Fix my hard water
December 13, 2021 10:56 PM Subscribe
I live in an area with very hard water. I run humidifiers for most of the year, and I also run an evaporative cooler in the summer that gets full of scale by the end of the summer. I also do love soft water for my curly hair.
I'm not handy person, so I'm not going to be installing anything myself, and likely not maintaining it either.
What do I want for my hard water improvement? Reverse osmosis filter under the sink? Whole house softener? Something else? Both?
I'm personally not a fan of soft water, so I'd never install a water softener. That said, even if I did want one, I'd never want to drink the water that came out of one without filtration.
Reverse osmosis for drinking is an absolute must. I've installed one everywhere I've lived for the past few moves. Totally worth it. Water should taste like nothing.
posted by bigtex at 11:23 PM on December 13, 2021
Reverse osmosis for drinking is an absolute must. I've installed one everywhere I've lived for the past few moves. Totally worth it. Water should taste like nothing.
posted by bigtex at 11:23 PM on December 13, 2021
Something to be aware of is that residential reverse osmosis units can waste a lot of water.
posted by oceano at 12:07 AM on December 14, 2021
posted by oceano at 12:07 AM on December 14, 2021
Best way to deal with that is to run the RO waste stream out to a soaker hose on a garden bed you'd otherwise have to be watering by hand.
posted by flabdablet at 12:14 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 12:14 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Hi, neighbor! I live about 3 hours south of you. You want both a water softener, and a reverse osmosis filter for your sink. There are companies that will install both, and will also come out on a schedule and refill your water softener with salt. Google “water softening equipment suppliers”. Be aware, though, that your cooler will probably still get crusted, just with salt instead of other minerals.
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:02 AM on December 14, 2021
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:02 AM on December 14, 2021
I love my whole house softener. You may be interested in this older ask "is a whole house water softener worth it? "
posted by evilmomlady at 3:19 AM on December 14, 2021
posted by evilmomlady at 3:19 AM on December 14, 2021
Be aware, though, that your cooler will probably still get crusted, just with salt instead of other minerals.
An under-sink RO unit should get at least close to being able to keep a swamp cooler supplied with water, and that would slow the crusting way down.
The tap water where I live is very well cleaned up even though the source is a somewhat muddy river, but even so it formed crusty mineral deposits in the humidifier tray for the CPAP unit I used to use that just didn't happen when I used RO filtered water instead.
posted by flabdablet at 4:07 AM on December 14, 2021
An under-sink RO unit should get at least close to being able to keep a swamp cooler supplied with water, and that would slow the crusting way down.
The tap water where I live is very well cleaned up even though the source is a somewhat muddy river, but even so it formed crusty mineral deposits in the humidifier tray for the CPAP unit I used to use that just didn't happen when I used RO filtered water instead.
posted by flabdablet at 4:07 AM on December 14, 2021
Best answer: I have both a water softener and an RO filter (for plant water), as we live in a very hard water zone, and the softened water has such a high TDS that I could barely add any nutrients without risking nutrient burn. We have a whole house water softener (well, kitchen supply is hard water, so that's used for cooking/drinking). If you have an RO filter, and a water softener it is recommended to feed the RO filter from the softened water; you'll get better life out of the RO filter, despite soft water being a higher TDS than the untreated hard water. We also use the RO filter for drinking, because once you start drinking RO, it just tastes *so* good/clean, that you can't stop.
I think you can probably get by with just a water softener. With most setups, a plumber should only need a slight amount of work to supply hard water to the main kitchen tap.
The water softener is closer to maintenance free; except you need check that there's salt in the brine tank, and refill it as needed. Our 8 year old softener was one of the mid-range economical ones, and we need about one bag of salt/month. At our old house, it was a non-economical one and took about one bag of salt/week. In theory every 5-10 years, get someone in to check the resin, and some other maintenance that the user isn't supposed to do. Really, no part of a house is ever maintenance free.
An RO filter requires maintenance. Every 6-12 months you need to change a bunch of filters, and part of the process of this involves running water partially through the system to flush out any carbon particulate from the new filters so it doesn't clog/damage the RO filter. Which is to say it's not a 1-5 minute job; I think it usually takes me about 30-45 minutes, but my RO filter is in an inconvenient place and not wall mounted (not under sink). Even still, just due to the time to flush, I can't see it taking less than 20 minutes.
Under sink RO filter setups will often have a small, 3 gallon tank that will be about about 2/3 of your normal home water pressure, and run through a small 3/8" or 1/4" water supply line. At my house, it takes about 2.5+ minutes to fill a 1 gallon bottle from my 3 gallon tank. I.E. it takes about 2-3 times longer to fill a glass of water as it would from the tap.
Most under sink RO filters are a 75 gallon per day max (maximum as in you're unlikely to get that). I have a diverter so I can run the RO filter directly into a 5 gallon bucket rather than have to deal with getting a gallon at a time from the 3 gallon reserve tank. I get about 58 gallons per day, and we live in a relatively high water pressure zone. 58 gallons per day, is *really* slow. As in it takes 1h:40 minutes to mostly fill a 5 gallon bucket. I'm unsure just how much water you need for your humidfiers/evaporative cooler. At the peak of my indoor grow cycle, I make 20 gallon batches about once/week - it takes most of a waking day of setting timers and moving buckets to have the water ready when I need it.
posted by nobeagle at 6:28 AM on December 14, 2021
I think you can probably get by with just a water softener. With most setups, a plumber should only need a slight amount of work to supply hard water to the main kitchen tap.
The water softener is closer to maintenance free; except you need check that there's salt in the brine tank, and refill it as needed. Our 8 year old softener was one of the mid-range economical ones, and we need about one bag of salt/month. At our old house, it was a non-economical one and took about one bag of salt/week. In theory every 5-10 years, get someone in to check the resin, and some other maintenance that the user isn't supposed to do. Really, no part of a house is ever maintenance free.
An RO filter requires maintenance. Every 6-12 months you need to change a bunch of filters, and part of the process of this involves running water partially through the system to flush out any carbon particulate from the new filters so it doesn't clog/damage the RO filter. Which is to say it's not a 1-5 minute job; I think it usually takes me about 30-45 minutes, but my RO filter is in an inconvenient place and not wall mounted (not under sink). Even still, just due to the time to flush, I can't see it taking less than 20 minutes.
Under sink RO filter setups will often have a small, 3 gallon tank that will be about about 2/3 of your normal home water pressure, and run through a small 3/8" or 1/4" water supply line. At my house, it takes about 2.5+ minutes to fill a 1 gallon bottle from my 3 gallon tank. I.E. it takes about 2-3 times longer to fill a glass of water as it would from the tap.
Most under sink RO filters are a 75 gallon per day max (maximum as in you're unlikely to get that). I have a diverter so I can run the RO filter directly into a 5 gallon bucket rather than have to deal with getting a gallon at a time from the 3 gallon reserve tank. I get about 58 gallons per day, and we live in a relatively high water pressure zone. 58 gallons per day, is *really* slow. As in it takes 1h:40 minutes to mostly fill a 5 gallon bucket. I'm unsure just how much water you need for your humidfiers/evaporative cooler. At the peak of my indoor grow cycle, I make 20 gallon batches about once/week - it takes most of a waking day of setting timers and moving buckets to have the water ready when I need it.
posted by nobeagle at 6:28 AM on December 14, 2021
There are also whole-house water filtration systems. These do not require adding salt (like a water softener does); and unlike RO filtration, they do not produce waste water. They do, however, require that you replace the filter(s) once or twice a year (depending on the water quality and how much water you use daily).
My water source is a community well, so I currently use a three-stage whole house filtration system. This consists of three separate filter housings, plus a "spin-down" filter in front of those. The spin-down filter has a fine metal mesh that traps larger particles and sludge (which can occur when the water utility flushes the water line), and this protects your more expensive filters from getting choked with excess gunk. Then in the three filter housings I use a sediment filter, a carbon filter, and an iron & manganese filter. This setup has eliminated red staining I used to get from iron and manganese, and significantly reduced the white/off-white calcium scale deposits I used to experience, though it has not fully eliminated them. If iron is not an issue for you, you could use a polyphosphate filter as your third stage, which is specifically intended to reduce scale. I am considering adding a fourth polyphosphate stage, or switching up the combination of filters I currently use.
Replacing all the filters periodically is no picnic! They are 20" x 4.5" cylinders, and they can get pretty heavy when soaked through. And unscrewing the filter housings takes some muscle. But the job is infrequent, and the filters have helped a lot. I don't know if this would be the optimal solution for your particular water quality issues, but it is another option available to you.
posted by fikri at 6:52 AM on December 14, 2021
My water source is a community well, so I currently use a three-stage whole house filtration system. This consists of three separate filter housings, plus a "spin-down" filter in front of those. The spin-down filter has a fine metal mesh that traps larger particles and sludge (which can occur when the water utility flushes the water line), and this protects your more expensive filters from getting choked with excess gunk. Then in the three filter housings I use a sediment filter, a carbon filter, and an iron & manganese filter. This setup has eliminated red staining I used to get from iron and manganese, and significantly reduced the white/off-white calcium scale deposits I used to experience, though it has not fully eliminated them. If iron is not an issue for you, you could use a polyphosphate filter as your third stage, which is specifically intended to reduce scale. I am considering adding a fourth polyphosphate stage, or switching up the combination of filters I currently use.
Replacing all the filters periodically is no picnic! They are 20" x 4.5" cylinders, and they can get pretty heavy when soaked through. And unscrewing the filter housings takes some muscle. But the job is infrequent, and the filters have helped a lot. I don't know if this would be the optimal solution for your particular water quality issues, but it is another option available to you.
posted by fikri at 6:52 AM on December 14, 2021
Bit of out of the box suggestion but plants perspire more than 90% of the water they drink up so filling your house with plants should decrease the need for humidifiers (and treating the water to go in them). A researcher with NASA looked into it and found that a lot of different common houseplants also filter the air and remove some air pollution.
posted by VTX at 7:01 AM on December 14, 2021
posted by VTX at 7:01 AM on December 14, 2021
On the other hand, a whole-house softener is not going to give you water that doesn't taste weird, because essentially all those do is add salt to change your water's ion balance.
Unless you're really sensitive to salt in your water, the water in a house with a water softener does not, at all, taste like salt. It tastes different from hard water but it's not salty. I've lived in places with both and I don't feel like there's a lot of difference.
posted by jessamyn at 7:35 PM on December 14, 2021
Unless you're really sensitive to salt in your water, the water in a house with a water softener does not, at all, taste like salt. It tastes different from hard water but it's not salty. I've lived in places with both and I don't feel like there's a lot of difference.
posted by jessamyn at 7:35 PM on December 14, 2021
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posted by flabdablet at 11:12 PM on December 13, 2021