Water softener softens too much

February 12, 2023 12:22 PM

My new house has a water softener that makes me feel slimy. How do I fix it?

We moved from a city where I believe the water was pre-softened (that is, we did not have a water softener in our house). Our new house has a Morton Model M34 water softener, installed and I have read the instruction book.

I'm supposed to know how hard our water is in order to set the "Water Hardness Number." I have no idea how to find out how hard our water would be without the softener. I'm assuming some sort of test kit, but wouldn't I be testing the water that is already coming through the softener?

The hardness level is currently set at 20. Can I experiment with changing this number to make the water less soft? If so, do I want a higher number or lower number?

posted by Joleta to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

Best answer: According to the manual, the hardness is the hardness of the untreated water, so you'd set it lower. I know with my very old softener, I can program it to run less often which helps make it less soft. I only set mine to run once a week.
posted by idb at 1:49 PM on February 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

You can just adjust down until the water is the way you like it, it's fine to set it subjectively. As a side benefit, you'll use less salt if you adjust it down. It's been decades since I lived somewhere with a water softener, but IIRC, there's a fair bit of lag between the adjustment and the water changing- I think the softener has to run through a cycle for the change to take effect, but I could totally be mistaken about this- it's been a long time.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:01 PM on February 12, 2023

I always thought non-treated water felt "slimy" and soft water does not. I'm wondering if the unit is operating fine but just out of salt. You can open the unit up and check to see if there are salt pellets loaded inside. The previous owners probably neglected this in the process of selling the house and moving out.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:41 AM on February 13, 2023

Response by poster: Plenty of salt. We refilled it when we moved in.
posted by Joleta at 5:03 AM on February 13, 2023

Best answer: In general, soft water feels slimy (not hard water). It has to do with the lack of minerals in soft water, and how this forms different soap suds. One thing to try is using less soap in general.

You may be able to find water quality reports for your city that report the hardness by googling a bit. Even without that information, idb has it - adjust the number downward and see if it improves!

You could even try skipping it all together/turning it off and seeing how it goes. Hard/soft water is just aesthetic preference when you're at normal/lower levels (aside from some minor benefits to soft water with respect to plumbing/water appliance life).

Source - water engineer living in a city with very soft water.
posted by Paper rabies at 6:40 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

You can test your water hardness with test strips like these. I use these occasionally with my treated water to verify that the water softener is working. You can also use it to test your untreated water source: you probably have a way to get to your water before it goes through the softener. Maybe an outside hose? Or a valve near the water softener unit.

FWIW, "hard water" is usually water with calcium ions in it (or sometimes magnesium). The test strips are measuring the concentration of calcium and magnesium. A typical water softener exchanges the calcium for sodium, so now you have sodium ions in your water. I've read a lot of vague and contradictory things about why sodium-softened water feels "slimy" but everyone agrees it's the sodium ions that are the problem.

There are alternative water softeners. You can use potassium chloride as the salt instead of plain old sodium chloride. It's more expensive, but some folks use it because they are limiting their sodium consumption. Or they like how it feels more.

It's also possible to get a reverse osmosis device which will actually remove the minerals from your water, not just exchange them. There are units designed for low flow at, say, your kitchen faucet. Whole-house is possible but very expensive and it wastes an enormous amount of water.
posted by Nelson at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2023

Best answer: Hardness is not required to be reported in the annual CCR (Consumer Confidence Report) so it may not be posted on your water purveyor's website. That said, most utilities do run hardness tests and are happy to share the numbers. I'm a drinking water chemist and we get lots of calls on this topic (especially home brewers and aquarium operators).

As idb mentioned, you can also try adjusting your softener by lowering the hardness number.
posted by jraz at 7:55 AM on February 13, 2023

Response by poster: To follow up: Hardness was set at 20. I adjusted it down to 15 with some improvement. Then I found our city water website that reports water hardness in our area as 11 gr/gallon, so I adjusted the softener down to 11. Will see if that is a noticeable improvment.

Thanks all who responded.
posted by Joleta at 7:49 PM on February 14, 2023