Water softeners?

[EFmom]

Does anybody have an experience in getting a water softener?

We currently live in an area with very hard water. I am sick of scrubbing the shower and having it look filthy two days later. And when I read about all you ladies who use vinegar and baking soda to clean, I get really sad. I've tried, but to no avail. It just makes sludge. All the valves on our plumbing fixtures freeze up with the mineral build up. There's always a bunch of crud that settles out in the bottom of the tea kettle. Yuck!

I think we will need a new hot water heater this summer and am thinking maybe we should get a water softener at the same time, but I've never had one. Anybody with an experience they'd like to share?

[friend of mine]

Get one! In fact, don't even bother getting a new water heater until you have the softener. We had the same problem with hard water before the softener. Ours is hooked up to our hot water only. We still have a touch of build-up but it is pretty easy to remove. It would be better to have it hooked up to the cold too, but we have an old house and it was going to be too complex to bypass the outside for watering garden/lawn. Also, although we have a drinking water filter in the kitchen, we can still drink cold water from the bathrooms if necessary.

You will save a bunch of money over time because your new water heater and other appliances (washing machine, dishwasher) will work better and last longer.

You can rent them usually for about $12/month if you don't want to spend a huge amount of money at once. We actually rented ours for about 6 months to see if we really wanted one. Then we were able to buy it subtracting what we had paid in rent from the total cost.

[grisandole]

We have one and love it! Our water was like you described; and the iron content was so high everything turned orange.....it was awful. The softner is great. The only problem is if you have high blood pressure, then drinking the water isn't good for you (you have to add salt to the softner for it to work). My grandparents had to get rid of theirs for this reason.

When I was pregnant, after moving to our house, I suddenly swelled up. The midwives were concerned, but my blood pressure was okay......I just ballooned though. The doc was asking me if I had done ANYTHING different; food, drinks, etc. I told him we got a water softner, and he said, bingo! He told me to drink two gallons of distilled water. I did.........all the swelling went away. It was from the salt. So we all drink bottled water now.

You can set it up so that your sink or wherever isn't hooked up to the softener, to avoid that problem. For our house that was too difficult........and the bottled water tastes better, anyway.

HTH!