Custom Home Build - Water Softener/Filtration

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Softeners add a tiny amount of sodium to the water, not sodium chloride. You are not salting anything by using softened water.

True, but we drink chlorinated water, so the Cl- is already floating around in there.

[tha_bandit]

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Softeners add a tiny amount of sodium to the water, not sodium chloride. You are not salting anything by using softened water.

even that tiny amount seems to have an effect on my plants, and especially fresh cut flowers as well.

[Darell_n]

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even that tiny amount seems to have an effect on my plants, and especially fresh cut flowers as well.

That may be the lack of other minerals, not the addition of sodium. I’m no botanist though. Does using potassium instead of sodium in a softener help with plants at all?

[killramos]

You should really be watering your plants with Fiji water if you care about their well being

[Darell_n]

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You should really be watering your plants with Fiji water if you care about their well being

Everybody knows that plants desire draft beer urine and old coffee grounds. Maybe a little fish poo water for an occasional treat.

[redline]

I have the full kinetico system in my house … it is great.

Softener and decolonization and RO water system that goes to fridge and sink. I also have the rare mineralization option as well …water is super tasty

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Everybody knows that plants desire draft beer urine and old coffee grounds. Maybe a little fish poo water for an occasional treat.

Idiot! It's called Brawndo.
It's got what plants crave!

[killramos]

Don’t you Aspenites have staff to water your foliage?

And they bring their own plant water, can’t have the help using your faucets.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Don’t you Aspenites have staff to water your foliage?

And they bring their own plant water, can’t have the help using your faucets.

Pronounce it correctly!




Nnnnno...

[Buster]

Has anyone looked at one of those salt free water conditioner dealies? Seems city water users that don't care about "soft" water, but want descaling could see some benefit to switching to one of these. My water softener went kaput a while back, and I'm thinking of switching.

[suntan]

Yeah my parents have one. It works.

[ThePenIsMightier]

Wow, that's a hard no.
All of the inconvenience of additional equipment and 30% of the benefits of a softener.

Plus, you're already plumbed for a softener so you could throw your existing one out and set a new one in there, today. That's the way to go. New ones are so, so much better than those terrible ones that are tricking water eternally. They have automatic re-gen cycles programmed for 03:00

[prae]

I'm doing something similar-ish (emphasis on the ish) on a smaller scale for just my espresso machine. I use resin ion-exchange filters to soften the water supplied to the machine like https://www.aquatell.ca/products/pen...idge-155321-43 These work on the same basis as a larger, salt-rinsed resin-media softeners without all the mechanics that do the regeneration backwash; you just throw the resin cartridge away once it's ability to pick out calcium from your water is depleted.

I don't think it would be cost- or empirically- effective at large-scale whole-home water delivery

Matt Risinger is doing a whole home version of this with some kind of citric acid based filter? I don't understand the chemistry there. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVq4y5sL4tp/

he expects $125USD every six months. at that rate, you sure as fuck are better off shelling out $800 for a replacement traditional softener.

edit: read the comments on that IG post I linked- that'd turn me off immediately from the larger whole-home sized filters.

Personally I've never found the hardness of Calgary water to be all that problematic for our appliances. Although scale buildup did kill the shutoff valve in our dishwasher.

[Buster]

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Wow, that's a hard no.
All of the inconvenience of additional equipment and 30% of the benefits of a softener.

Plus, you're already plumbed for a softener so you could throw your existing one out and set a new one in there, today. That's the way to go. New ones are so, so much better than those terrible ones that are tricking water eternally. They have automatic re-gen cycles programmed for 03:00

You're probably right. I know that I'm already setup with a hard water redirect to my outside bibs and my irrigation. I also have a hardwater bypass that I assume goes to the kitchen.

[Darell_n]

Toilets don’t need soft water either and are probably the biggest waste of soft water. Mine recycles maybe once a month with a family of 4, uses around 2 bags per year only.

[prae]

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Toilets don’t need soft water either and are probably the biggest waste of soft water. Mine recycles maybe once a month with a family of 4, uses around 2 bags per year only.

Why would you plumb any cold supply with soft water? The softener just needs to be upstream of the HWT. It's really just the dishwasher and water heater that benefit from softened water, imo. Given that they're both somewhat throw-away appliances with a 10-20 year expected lifespan, I really don't see the point in softening water at the whole-home scale.

[ExtraSlow]

People talk about benefits for laundry and bathing.

[Buster]

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Why would you plumb any cold supply with soft water? The softener just needs to be upstream of the HWT. It's really just the dishwasher and water heater that benefit from softened water, imo. Given that they're both somewhat throw-away appliances with a 10-20 year expected lifespan, I really don't see the point in softening water at the whole-home scale.

My kitchen water boiler and espresso machine get pretty good scaling.

- - - Updated - - -

We run a lot of cold cycles in our laundry.

[prae]

Risinger's got a video out on his fancy expensive system