Glossy Hair! (Water Softeners in general)

Member Name: FraserP

Product:	Water Softeners in general
Date:	21/08/01 (4343 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: less cleaning for bathrooms, fewer breakdowns of washing machines, more efficient heating

Disadvantages: running cost, space needed for unit, purchase cost

One of the less expected side effects of getting a plumbed in water softener is that you hair is much shinier after washing it!
So, how do you decide if a softener is worthwhile? Fist find out how hard the water is in your area; you can get little test kits from a DIY store, or ask the water company, which is even cheaper and quicker.

It is fairly obvious if you have hard water, as the tell tale signs are lime buildup around the edges of taps, in toilet bowls (especially noticeable on return from holiday, when it has not been used often).
Surprisingly enough, hard water is good for you to drink, but bad for most of your appliances and heating system.

It makes it much more likely that your washing machine will leak or breakdown due to the calcium build up on valves etc, you boiler will work less efficiently if the surfaces exposed toe the heating are furred up and emersion heaters really suffer terribly.

We decided to get a soften fitted because we have a "combi" boiler, which is one which heats both water and the central heating supply directly. They are very sensitive to build up of calcium (or "fur") on the heating elements.

It is best fitted near to the main supply, but you do need space to fit it- two foot square of floor space with space to get to it to service it and fill it with salt.

You want it to treat as much of the supply as possible, but there must be at least one tap (kitchen usually) where you can draw untreated water to drink. Treated water has raised sodium levels, which is bad for you, especially to babies. Another answer is a third, drinking water tap in the kitchen.

Your kettle and saucepans will not unfortunately benefit from the soft water, but this is in the interests of your long term health, so no cheating!

There are two types of softener, low pressure and high pressure straight through models. We chose the latter, because we needed to keep a hi
gh flow for the hot water, and apparently there is not much difference in cost or in effectiveness.

We have an "intelligent" one which measures flow, and runs through a treatment cycle only as often as you need it. It is cheaper to get a simple clock based one, which will refreshen the resin exchange unit every night, usually set for say 4am, when water pressure is highest. Ours will do ti at any time of the day or night, as needed. It is not very noisy, even when "back washing" which takes about 40 minutes.

Salt is used to treat the special resin "ion exchange" unit, which is the bit that takes out the hardness. We get through about a bag a month. We are a family of 5, four women and me, so a fair amount of water is used for bathing! Brought in bulk, they cost about £5 a bag (delivered), so it cost about £60 a year, plus a service every other year (say £40) to run. The water it uses for recharging and the electricity are minimal.

So what are the benefits? in summary, cleaner baths and sinks, fewer clogged washing machines, cheaper heating (because it runs more efficiently, especially the hot water side).

In a hard water area, its like the discovery of airconditioning- once you have had it, you don't want to be without it.

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