Water softener for your home. Good investment?

[PouredConcrete]

How does it work, is it expensive, does it save hours with the Viakal? Hard water haters please tell me your thoughts, thank you.

Yes it works very well. We've had ours https://monarchwater.co.uk/number-1-range-of-domestic-water-softeners/ for about 10 years and we live in SE England so very hard water. No limescale here. Can't remember how much it cost but we don't go through much salt at all. Probably less than £100 a year. Ours lives in the attached garage.

Wouldn’t be without mine - first thing we did to the house when we moved from a soft water area to hard water.

Mine was from Kindwater as we’re in East Anglia. It was a bit of a nightmare to install as it turned out we had 2 rising mains, but the guy installing it said he enjoyed tackling a more difficult install .

Following as I am also wondering this.

It depends where you live and how hard your water is. But if you are having problems with lime scale it is probably worth it if you intend to stay in your house for a certain time. It certainly improves the quality of water for your pipes, faucets, washer, dishwasher, stainless steel appliances , and bathroom tiles. The flavor of water is not improved at all though, again this depends on the original quality of your water. Ours is so hard that once softened enough, it tastes salty. We use bottled water for drinking.

We re-plumbed a bit so we're not softening the toilet water! And you are usually advised to have a cold water tap not softened for drinking/cooking.

First thing we did on buying our current house was installing a water softener and it’s great. Means you don’t spend your life descaling the kettle and being depressed over your hair looking dreadful.

we have an osmosis system for drinking water in the kitchen which is on a separate tap.

Don't understand this. Why would you not want the toilet water softened?

We have it all softened apart from drinking water in the kitchen which comes from the mains and gets filtered. Also cold tap mains water in the shower room upstairs - although we don't usually drink that.

In contrast to previous posters, I thought total waste of money. Was told it might help psoriasis but no noticeable affect. And what a pain to fill with salt. Maybe because I'm old, but salt us SO heavy.

Love ours…

doesn’t help with the kettle obvs but worth it for the bathrooms

@TemuSpecialBuy Boil vinegar in your kettle once a month and pour down toilet afterwards. Descales both in one shot.

Softening water you then just pour down the drain and a lot of water at that, so wasteful (and it costs money) Soft water for washing, etc fine.

Every plumbing job we had to do when we moved in was made far more difficult and costly because of hard water. We have had a water softener for several years, it has probably saved us a fortune.

Love mine, wouldn't be without it. Have lived here (S/E) all my life and only had one for the last couple of years - wish I'd got one years ago!

Thank you very much everyone. We’re having a kitchen refit and I know very little about how disruptive the installation of a water softener might be. Is this something I need to look into now while we have good access and are planning, or can I save up for it and retrofit it afterwards? How big are the units, do they need a whole under sink cupboard to themselves in your kitchen?

also do you all have yours under the sink? That is prime cleaning products storing area round my way, but maybe I need to find a new area.

The area has such hard water that left untreated weekly, the toilet bowls have calcium stripes down them that attract black mould. I’be never heard of anything like it before. I’m not wild about the expense and waste of getting a softener and the environmental pollution of adding salt to the waste water we’ve used, but on the other hand, we are throwing Viakal and bleach down the toilets weekly which can’t be environmentally good so it would stop us doing that.

Also I feel like our radiators system is probably performing badly because of the hard water, we seem to keep having problems. So I wanted to ask- when you have softened water is it now actually slightly acidic? or is it just water that has somehow had the calcium deposits removed? I mean, does softened water gradually do anything about pre-existing calcium deposits that may have been there already in say, a heating system, before the softened water was installed?

Also the chalky shower screens- I hate the endless build up and cleaning. I’m talking myself into this aren’t I?

I fitted one in our house when we moved in. Wife was sceptical but loves it now. It softens all the water in the house apart from the kitchen and outside taps. The kitchen one is filtered as we have a boil tap there.

We have a Harvey unit which takes up about a third of a kitchen base unit. It's metered, so only uses salt based on your water usage (some are timed, so use salt unnecessarily).

It's great. Seven years on, the dishwasher still looks new, as do taps, shower screens etc. Apparently you shouldn't use softened water in the heating system as it isn't compatible with the inhibitors, although I think this is just the inhibitor manufacturer covering their arse as they haven't tested it. I haven't had any issues. Besides, what do people in soft water areas do?

All in, the softener and the boil tap have been fabulous.

Thanks very much. It’s going on the wish list!

I really appreciate everyone’s advice.

Did you turn the whole thing over to a specialist water softener install company, or is it easy enough to buy one online and then I can ask our general builder/plumber to install it?

I wouldn’t be without mine, I live in an incredibly hard water area. New kettles fur up within days. The local water authority used to soften it at source, but then their equipment broke and they said it was too expensive to replace. It’s a constant cause of complaint locally.

I had it fitted when the kitchen was done, it takes up roughly half a kitchen cupboard, but in fact I have mine where the rising main comes into the house, inside a cupboard in the hall. It wasn’t a huge amount of extra work although they had to lay a separate pipe so I could have mains water at the sink. I have a three-way tap - hot, cold and ‘drinking’.

It doesn’t cost a lot to run and I’m happy to soften the toilet water supply, in order not to have to constantly deal with limescale! I don’t like the taste of softened water and I didn’t think I should feed it to the cats, which is why I have a separate drinking supply but apparently it is safe to drink. Worth every penny in my view.

I did it myself, but any competent plumber should be able to install it.

Ours is under the stairs and I wouldn't be without it. No smeary shower screens and taps. Bliss. How big it is depends (I think) on how many bathrooms and taps etc you need to service? Ours would take up only a third of an under sink cupboard I would say? It takes tablet salt. I buy the smaller sacks on amazon as otherwise hard to heave them around.

We buy 10kg bags of salt. Delivered to us in packs of 5 and they stay in the garage. Very portable.

I find this really really weird.

Oh I didn't think to look on Amazon. I'll probably do this in future and just buy 2 bags at a time. They last for ages.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WATER-SOFTENER-TABLETS-packs-saving/dp/B00I7V9HBW meant to add link