No.  You do not have to buy anything.  If you are on any type of water supply that disinfects your water with chlorine or chloramines, you have "potable" water.  Potable water is safe water. All the pathogens (bad microscopic organisms) have been killed.

Once you water supplier delivers safe water to your home, their job is done.  Considering the nasty water they start with, they do a good job.  They are not responsible for how your water smells, tastes, destroys your plumbing, stains your bathroom tiles and counter tops, dries your skin and makes your hair brittle.    If it is important to you to have your safe water taste good, be odorless and eliminate all the nuisance problems, you have be proactive and install water purification equipment in your garage.   Less than 8% of treated water goes to homes, and less than 1% is used for drinking, cooking and bathing.  The other 92% goes to industry and agriculture. If your supplier brought all water up to the standards you would like to have in your home, your water bill would be larger than your mortgage.  You are much better served buying equipment to treat your own family’s water. Amortize the cost over the life of the equipment and you’ll be spending half what you spend on cable T.V.

A system is any type of equipment you install to improve the quality of your    water.  When dealing with safe water, most people will install whole house carbon filtration, a water softener and reverse osmosis.

 Stainless steel tanks and metal valves are available to all of us in the industry.  However, we don’t use stainless for softeners because the concentrated chlorides from the brine tank will pit and corrode stainless steel during regeneration.

Metal valves have been around since the 1930’s.  There are some disadvantages with them.  They oxidize heavily, become dirty over time, and are expensive.  The new valves are made from 30% glass-filled Noryl.  Noryl in an inert material from General Electric that doesn’t oxidize and will last as long or longer than a metal valve.

Basically, the resin or mineral inside the mineral tank is specially designed to remove "hard" particles of lime and calcium by a simple ion exchange process.  The resin beads inside the softener tank have a different or opposite electrical charge than the dissolved particles of the incoming water.  Because of this electrical charge difference, the dissolved particles suspended in your water will cling to the resin beads on contact, thereby ridding the water of these particles, causing the water exiting the unit to be "soft".  The reisin has a limit to how much of these hardness particles it can hold, which is why there are many different sizes of softeners and also why regeneration or brining is required.

Will a water softener make my water safe to drink?

No.  Your water must be safe to drink before you condition the water with a softener.  If you are concerned about the safety of your drinking water, contact your local health department about getting a bacteria test, or full lab analysis on your water.

Why does soft water feel slimy or slick in the shower?

The minerals that make water hard ususally contain calcium and magnesium.  Calcium and magnesium in water interere with cleaning action of soap and detergent.  They do this by combining with soap or detergent and forming a scum that does not dissolve in water.  Because these minerals react wtih soap and detergent, they remove the soap and detergent, thereby reducing the effectiveness of these cleaning agents.  You can overcome this by adding more soap or detergent.  However, the scum that is formed can adhere to what is being washed, making it appear dingy.  An automatic water softener connected to water supply pipes removes mangesium and calcium from water and replaces them with a trace amount of sodium.  Sodium does not react with soap or detergents.  This will reduce the amount of soap you would need to use, and insures it will not remain in or on the item being washed, whether the item is tile, glassware, clothes, skin, or hair.

When do the resins in the softener tank need to be changed?

With the proper preteatment and maintenance, the average water softener will not need its resins replaced in its lifetime (20+ years).  It is impossible to accurately determine the life of resin since so many factors contribute to the degradation of the resin itself.  NOTE:  Proper pretreatment can be as simple as a sediment filter or as complex as a chemical injection combined with a multimedia bed.  This is determined by having your water tested.

I see ads for "No Salt Needed" water conditioners.  How do they work without using salt?

1. Many dealers will advertise a no-salt water conditioner.  Any brand of water conditioner can be operated without using salt.  This is done by using a salt substitute, potassium chloride.  It iis generally more expensive compared to regular salt (sodium chloride), and can be difficult to find in some areas.  Also, it is generally recommended you increase the salt setting on your control valve by about 10% when using a salt substitute.
2. Some companies offer a variety of devices to soften your water that do not use salt or anything else to renegerate their product.  BUYERS BEWARE!  If cost effective and reliable technology had been developed that could replace a resin based water conditioner, everyone would be selling it!

How often do I need to add salt to the Brine Tank?

It depends on how often your system needs to regenerate.  The more your softener regenerates the more salt you will consume.  As for the salt level in the brine tank, you can let the salt get down to where the water level is just above the salt.  At that point, it is time to add more salt!  Generally, you will add salt to your brine tank about every 8 weeks.

How much salt should my softener use?

1. An average softener with 1 cu. ft. of resins (30,000 grain, 10"x44" tank) should use about 6-8 lbs. per regeneration to achieve an economical 24,000 grain capacity (hardness in grains divided into grains of capacity results in the gallons of water that can be treated before resins are exhausted.
2. We sell only metered valves with our  softener packages.  They tend to use less salt than a non-metered unit (i.e. one set to regenerate every so many days with no regard for actual water used).

What kind of salt do you recommend using and do your softeners also use potassium chloride in place of salt?

We recommend very clean salt, around 99.5% salt content and up.  All softeners can use potassium chloride in place of salt.  Potassium chloride tends to melt when it gets wet, sometimes forming a "bridge" inside the salt tank, so we recommend filling the tank a bit more than halfway when using potassium chloride.  This is so you can easily monitor its level after the unit regenerates.

I have a working water softener, but I am still getting iron staining.  Why is that?

Several things could be causing this:

1. You are out of salt.  It is critical that your system never run empty of salt.
2. It is important that the time of day be kept correct and that no one uses water between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. when the system is regenerating.  While the system is in regeneration, any water used would be unconditioned (coming straight from the well).
3. You may have a resin tank that is too small to handle all of the iron. A. What size is the tank?  B. What is the level of iron and hardness of the water?
4. Your softener my not be regenerating often enough, or using enough salt per regeneration.  A. How often does your softener regenerate?  B. How many people are using the water?  C. How much salt are you using per month?
5. The iron content may exceed the recommended maximum (1 cu. ft. of resin can effectively remove up to 3 parts per million of iron without additional treatment).
6. On rare occasions the iron may come from the hot water tank.  If it is more than 20 years old, the hot water tank could be rusting out on the inside, thus putting iron back into the water. This is also true in homes 20 or more years old that used galvanized plumbing.

What kinds of iron could be in my water?

There are four kinds of iron found in water:

1. Oxidized Iron contains red particles easily visible as the water is drawn from the faucet.
2. Soluble or "Clear Water Iron is very common, and will develop red particles in the water after it's drawn from the faucet and is exposed to air for a period of time.  The iron particles actually "rust" once they are exposed to air.
3. Colloidal Iron consisits of extremely small particles of oxidized iron suspended in water.  This type of iron looks more like cloudy colored water.  You can't see the iron particles suspended in the water.  This iron will not filter well because of the extemely small particle size.  Chlorination may be required.
4. Bacterial Iron consists of living organisms found in the water and piping of the well and house.  You can tell if you have Bacterial Iron by flushing your toilet and seeing a reddish-green slime buildup in your tank.  To confirm this, you should take a sample of this slime to your local health department for testing.  This kind of iron is the hardest to get rid of.  To completely eliminate this form of iron, it will require chlorination of the entire water system, starting with the well casing, well pump, pressure tank and hte home plumbing system.
5. Hydrogen Sulfide causes water to have a pungent "rotten egg" odor, and is easily removed using a Manganese Greensand filter.

I have a water softener, but I still have odor in my water.  Why is that?

Water softeners do not reove most taste and odor problems (although they can remove the metallic taste of iron in water).

1. Odors are typically caused by hydrogen sulfide ("rotten egg smell") in wells or "bleach" smell in chlorine-treated water.  Both of these causes can be resolved by using an activated carbon filter in cunjunction with a water softener.
2. The self-sacrificing rod installed in your hot water heater can sometimes be the cause of odor in hot water.  Having a qualified plumber replace this rod could solve this problem.

How can I find out what is in my water...or where can I have my water tested?

How can I tell what my flow rate is?

Most new homes have a 1" water line coming from the meter to the home.  Normal city pressures will flow from 18 to 20 GPM.

Can a water softener cause pressure loss?  If so, what do I look for and how can I fix it?

Yes, a softener will cause some pressure loss due to the resistance from the resin bed, but excessive pressure loss can be caused by one or a combination of the following:

1. On well water, this is usually due to fine sand coming from the well.
2. On softeners installed in the open sunlight (mostly in Florida), a layer of algae can grow and thick pieces of this growth clog the lower distributor tube screen when they start peeling off the inside of the resin tank.
3. On chlorinated water supplies, sand can get into the tank from new construction or work on water lines in the area.  All of these sitations are rare.
4. The most common cause of pressure loss occurs on chlorinated water supplies.  The resin can be damaged by high chlorine levels and turn to mush.  This has the same effect as having fine sand at the bottom of the resin tank.
5. The solution is to replace the resin and add carbon filtration before the softener.

Contact us today for more information about our water purification systems.