Water softeners

[tillyh345]

We are thinking of having a water softener installed, can anyone recommend a product and how much this would cost? Thank you in advance xx

[buildersmate]

There are a few reviews here, but not enough to be statistically useful.
http://www.reviewcentre.com/products4620.html
I looked at Tapworks, Permutit and Culligan before selecting the latter, 5 years ago. It has worked fine since.
I asked my local plumbers' merchant what they sold a lot of, before choosing Culligan. They are not the cheapest but I reckoned they were well-constructed.
Water softeners are pathetically simple in concept but often sold in the same way as double-glazing - salesmen on fat commissions - so beware. You almost certainly need to factor in installation costs - say 0.5 to 1.0 day of the plumbers time.
They all work the same way - an ion-exchange reservoir over which the hard water passes, switching calcium ions for sodium ones. Then after a period of time the machine uses salt in the reservoir to flush through the system (at night), removing the calcium ions down the sewer and replacing with sodium ions from the salt solution. Mine measures the volume of water actually passing through the machine to calculate when it is time to regenerate - cheaper models work on a fixed time period (typically one week) to determine when to regenerate.