Most homes in America have hard water, which contains minerals like calcium and magnesium.
Dry skin, rashes, and buildup in pipes, faucets, and appliances are all effects of hard water.
Here are the main reasons why you want soft water and how it may improve your quality of life.
However, a water softener that eliminates those naturally occurring substances helps avoid mineral development from hard water.
Here are some tips for picking the ideal water softener for your home.
Select the Size of the Water Softener
Finding out your family’s needs should be your first step.
An daily water use of 80 to 100 gallons is typical.
Depending on your lifestyle, there may be more or fewer people living in your family.
With newborns and toddlers, adolescents who take long showers, or a large number of visitors, you may need to wash more clothing than usual.
You may also often use the dishwasher.
Multiply the predicted daily water usage for your family by the number of grains of hardness in your water.
You may check water reports from your municipal provider or test your water source using a hard water test kit you can buy to determine the amount of grains, or “hardness.”
A 33,000-grain water softener is often used in homes with four people.
Considerations for Water Softener Regeneration
The resin bed in conventional water softeners has the ability to capture minerals and remove them from your water supply.
Water softener salt and your water supply must be used to renew resin beads when they get coated.
This method takes around 90 minutes and uses about as much water as you would need to wash a load of clothing.
Your water softener may be designed to operate as required, depending on your family’s actual use, or to regenerate at night when water isn’t being used.
Find a model that alerts you when you need to add more salt, or set a recurring calendar reminder to check your salt levels manually.
Look for dual-tank water softeners if you want to always have soft water on hand while your water softener regenerates.
What Else to Think About Regarding Water Softeners
You could choose to just have the hot water supply connected to your water softener, leaving the cold supply unaffected.
By doing this, the softening process’ traces of salt are kept out of drinking and cooking water.
For water used for drinking and cooking, some households opt for an extra under-the-sink filtering system or reverse osmosis system.
We’ll explain how to connect the plumbing hookups on a water softener, which might be tricky.
To connect a water softener, you don’t need to be a plumber.
We make installing a water softener simple to comprehend.
We’ll demonstrate how to repair a water softener if yours isn’t operating properly.
Water softeners can appear confusing, but we’ll break them down into their component parts and explain how to maintain yours in working order.
You may increase the longevity of your device by cleaning the resin bed and the tank.
Use these simple maintenance suggestions to maintain the health of your water softener and prevent costly failures.
The Water Quality Association’s certification or independent testing performed by NSF International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to public health and safety, should be sought after last.