Eczema and Water Softener

[IslaNottingham]

Hey everyone

I've been reading a few posts on eczema and water softeners (some together, some separately). I'm posting this feed as I am getting a water softener installed tomorrow (via Harveys - 3 month trial), and wanted to track my experience of the softened water and how it improves the skin. It would be great to hear from anyone who has a water softener, the impact it's had on you or your children (skin or otherwise), as well as the type you went for. Kinetico and Harvey's seem uber expensive but I dont know enough about the components to decide whether a cheaper softener would be just as good.

Isla.

IME, yes, it does help.

It also makes your skin, hair, clothes, towels softer as the residue of scale and soap washes away.

Companies who advertise in the Sunday Supplements generally charge more than your local Water Softener company. If you ever call one, start by asking if they repair softeners. If they do, and also deliver salt, they are worth keeping in with. Cheap brands from DIY sheds usually get thrown away when they go wrong.

Never collect bags of salt in your own car, even a single spilt granule from a torn bag will rust a hole through the boot. If you look inside the salt delivery van, you will be shocked at the rust damage.

If it's a proper water softener, it's a proper water softener. I'm not convinced it matters which brand etc it is. (It can make a difference if you go for a metered versus electric timed one from a cost perspective, though, so you need to investigate and weigh it up)

FWIW, ours is a Harvey one because our builders had a deal with them. We've had it for 2 years and have no complaints.

My ds had very bad, weeping eczema as a baby, and he needed a lot of (fairly strong) steroid creams to keep it under control.

In recent years, it has largely cleared up. Ditto dd, (whose eczema was less severe). It's hard to know whether the softener made a difference, as maybe they would have both grown out of their eczema anyway. My gut says it was the softener - but I love it anyway as it makes the bathroom so much easier to clean by getting rid of the limescale!

What does it involve in terms of cost, storage and maintenance? I'm really tempted!

you might get through a 10-20 kg of salt a month.

I get the 10kg bags delivered, ten at a time, and store them in the garage or carport. Last time it cost me £30. You can also get 20kg or 25kg bags which work out cheaper, but are hard to carry around and tip into the bin of the softener. Some softeners take block salt which is considerably more expensive, but easier to handle. I repeat, never carry salt in your own car.

I have had a few softeners in different homes, and they typically seem to last about 10 years between repairs. Last time I got a reconditioned one in exchange from a firm in Essex which I thought was good value.

A softener is very heavy when full, so needs to stand on the floor, not the base of a cupboard. It must be close to the incoming mains water supply and a drain. As you don't need to access it often, you might be able to put it in the corner of the kitchen, and roll out an appliance or lift a hatch in the worktop to fill it with salt. Mine is next to the stopcock, in the corner of the garage. It is important that salt or salty water cannot spill or splash onto metal tools, or drip onto a concrete floor.

The construction of a water softener is quite simple, and the components are widely available, so some local firms assemble and sell "own brands" if they have a workshop for repairing or servicing softeners, assembly is quite easy. They all seem to use "Fleck" brand mechanisms. It seems to be the industry standard, and contains all the working parts.