Water Softener Installation

Usually not. City water there is already soft, so a softener wouldn't change the hardness number. If the taste or smell bothers you, whole-home carbon or drinking-water RO is the better fit.

Chlorine and chloramine are hard on softener resin. Putting catalytic carbon first protects the resin and gives every tap chlorine-free water.

Size comes from the grains removed per day: people, times gallons per person per day, times hardness. Very hard water, like the 14.6 grains per gallon Thornton publishes for summer, removes more grains every day, so it needs more capacity to avoid regenerating every few days. Your scorecard gives the hardness we size from.

Plenty of handy homeowners do. It is mostly plumbing: a bypass valve, a drain line that ends in an air gap, and a brine tank overflow. Installing one for someone else is different: Colorado treats water conditioning equipment as plumbing, so that takes a licensed plumber or a registered water conditioning contractor. Either way, test your hardness before and after so you know it is working.

For an install done for hire, yes. Colorado treats water conditioning equipment as plumbing, so it has to be installed by a licensed plumber or a registered water conditioning contractor, and some cities also require a permit. We pull the permit where your city requires one.

After the sediment and carbon filters. Sediment protects the softener valve, and carbon removes the chlorine and chloramine that wear out softener resin. On a well, iron and sulfur filtration also goes before the softener.

Where the main line enters the house: after the branch to the outdoor spigots and before the water heater. It also needs a drain for the regeneration water and an outlet for a metered valve. Outdoor taps usually stay unsoftened, because lawns and gardens don't need soft water.

Yes. The drain line has to end above the drain with an open air gap, never piped straight into it, so wastewater can't be siphoned back into your supply. Local plumbing code sets the exact distance.

Softened water is ordinary drinking water with one change: the softener swaps the hardness minerals for sodium. A common rule of thumb is roughly 7 to 8 milligrams of sodium per liter for every grain per gallon it removes, so the harder your water, the more it adds. If you would rather not drink it, we leave one cold tap unsoftened or add reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink.

Often 10 to 15 years or more, and the resin is usually what wears first. Chlorine and chloramine shorten resin life, which is one reason carbon goes in ahead of it. On an open-platform valve, worn seals and pistons are standard parts, so a repair doesn't mean a new softener.

A little. Each regeneration sends some water and brine down the drain, and you buy salt. A metered softener sized to your house regenerates only when the resin is actually spent, which keeps both lower than a timer that regenerates on a schedule.

Yes, and on most Denver-area city water it is the usual setup: catalytic carbon first, then the softener. A single cabinet that does both is convenient, but two tanks let each one be sized properly and replaced on its own schedule.

One installed after iron removal and sized from the lab's hardness and iron numbers. Iron fouls softener resin, so on most wells the softener goes after the iron and sulfur filter, on a metered valve.

A hardness test strip gives you a rough number in a minute. Scale on fixtures and spots on glasses suggest hard water but don't measure it. Your utility's water quality report gives the average, and our in-home test measures your own tap by titration.

No. No color-changing drops, no demonstrations and no two-hour pitch at the kitchen table. You get your readings in writing, what they mean, and a straight answer, including that you don't need anything. You keep the scorecard either way.

You keep salt in the brine tank, usually a bag every 4 to 8 weeks, and each regeneration sends some water and brine down the drain. Softened water carries a little more sodium, roughly 7 to 8 milligrams per liter for every grain per gallon it removes. It needs floor space for the brine tank, a drain and an outlet, and your outdoor taps stay unsoftened. If your hardness doesn't justify all that, we'll tell you.

It depends on what bothers you. A salt-free conditioner uses no salt and no drain, and it can cut down scale in pipes and heaters, but it doesn't remove hardness: a hardness test reads about the same afterwards. For drinking water, reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink is the usual choice. Salt-free vs. salt-based water softeners compares the two.