Water Softener Reviews

Water softeners are systems that are designed to turn hard water in a home into soft water. Hard water causes many problems such as lime scale buildup on pipes and water that isn’t very effective for cleaning or bathing purposes. The presence of hard water means that there is an abundance of minerals, mostly calcium and magnesium, in the water supply. These minerals accumulate and cause things such as rings in the bathtub and clogged pipes. Hard water can be transformed into soft water by filtering it but to do so in a home would be very expensive because of all the water that is used. Softening the water is a much more feasible and cheaper solution, and can be done easily using a water softener.

Water softeners are installed directly to the home’s water supply and are used to eliminate the excessive calcium and magnesium ions and replace them with other ions, usually sodium. Sodium ions will not cause any damage to the home’s pipes and will also easily dissolve detergent and soap, turning hard water into soft water. Water softeners work very simply. All of the water used for the home’s water supply is run through either a bed filled with small plastic beads that are covered with sodium ions, or mixed with a chemical solution called zeolite, which is also filled with sodium ions. The beads or the mixture will absorb the calcium and magnesium ions and in exchange, the water will absorb the sodium ions. The beads or mixture will absorb the unwanted ions until they contain nothing but calcium and magnesium. It is at this point that the beads or mixture will need to be regenerated with sodium ions as well.

Regenerating the beads or chemical mixture that is now completely saturated with calcium and magnesium ions is done by pouring a sodium brine into the water softener. This brine solution usually comes in the form of salt and this salt is added directly into the water softener. When the salt is added, it adds sodium back to the beads or the mixture and eliminates the calcium and magnesium ions that were once there. These negative ions are then flushed away through the drainage component of the water softener.

Installing and maintaining a water softener is very easy and can be done by most homeowners. These systems are very practical and easy solutions. They will not only save you the hassle of dealing with hard water but they will also be good to your budget. Installing a water softener will save you hundreds of dollars on repairs to damaged pipes and appliances, due to the hard water running through them.