Hello. I had a recent post called water softener issues. Since that post I have learned quite a bit more (I think). We had a tech come out and look at our system on yesterday. I know that some of what he was telling me was obviously part of a sales pitch. He did test my water and explained that it was really hard and had a lot of iron. He said hardness was at 18 grains and the iron was at 2.0. There were 2 systems down in my basement when I moved in. 1 for iron and 1 for softening. The tech explained that these were not maintained well and he pulled out some of the resin from the softener and it was really dark. He said that because of the iron content I would need to have both replaced and quoted me the top of the line replacements at $4800. I am a younger guy with 2 little kids and a wife so there is no way I can afford something like that. Does anyone have any suggestions on cheaper alternatives? I want to have both the iron filter and the softener because the iron and hardness are so high (and the water reeks like eggs. I don't want to go to work smelling like a nasty omelet.), but I don't want break the bank either. How can I tell what softeners and iron filters would be strong enough for me? Any advice would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks, Tom

I am currently considering to buy and install water softener for my house. The problem is that I have irrigation water coming out of the house where it is totally opposite side from the city water coming into the house. I know that correct way is to have irrigation output before the water softener. In order for me to do it, I have no choice but break down the concrete walk way and it is a lot of job. So, one of the solutions that I thought was that the valve system would allow me to program so that softener would bypass the hard water through the house in the time of irrigation. I checked Sears and Kenmore but they don't have "hard water bypass". Another solution I thought about was to have "Automatic Bypass with timer" installed right out of softener, but I could not find such thing. All I want is to be able to program time so that hard water can bypass during irrigation. Does anyone has solution????