It takes a whole lot of effort to get clean water. But when you get it right, it’s certainly worth it.
So: What does it take to get clean, healthy water from your tap? And what happens when you get it wrong?
Who Should Install Your Water Treatment Solution?
When it comes to water, you’re looking for clean, healthy, tasty and safe.
Just like anything else in life where you want the very best — and where there’s a potential for things to go very wrong — you’re going to want to go with a professional.
The Department of Public Health requires that all water softeners and other water treatment products be installed by a licensed plumber. Common sense dictates it, too.
When It Comes to Water Softeners, There’s a World of Options, But Not All Are Created Equal
Your first basic rule of water treatment solutions? Pay now or pay later. In other words: When it comes to temptingly low prices on equipment, keep in mind that you get what you pay for.
There’s nothing as expensive as trying to use a cheap water treatment product. While it can be extremely tempting to go with a cheaper alternative or cut corners in some other way, be prepared for repairs and malfunctions that may end up being more costly than if you had just gone with the most trusted version of a water softener.
On our Angel Water blog, we get questions about water softeners constantly. There’s such a large variety to choose from! You have dozens of options.
Why Would You Want a Water Softener? Hard Water Causes Large and Small Problems in Your Home and on Your Body
Seeing film on your dishes? Have cloudy residue on your shower door? Frustrated that your laundry never seems to get fully clean?
Or, the worse problems: Are you experiencing buildup in your pipes and plumbing? Has your dishwasher or water heater stopped working?
Let’s start at the root. Think of a water droplet as the biggest party on the planet. Everything wants to hitch a ride! Whether it’s a carcinogen like Radium 228 or Radium 226; or Trihalomethanes (THMs) — plenty of undesirable substances can get attached to water droplets as water travels through the plumbing of your home. Once that water hits the air and gets oxidized, those substances — such as the rock that has attached itself — pop off. This leads to gray staining in toilets, unsightly rings, cloudy dishes and dirty-looking glassware, etc. It all happens because rock attached itself to water droplets, and then that rock popped off once it hit the air.
To solve the problem, of course, you’ll want to take the rock off your water droplets. There are three ways to do this.
The 3 Ways to Soften Your Water: Ion Exchange, Salt-Free Conditioner, Whole-House RO
The most popular way is via ion exchange, i.e., water softeners. Water softener products will attract, or pull the calcium off your water droplets. The rock gets attached to resin beads or filter material, which carry the contaminants away. This is the most common method.
Another common way to soften your water is with salt-free conditioners. These protect the plumbing of your home so that it doesn’t get clogged; it’s that simple.
But there are a variety of misconceptions about salt-free conditioners. At Angel Water, we’ve had a lot of customers who were trying to solve problems like:
- Acne
- Itchy skin
- Rough feeling on the hair
- White film on dishes
Some people have a strong aversion to using salt for a water softener; thus, they search online for a salt-free conditioner. But there’s a big asterisk to using salt-free conditioners: They don’t take calcium off your water. In fact, it holds the element onto the water droplet. This makes this solution less than ideal for the people suffering from the above problems. Because the minute your water hits air or gets warm in the water heater, your conditioner will oxidize off the water droplet. Therefore, you won’t see the benefits and it won’t solve the problems listed above (and others). In fact, the only benefit you can expect to see with this solution is that it protects your home plumbing.
The third method to use for water softening — and the least-common way — is a whole-house reverse osmosis (RO) system. This provides a salt-free solution for you to remove calcium from your water droplets. The problem? It’s very big, and very expensive.
To ballpark: whole-house RO starts at around $10,000 for a small house. Therefore, it’s not a viable solution for many. It can be appropriate for people who want really good, clean water, and who don’t want to use salt or who have highly allergic reactions to other contaminants in water. For example: If your tap water is bothering you so much that you need to do something like bathe using bottled water, then the situation is likely dire enough that whole-house RO would be the right solution for you. Whole-house RO systems are great at removing rock, as well as taking out other contaminants like chlorine, fluoride and more.
Choose the Right Water Treatment Option to Improve Your Water, Your Home, Your Health and Your Life
The issues surrounding water treatment options are more complicated than can be covered in a short blog post. On our Angel Water YouTube channel, we delve into exactly what you need to look for when you go shopping for a solution.
Bottom line: Generally speaking, the cheaper your water treatment solution is upfront, the faster it will have problems in the long run. So if you buy one for cheap, expect to pay much more for servicing and other expenses. If you spend a bit more upfront, then you won’t have to spend as much on service and on other problems.
A broken water softener will create more problems than it will solve. And it will cost more money than it will save! For starters, your gas and electric bills will go up if your water heater breaks. You might ruin your dishes, your clothing and/or your dishwasher. It’s always better to spend more upfront and save yourself the money — and hassle — in the long run.
