Water Softener INSTALLATION question

?? Do I want hard water to the kitchen cold faucet ??

We had NEW softener installed and the Sears plumber guy did not recommend softening the kitchen cold line due to salty taste and drinking extra sodium. He said 99% of people don't soften the kitchen cold line. WHY ??

Our old house (same city water with 22 gr. hardness) had hard cold water, messed up the automatic ice maker, and the oils in the coffee seperated...until we got soft water to the line.

Is drinking softened water bad? I feel like I'm missing something here.

 

We have always softened all water (except for the outside spigots).
Softened water is a tiny bit salty, but so what?
Hard water allows calcium and other mineral deposits to build up on your fixtures, ice makers, etc.
Soft water makes all of your soaps, shampoos, clothes and dishwashing detergents suds much better.
Matter of choice.
Good Luck!
Mike

 

I have had that question put to me by many customers and I will tell you what I told them. Flint & Walling makes the softeners I have used for almost 20 years and they say that there is no sodium residue in the resin bed after a regeneration. After the brine draw which refreshes the resin, there is a fast rinse, a settle rinse and a final rinse to remove all traces of salt. Then the unit returns to normal operation. Soften the entire house. That 99% thing is crap. I think it is more like 99% of people soften the entire house. I can only remember one customer who flat out refused to let me soften his cold water and he was just stubborn.

 

I agree with Kfield. We have soft water everywhere except to the outdoor faucets & I have never tasted any salt in the water. Everyone I know that uses a softener does the same. Soteners will not remove a lot of iron & sulfer but when the thing runs out of salt, the sinks & toilet bowls get stained within a week. Again, it depends on the water comming from the ground.

 

I've had a water softener for about 10 years. I've understood it does take out some good minerals, like Calcium and magnesium. I've also read that if your soften, you should replenish/replete these minerals. Many women take calcium and maybe should take more if softening. Also, it takes the "official" service people to do the filter change. I don't like that because it is costly. Anyone know an alternative for GI filter/softener service to do this? Ours is whole house. No salt taste. Water turns blackish when filter is needed. I think it's carbon from filter. Service guy said it's no harm.

 

For the definitive answer on softened water and its parametric composition, use these facts to weigh up yourself whether to drink soft water or municipal water;

Softening hard water at about 22 grains, means you are effectively exchanging 376 parts per million of mainly calcium carbonate / lime with similar (usually in practice lower) levels of sodium chloride.

Now, sodium is a smaller part of the sodium chloride molecule and has an atomic weight of about 40% of its composition.

40% of 376 ppm is around 150 parts per million of sodium.

So sodium effectively in the hardest water situations, exists at a very minor trace level in softened water, well below the 200 ppm limit most world EPA's recommend.

So the health authorities and laboritories are saying it is perfectly fine, but the real question is what food do you eat?

Do you eat kellogs cornflakes or bacon, ham, cheese, soup etc.

Of course we all do, but these are not restricted in salt content to any kind of degree that potable water is. So the next time you have a 1 pound tin of Heinz soup or any other brand for that matter which contains about 1 to 1.2 grammes of sodium, you will be taking in about 20 times the concentration of sodium into your body that the highest levels of soft water contain quart for quart.

A slice of ham or bacon have more sodium than a gallon of softened water.

We require 6 grammes of salt or 2.4 grammes of sodium in our diets each day, so to cut down, try and avoid overdoing it on the cornfalkes, which have more salt weight for weight than salted peanuts.

Soft water is simply a none issue where sodium is concerned if the very rare, short term fault or problem occurs in softening equipment that causes a surge of brine when a valve cuts out on the 2nd brining cycle if a power outage occurs, very rare.

The surge of sodium that hits our bodies every day, are the foods we eat like cornflakes, soup, bacon and every other processed food found stacked on the supermarket shelves.

Another statistic for you; the average daily sodium intake in Asia due to cooking with monosodium glutamate and soya etc. is an equivalent of 40 grammes of salt or 16 grammes of sodium per person per day. Longevity and low heart disease in the Islands of Okinawa in Japan are the best in the world even with these levels of sodium intake.

We are genetically predispositioned in the West to live on lower sodium levels, but we do need the figure of 6 grammes of salt a day for our bodies to work, for the electrolytic system in the body, cooling by sweating, nervous and sensory sytem and practically every other bodily function. A lack of sodium would kill us fairly quickly.

However, over use of salt is extremely well monitored by our bodies by the renal sytem which filters out sodium and sends thirst signals to the hyperthalamus to drink more fluids to then later be urinated out after the sodium dilution by drinking more fluids balances out concentrations and so on. Thats why salty snacks make us drink more, the bodily will not allow an excessive sodium build up unless you are force fed salt and have no drink to reduce concentrations and dispose of it.

As for the mineral content of softened water, it has long been a myth and understood for the last 20 years by all world health authorities that excessive minerals in water are pointless as a balanced diet offers an abundance of calcium such as the milk we drink (ten times the level of calcium in soft water), cheese, butter and nearly every other carbohydrate based food source.

We don't look to water to supply the nutrients, vitamins, minerals or calories that we need, it is our food that does this.

Water has no nutrient, vitamin or calorie content anyway. And the varying levels of minerals found in different water sources means that if there is a paranoia set in peoples minds about getting minerals from water, then wherever they live they would have to laboratory test for their own peace of mind the level of mineral composition and balance this out with their food if it was a problem which they simply do not do anyway.

Lack of minerals in soft water again is a myth where health concerns are pertinent. Overdosing on minerals is just as much a problem. So with food, plus mineral supplement tablets, plus high mineral content water, drank way beyond normal use, the question is overdosing on calcium, iron, potassium etc.

A pint of milk contains 1.8 grammes of calcium, and we only need an RDA of 1 gramme of calcium per day (Recommended Daily Allowance). Add cheese, butter, bread and mineral water, plus supplement tablets, and you could soon go over the dangerous overdose level of 2.5 grammes of calcium per day with can cause lethargy, fainting and coma.

Get the balance right in your food and don't worry about water, because soft or hard it only affects our mineral needs by a few small percentage points anyway, and surely we drink all kinds of liquids like milk, orange juice, tea, coffee, alcohol, fizzy drinks etc. Factor in the odd glass of water or drinking just soft water exclusively and its still a no brainer.

And as for tea, coffee, coke and alcohol, don't start me on these. They are all diuretics and fail to replenish the water level in your body by themselves. Boiling the water for tea or coffee, softens it immediately anyway, because lime precipitates at 72 degrees celcius, so when it boils at 100 degrees C, the minerals have gone, ending up as scale on the kettle and scum on the surface of yer favourite drinks.

So the most ardent tea and coffee drinkers have been drinking softened water all along, - drinks that are diuretic. Of course you can add the calcium back into tea and coffee by putting milk in.

Most lay-people that shoot the breeze with me in the pub, with a cigarette in one hand and pint of beer in the other, tell me what their academic opinions are on what I should be doing with regards to drinking water and I would at least get you to agree it goes in one ear and out the other, as does most of my advice to most people with fixed views of their own.

Water is one of the most grey areas you could debate without the facts at hand.

My 2 cents.

 

One gallon of softened water contains about as much sodium as a loaf of bread. So not a problem, unless your on a restricted sodium diet. The ultimate way would be to soften all water, then filter your drinking/cooking water with a reverse osmosis system. At about 3 cents a gallon you will come out way ahead of buying bottled water. I also soften my outside spickets, as washing the vehicles in soft water is great (no spots) just remember to hit the bypass when you water your lawn

 

Having ALL of your outside faucets soft is not recommended.....I have one at the corner of the garage that I wash my cars from.....it is better to wash in soft water.....however, the soft water has little to do with spotting......if you are not gettin spots after washing with soft water you probably have low TDS....TDS is the primary cause of spotting......when you go thru an automatic car wash the last stage is the "spot free rinse"....this is R/O water that is doing the rinsing.....where I live the TDS is well over 900 which causes masive spotting......my R/O is in my garage which allows me to have a 40gal holding tank.....I have a seperate line running outside to do the final rinse......as far as not running soft water to the kitchen sink....what a load of crap.....I have discovered over the years that "Plumbers" will tell customers that story all the time....it allows them to charge for an extra line that you don't need.....a state liscensed water treatment proffesional will disagree everytime....IF they know what they're talking about