Water softeners - do I want one?! Why are they good?

[RubyRedRuby]

House is being re-plumbed and the plumber has asked us to make a quick decision about whether we want one or not. Anyone got any thoughts on the matter? Thanks

I haven't had a Miele, but I've been using softened water in washers for years. You don't need much powder, and probably no fabsoft.

The first few times you use softened water in an old machine, put towels in for a hot wash with no powder. It will foam up as the soft water dissolves the soap scum and residue from the towels and the inside of the machine.

If you look inside the WC cistern you will also see the old limescale slowly disappearing.

btw if you ever get a washer foaming excessively, pour a cup of warm water with a measure of fabsoft in through the drawer. The waxy fabsoft overwhelms the foam.

OOoh - very happy to have stumbled on this thread. Our plumber (who just refit 2 bathrooms and 2 toilets for us) did a water test for us while he was working at our house. We had concerns about some rust deposits in the pipes, which thankfully are apparently not affecting the water quality. But he did say our water is really really hard and we should think about fitting a softener. I wasn't 100% sure that the benefits would be good enough, but having read your comments, I can see it would be worthwhile!

Just out of interest, what would be a reasonable price to install a softener? If it's relevant, our house is a pretty large, 4 bedroom house, and we're a family of 5. And how much salt would I be likely to get through? We run the dishwasher and washing machine pretty much every day, and (in total) run 2 showers and 1 bath every day... Thanks!

Yes, you can see the limescale dissolve! If you have a cold tank, your water isn't truly fully softened for the first month or two after fitting, as the existing limescale deposits are being dissolved.

If you have old piping, say you live in a pre2WW house, for example, think very carefully before installing a water softener. You may find, a couple of months later, that your joints were held together by limescale!

salt cost, I don't know.

I bought £60 worth just over a year ago and it has nearly all gone (I had it delivered free from Wickes and store it in the garage, next to the softener). Big bags are better value but hard to lift.

You might use twice as much. Or might not.

I'd say we spend about the same in salt. Family of 5 etc (see my earlier post).

Pigletjohn have you heard of an electric water softener? We saw one recently at the home building and renovating show - looks good as much smaller and no salt, but had never heard of them before so slightly dubious!

You attached what basically looked like a circuit board in resin to your pipes as they come in to the house, by wrapping copper wire around them. I think it was something to do with the current breaking up the limecale particles?! But I may have got the wrong end of the stick!

Thanks for all the comments on washing machines and dishwashers. I will have a chat to the plumber when he installs my water softener.

I'm lucky in that I'm getting an ex-display model, so it's a more sophisticated one than I would otherwise afford. The water softener guy says the correct retail price is £14,750 --

-- but I think he accidentally typed an extra 0 when he sent the text over .

There was one fitted in our house when we moved in and we used it for a while but I have now disconnected it, purely because the soft water made my hair look like crap. It's naturally curly and when it's too soft it goes fluffy and frizzy.
All those other benefits are just not worth me walking around with shit hair everyday!

oreos

electronic and magnetic "scale reducers" work in the same way that wearing a copper bracelet cures arthritis, or hanging acorns in your house prevents it being struck by lightening.

There are electric water softeners that don't use salt, though. But, unlike the non-electric, twin-chamber salt-using ones, they regenerate the resin on a timer, and cannot do any softening during regeneration.

Or do they use salt as well? We had ours installed about 6y ago, after doing lots of research, but TBH I forgot it all afterwards as un-needed headspace!

PigletJohn we have a water softener but had to turn it off as it kept damaging our boiler (can't remember the details and irrelevant now as boiler replaced). Is there anything we now need to do to 'recommission' the softener or can i just turn it on and let it get on with life?

We just had this installed. I haven't tried it yet as we are still mid refurb but it was recommended by our builder as we can't have a salt one. My dh has a medical condition which means any salt is a big no no, so this was simpler for us.

Pigletjohn!
This is reminding me we really need to sort our utility out and re-instate the softener we brought from out last house. I spent a lot of time researching this as DH had to be convinced - he insisted the water in the bathroom had to be drinkable. There are multiple threads on the Moneysavingexpert site, and I also had conversations with a helpful guy at West Midlands Water, which is where we bought ours from. He advised on the capacity we'd need based on our house/family size and typical usage.
One thing: resist getting one of the automatically generating double tank models which cost ££££. They are complete overkill. The single tank mechanical ones re-generate on a timer overnight, rather than only doing it when the electronic sensor says so (that's why they have an extra tank). This 'advantage' is not worth the four figures they charge imo.

mine has a water meter (that tells it when regeneration is due) and a timeclock. So when it detects regeneration is due, it sets the switch, which is activated when the clock reaches 2am

We have very few baths as 2am so it doesn't matter that ordinary tap water would come out during regeneration.

If you were a night worker I suppose you could alter the clock.

All softeners use salt to regenerate the resin, apart from the ones that don't work by magnetism, and reverse osmosis ones.

We've installed one and it's fabulous! No more limescale around taps, sinks, toilets, showers. Worth every penny

We have a Dualflo.

My new self dosing mielie has a setting on it so it now knows we have a softner and thus use less washing liquid.

thanks pigletjohn, think we might stick with a 'traditional style' water softener then!

My plumber couldn't be arsed to install one so put us off. Grrr. I def want one now!