washer and stiffer clothes then you probably have hard water. There is also a noticable taste difference between hard and soft water. Having soft water will allow you to use less soap in the dishwasher and washing machine and use fewer cleaning supplies getting rid of the hard water stains thereby offsetting some of the cost of the unit itself.

Hard water has a higher mineral content, usually of calcium and magnesium. The home water inspector will give you a number to measure how hard your water is based on the mineral content in grains per gallon.

Water softeners can be installed by your handyman husband or you can hire a plumber to do it. We did our own install and it wasn't hard.

Some people are offended by the slimier feel of softened water, you could then look into an alternative water softener called Life Source.  The LifeSource Whole House Water System uses NO Salt, NO Chemicals or Magnets and is Maintenance Free. Common Water Softners produce water with a slippery slimy feel, not LifeSource. More information at lifesourcewater.com

We now have helpful instructional videos available. Please check them out!

You can also look into getting a magnetic water softener, we have more details about those units on this page.

We are also featuring several softener models and have posted reviews as well. You should find a high quality unit from a quality internet retailer through this site.