I’m looking to replace a water softener, and in my online searches, water treatment sellers seem like the ultimate confusopoly. Home Depot doesn’t offer much help in selecting a model. I’ve figured out that I probably need at least a 40,000 grain capacity unit based on my city’s water hardness of 260 ppm, 5 people in the house, and using about 75 gal/day/person (using this calculator).
Is it helpful to buy the next larger capacity, or is there a sweet spot in efficiency?
I recently saw some episodes of This Old House which covered water softeners. Look on Youtube under “This old house water softener”. They covered whole house units,
They’ve got a couple of episodes showing how to install them, and one showing a salt-free system. The installation ones have guys from Culligan doing the installation of Culligan systems. They don’t talk about how to pick the right one–they just say Culligan tested their water and brought the system they needed. The salt-free system looks interesting, but the ones on Home Depot’s web site are twice the price, in addition to $300/year to replace the cartridge. I already have the plumbing in place for my existing softener, so I should be able to swap in a new conventional softener.
I just went through this. The ones from big box stores are just fine. Especially if it’s just a replacement. Any plumber can do the swap. Home Depot will deliver a unit to your house for free.
Skip the national full-service brands like Culligan or Kinnetico, etc. They want to sell you a whole house water purification system with a monthly service. Very expensive. They will quote like $3,000 and if you balk or say no they start immediately dropping the price. I don’t know anything about the salt-free versions.
Never ask what you need. Say, I want to reduce xxx to under x ppm.
The people you speak with will be salesmen. They can go on about the horrors of impure water and disease. Ever notice that when you are looking for a house or a car their first question is “What is your budget” then show you things near the top of that number and in the end the total is above that?
Although not your case, I did remember a scam going around up in Canada. This was a free home water test and reported by the CBC which is like our PBS.
You recommend a company in India with one review on pissed-consumer .com and a Net Promoter Score of -83? Thanks, but no thanks.
As an update, I ended up ordering a unit from Home Depot (or maybe it was Lowes) and installing it. It was a simple job to replace the Culligan unit I had. I went with one that was on the high-end of the capacity I calculated based on my city’s water report. It seems to work just fine. It’s bigger than the old one, and my guess is that the next size down would have also been ok. Wasn’t a lot of difference in price though.
In Maryland I had well water and a tank for calcium carbonate (an antacid). Periodicall I would back flush it and had white powder all down the driveway. Now I have county water here and no need to condition it.
I do caution you about any ‘come to your home salespeople’. There was a very good hidden camera of how some in Canada were real slime and used scare tactics. This report is by CBC (the equivalent of PBS here). Although tactics may be different, read up online and know if some recommendations are odd or wrong.
I would do a water test and also look at my water quality report issued by the water company. If there are just some minor issues I would bet the systems sold through warehouse clubs or home suppliers like Lowes and Home Depot.
