The Homeowner Thread

[Kepler]

I know there are others but I could not guess the funny but obscure thread title.

What do folks think of water softeners/refiners, in particular Ecowater 370x line?

I should mentioned Phoenix has the worst white people water in the country.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

For the most part, I find water softener overrated and not as necessary as people think. If you grew up drinking hard water, even occasionally (e.g., your family has a Lake Huron dacha with a well), you sort of get used to it unless it's high in sulfur and stinks. Years ago, my grandfather finally had water softener installed and actually kind of miss that "squeaky clean" feeling immediately after a shower with water very high in iron and limestone.

That said, being desert, I imagine the water in Phoenix is very sulfurous and probably high in crap like arsenic, too (which you need an RO system to remediate).

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Interesting, I never feel clean in hard water. I think it’s due to having fine porous hair, so washing in hard water makes me look like a grease bomb

 

[SJHovey]

I was told we needed our water softener, and need to keep it filled, because of our on demand tankless hot water system. Apparently the inside of those systems will get clogged if you don't have a water softener, but I have no idea.

Personally, I prefer to shower with soft water.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I would actually believe that.

Water quality varies so much by city. You basically have to have a softener in Edina but many of the St. Paul burbs around wbl have fantastic water

 

[Kepler]

Interesting, I never feel clean in hard water. I think it’s due to having fine porous hair, so washing in hard water makes me look like a grease bomb

I am going to guess your skin was a war zone disaster as a teen but since 35 you are amazingly youthful. My wife's hair and skin are like this and goddamn she could pass for 15 years younger, it's terrifying and wonderful and oh shit it's not her skin she's an immortal, isn't she? Well, she hasn't sucked out my blood to prolong her unnatural life yet.

 

[Kepler]

Water quality varies so much by city.

Very much so.

In Phoenix you could quarry our water for rare earth minerals, chromium, and tasty tasty arsenic.

In Scottsdale they have no minerals but they dump in so much chlorine to kill post-antibiotic immunity superbacteria that the water is as undrinkable as your local pool.

In Flagstaff the water is pure magnesium and calcium and a brand new water heater will scale and blow within 5 years if the water is not treated.

Ostensibly, all of this water comes from common sources. It's the city treatment regimes that make it vary so wildly. The only commonality is they all are terrible.

 

[state of hockey]

I would actually believe that.

Water quality varies so much by city. You basically have to have a softener in Edina but many of the St. Paul burbs around wbl have fantastic water.

I figured it was all where is comes from. MPLS pulls its water from the river and surface water usually doesn’t require softening. But WBL uses aquifers much like St Louis Park, and it the latter we definitely need our softener.

 

[St. Clown]

I would actually believe that.

Water quality varies so much by city. You basically have to have a softener in Edina but many of the St. Paul burbs around wbl have fantastic water

A number of SP suburbs get their water service from St. Paul, not just those on the north side, because of its high quality. The cities along the south side of the Mississippi use them until you get to Sunfish Lake.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I am going to guess your skin was a war zone disaster as a teen but since 35 you are amazingly youthful. My wife's hair and skin are like this and goddamn she could pass for 15 years younger, it's terrifying and wonderful and oh shit it's not her skin she's an immortal, isn't she? Well, she hasn't sucked out my blood to prolong her unnatural life yet.

Uhh how did you know this lol

 

[dxmnkd316]

I was told we needed our water softener, and need to keep it filled, because of our on demand tankless hot water system. Apparently the inside of those systems will get clogged if you don't have a water softener, but I have no idea.

Personally, I prefer to shower with soft water.

You should absolutely keep that softener going. The fouling on the tubes, depending on just how hard the water is, could drastically reduce the heat transfer (and potentially destroy the unit) for that thing in just a few years.

Tanked water heaters tend to be less an issue depending on the design. But people should absolutely be cleaning and flushing their tanks annually.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Interesting, I never feel clean in hard water. I think it’s due to having fine porous hair, so washing in hard water makes me look like a grease bomb

This is true. The hard water tends to make it difficult for the soaps to do what they need to do AND make it more difficult to fully rinse them off. So it’s probably a double whammy effect of leaving residue and not being as effective as soaps.

This is even more apparent in dishwashers due to the temperatures and type of detergents and doubly doubly so since they got rid of trisodium phosphate from most detergents.

 

[Kepler]

Based on the water usage I think our water refiner is going to flush the system and "rebrine" it or whatever it's called about every 3 weeks. I don't know when I will need to re-top the salt. Every quarter maybe? I don't know. When it tells me to.

The change in the taste of the water was immediate. My son-in-law has never had anything but hard water and he hates showering in soft water. I don't notice quite so much.

 

[dxmnkd316]

I figured it was all where is comes from. MPLS pulls its water from the river and surface water usually doesn’t require softening. But WBL uses aquifers much like St Louis Park, and it the latter we definitely need our softener.

A lot of richer cities have city-wide softening. I believe Blaine does.

 

[Kepler]

Based on the water usage I think our water refiner is going to flush the system and "rebrine" it or whatever it's called about every 3 weeks.

The change in the taste of the water was immediate. My son-in-law has never had anything but hard water and he hates showering in soft water. I don't notice quite so much.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Soft water is more “slippery” than hard when you use soaps.

It’s because they can actually do their job. It’s a personal preference I suppose, but know that soft water is far superior for cleaning.

 

[state of hockey]

A lot of richer cities have city-wide softening. I believe Blaine does.

I do remember my grandmother’s townhouse not needing a softener growing up, but I also remember it tasting absolutely horrible. They don’t correlate, obviously.

I read up on St. Louis Park water some more and I kind of wish I didn’t. There was a big creosoting plant here that polluted the ever loving hell out of the groundwater for almost 60 years. There’s a ton of treatment going on and it’s safe now, but it remains some of the most tested water in the state.

 

[dxmnkd316]

I do remember my grandmother’s townhouse not needing a softener growing up, but I also remember it tasting absolutely horrible. They don’t correlate, obviously.

I read up on St. Louis Park water some more and I kind of wish I didn’t. There was a big creosoting plant here that polluted the ever loving hell out of the groundwater for almost 60 years. There’s a ton of treatment going on and it’s safe now, but it remains some of the most tested water in the state.

Sounds like the east metro

 

[Proud2baLaker]

Let the bears pay the bear tax. I pay the Homer tax.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Soft water is more “slippery” than hard when you use soaps.

It’s because they can actually do their job. It’s a personal preference I suppose, but know that soft water is far superior for cleaning.

And a pro tip for shampoo- people have been gaslit by marketing on sulphates. Sulphates actually clean your scalp and while someone with colored hair won’t want to use them every time they wash, using every 3-4 keeps things clean.

I hate that marketing ploy