Saltless Water Softener

[UpstateNYMarine]

Just want to know if any of you have one of those new fangled "saltless" water softeners. Before I plunk down some coin for a water softener I wanted to see if anyone has one and what their thoughts are. I had it tested and came out at about 17 grains or whatever they call it. My wife real dry skin in the winter and we are looking for something to help out and thought that salt would only make matters worse.

Thanks in advance,

 

[Farwell]

I don't know about the salt less water softener but I don't think that soft water will cause dry skin. One of the things that softener sale pitches include is the gentleness of soft water on the skin. I noticed that you live in New York, what you may want to look into is a humidifier to add moisture to your household air and use skin moisturizers. Works for me and the LOML.

 

[IXLR8]

UNYM-- Was the water tested for the acidity level? The water at my house checked fine for hardness... but the water was a bit on the acidic side, it is tearing up my miss's skin something fierce. Cheapest unit I have found to correct this is $1600.00 installed. You can't seem to get them at a hardware store, HD or Lowes that I can find. Salt type softeners can be had for $400.00. I had a salt type softener at my other house, that place had hard water. My ex noticed when we ran out of salt buy how dry her skin was and the shine went out of her hair. Sorry I can't help you with the 'saltless' softeners.

HTH

 

[johnray13]

I don't know about the salt less water softener but I don't think that soft water will cause dry skin. One of the things that softener sale pitches include is the gentleness of soft water on the skin. I noticed that you live in New York, what you may want to look into is a humidifier to add moisture to your household air and use skin moisturizers. Works for me and the LOML.

I have a regular Whirlpool softener and don't think the salt (tasteless) in the water would dry your skin. After all, you sweat salt water all the time.

I recently bought a whole house humidifier at Lowes ( 14 Gallon Traditional Humidifier ) and it really works well. I went from an average of 18% RH with the built in furnance humidifier to about 45% RH with the whole house console in our 3400sf home. What a difference for dry skin.

John

 

[bmac]

At our old house we had a swimming pool that had a salt sanitizer (generated chlorine from salt). One of the big selling points was how the salt water was kinder to the skin than the traditional chlorine sanitized pools.

 

[UpstateNYMarine]

I think that after researching quite a bit that we are going to go with the regular softener. Now I just need to pick one out. Any suggestions for a softener that will fit the following.

4-6 bathrooms
17 grains of hardness
decent flow rate
and most importantly energy efficient and salt efficient.

Thanks guys...

 

[pwl]

I have had expensive softners (Culligan, Rainsoft) and inexpensive softners (Sears). The Sears has worked very well for the last couple of years, easy on salt too. Check Consumer Reports and you will see that Sears (Kenmore) is good bang for the buck. I got 1 year free salt with mine.

 

[gator]

Check out this link WaterBoss. I have what used to be known as the big boss, now I think its their 900 model. I got mine at Lowes a bunch of years ago. I have been happy with it. Can set it for on demand regeneration (when exceeds set amount of gallons based on hardness you set after testing) or by days for regeneration. Also has a power clean function, which I use a couple of times a years cause I have high iron content in my water. I use morton Iron Out salt (green bag I get at Walmart) in mine. Just a thought for when you select a softener. Had a Culligan that was nothing but problems before the Big boss.

 

[jimmer2880]

I have bought quite a bit of water treatment devices from this company Water Softener Intallation Instructions - How to Install a Fleck Water Softener

The pre-sale and immediately after sale support is top notch. My only gripe, is that when I called them 1.5 years later trying to troubleshoot a problem, they wanted to charge me for phone support. This is after I bought $2,000 worth of hardware over the years from then.

However, I will most definately be buying from them in the future. However, before you contact them, I would get your water tested by a local water labratory. Around here, it's less than $50.00 for a full lab test. With that info, the folks at qualitywatertreatment can tell you exactly what you need and how to hook it up. They also have excellent installation instructions on their web page.

 

[john_bud]

Waterboss. Ditched the sears unit. It used gobs and gobs of water to regen, the cheap plastic gears stuck (often) and at 2AM the unit would run until the well pump burned out. Thanks Sears!

The WB also uses about 1/4 the salt the sears did and is much smaller.

jb