If your home is one of the 85% in the United States affected by hard water, you may be thinking about buying a water softener. While there’s no shortage of options available on the market, it can be difficult to determine what solution is best suited for your home. It’s important to understand what to look for in a water softener before finalizing your purchase so your system supports your home’s specific needs. When choosing a water softener, you’ll want to know how hard your water is and how much water you use on a regular basis. You’ll also want to be familiar with some of the different types of water softeners available.
How Do You Know If You Need a Water Softener?
There are several key indicators that you have hard water. These include a white, chalky residue on and around plumbing fixtures, countertops, or appliances; water stains on washed dishes or clothing; dry hair and skin; or clogged pipes without any obvious blockages. If these issues are noticeable from most or all of your faucets and appliances, you very likely have hard water. It’s important to note that hard water isn’t a health concern; it is a nuisance that can impact plumbing fixtures and appliance efficiency and longevity.
Water softeners vastly reduce the calcium and magnesium minerals that cause hard water scale to develop.
What Type of Water Softener Do You Need?
Ion exchange, salt-free, and reverse osmosis systems are some of the most common options you’ll encounter as you shop for a water softener.
Ion exchange systems are salt-based systems that greatly reduce mineral content in well water. These systems use either sodium chloride or potassium chloride to combat hard water. As water passes through salt-charged resin beads in the main mineral tank, the mineral ions swap with the salt ions. This process “softens” water, which then continues through your plumbing to fixtures and appliances. Salt tablets must be added regularly to the brine tank to allow for the regeneration process, where the resin beads saturated with mineral ions are recharged with sodium ions so minerals can continue to be removed.
Salt-free systems like those using template assisted crystallization (TAC) don’t actually soften water. Instead, these systems treat hard water so the minerals cannot adhere to surfaces. So, while they can help prevent scale buildup, they do not actually reduce mineral content in water. These systems are useful for city water customers who still have mild or moderate hardness.
Reverse osmosis (RO) systems can reduce hard water minerals. However, unlike salt-based systems that are considered whole house filters, RO systems are typically installed at the point-of-use, such as under a kitchen sink. Some homeowners choose to pair their salt-based systems with an RO filter to limit sodium intake, as salt-based systems can minimally increase water salt content after ion exchange occurs.
What to Look For In a Water Softener
Before buying a water softener, take some time to figure out your water usage, hardness, and capacity needs. Start by calculating your home’s average water use. Typically, the average individual uses somewhere between 80 to 100 gallons of water per day for indoor uses. Multiply this range by how many people live in your home. If you have a family of four, you’re likely using somewhere between 320 to 400 gallons of water per day.
Next, figure out roughly how hard your water actually is. This is measured by grains per gallon (gpg). One grain amounts to 0.002 ounces of dissolved calcium carbonate in a single gallon of water. Start with our map below to see historically how hard water in your area has been reported.
Once you have an idea of how much water you use and how hard your water is, you need to multiply these numbers to figure out what capacity tank is right for your home. In this example, let’s say your daily water usage is 320 gallons and your water hardness is 10 gpg. This would mean that your water softener would need to be able to handle 3,200 grains per day.
Most water softener specifications will list grain capacity by the pounds of salt required for generation. For example, the Kind Water Systems Smart Metered Water Softener requires 9 lbs of salt to regenerate at its 27,000 gpg capacity. Using our example family, regeneration would be required roughly every nine days, which means this system would be an efficient solution, as some systems would require this process every two or three days.
How Much Is a Water Softener?
Your budget will also play a role in the water softener you choose. These systems can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars for the system and labor required to install it. The average high-quality system typically ranges somewhere around $1,500. However, any solution you can comfortably afford will be a benefit to your entire home since it will contribute toward fixture and appliance longevity.
