What exactly are water softeners? For that matter, what’s hard water? And what’s soft water? We’ll help you understand those terms and show you how important it is to ensure that you’re not having hard water come through your taps or negatively impact your bathing, cleaning, cooking and appliances.
What’s Hard Water?
Hard water is water that consists of a significantly higher concentration of several minerals as compared to soft water. These generally consist of calcium and magnesium, but they can also include ones such as iron and manganese, and as water travels through the ground, it can take those minerals along, en route to, ultimately, your home.
In the Pompano Beach area, much of the water comes from a limestone aquifer, the Biscayne Aquifer, and it’s generally high in magnesium and calcium. As a result, many who live and work here will have hard water if it’s not softened.
Unfortunately, when using hard water, it’s more difficult to form a lather while bathing, scum will tend to build up, dishes will have streaks, your skin will get dry and sticky, and calcium and magnesium will build up in your pipes, water heaters and appliances, such as coffee makers and dishwashers.
What’s Soft Water?
As expected, soft water has a relatively low concentration of minerals such as calcium and magnesium. As a result, soap combined with it lathers more easily, and limescale buildup is prevented.
Ion Exchange
So, if your home has hard water, that means that you have too much calcium and magnesium in your water. How can a water softener fix that? It does this through an ion exchange, which removes much of that calcium, magnesium and related minerals.
Those mineral-rich ions consist of positive charges and are called cations. To remove them, you need to introduce something that has negative charges – anions – so that they can bind together. That’s where resin beads, which are anions, come into the picture.
When a water softener is used, those opposing chargers are brought together, and they have not exactly a magnetic effect, but a similar one; they naturally bind, neutralizing the calcium and magnesium. As this happens, a sodium ion is released. All of this is taking place in a mineral tank, sometimes referred to as a softener tank or resin tank.
The Brine Tank
Another tank, the brine tank, plays a pivotal role in this process. It contains a brine solution, which is periodically sent through the brine line into the mineral tank and rinses out the resin beds. This regeneration is essential as if your brine tank runs out of solution, your water will gradually start turning into hard water again.
So, make sure to replenish it with salt as needed. The frequency of when this will be required varies from home to home, depending on the size and type of your water softening system and how much water you use.
Where does all of this salt and captured minerals from the used brine ultimately go? The vast majority of it will simply exit your property through your drain line, never coming in contact with your skin, clothes or otherwise.
Electronic Elements
A water softener will usually have electronic elements, which can consist of displays that show your softening system’s status and related measurements and timers. It’s also possible to have your water softener be connected to the internet so that you receive alerts on your phone or otherwise about your brine tank’s current salt level and other details.
Whole-Home and Tap-Specific Water Softeners
Most water softeners are whole-home ones, which interrupt the water flow before it reaches anywhere in your house. This normally requires professionally trained technicians to install.
The other option is to get a tap-specific water softener. For example, you could have this only apply to your drinking water, to there and your shower or whatnot. Installing this can often be a DIY project, but it may not result in as complete of a water softening system as you’d prefer.
Is This a Water Filter?
Water softeners don’t filter your water. A water filter removes contaminants and impurities from your water and doesn’t reduce mineral concentrations.
As a result, if you only use a water softener, you may still experience unpleasant odors and tastes and be ingesting contaminants that a water filter could remove.
Benefits of Water Softening
The benefits of utilizing a water softener are numerous. Some of the most common ones include:
- healthier skin and hair
- dishes with no spots
- lack of soap scum
- cleaner clothes
- longer-lasting pipes and appliances
Potential Cons of Water Softening
A potential con of water softening is that the process, while removing calcium, magnesium and other minerals, adds more sodium to your water than would have otherwise been the case. However, this amount is minimal, but if you are especially sensitive to sodium, it’s something to consider.
Related to that, if you regularly water plants that are sensitive to sodium, take that into account as well. That said, many water softeners offer a way to bypass some lines, such as outdoor taps, ensuring that the softened water doesn’t reach there.
Final Thoughts
Here are a few final thoughts about water softeners to consider.
One, which many don’t realize, is that the hotter hard water is, the more magnesium and calcium will cause havoc. This is the opposite of what many believe since hot water kills a lot of bacteria.
Water softeners tend to work well for about 15 years but often last for 20 years or more.
The cost of one is usually around $600 and up, and it more than pays for itself in the long run since not having one and allowing hard water to be passed through your pipes usually results in a significant amount of damage to those pipes as well as to your appliances and will otherwise negatively affect your day-to-day life.
If you’d like to learn more about how a water softener can help you, reach out to Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. We’ll be glad to speak with you about this and, if you’d like us to, install one in your home. And, as always, if there’s any delay in us getting this done for you, it’s YOU we pay.
