Water softeners

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I live in a hard-water area. Do any water softeners work, and / or how much does a decent one cost to install? Any recommendations?

[drochit]

Water softeners do work and bring a number of benefits. There's a number of different systems available. This link will explain them to you.
http://www.hardwater.org/water_treatment.html
This link to Derek Jacob's web page will give you rather more scientific detail about water hardness and how softeners work.
http://www.geocities.com/lessthanreilly/science.ht
ml

[woofgang]

As a comparatively new convert, I would say a definite yes to the benefits of a water softener..softer clothes, shinier haie, less itchy skin, cleaner sinks and taps.We went for the osmotic kind rather than magnetic, after doing the research and we bought ours at B and Q, it was WAY less expensive than a specialist firm and would have been easy to fit were it not for the fact that the water ran the wrong way round our house (kitchen sink last instead of first). Cost to buy and fit about �600 all in but as I said, we had to get the water flow reversed, if not my partner would have diy'd it, saving around �200. We've had it in for 3 years now and I've probably already saved more than the installation cost in not buying descaling products!

[Toglet]

You have to be very careful that they are fitted to the correct taps only. It is possible to be poisoned by them. Go to www.pedigreedogs.co.uk and look for the article on water softener dangers.

[tracymort]

I was wondering about that. I live in essex and just came back from holiday in eastbourne way. Didn't realise until i went there that it wasn't normal for your tea cup to look so manky it looked 10 yrs old after one cuppa in it! It was great, love this soft water stuff! Nice clean mugs!

[woofgang]

You probably know this, and toglet has also mentioned it but best advice is not to drink osmotically softened water as it contains sodium instead of calcium. We live in Hampshire (water classified as hard or very hard) and now have one of those filter jugs...nicer tea, clean cups and way less scale in the kettle

[sft42]

Or just live in Scotland, take a look at a map and see all those lovely lochs full of soft water for making cups of tea!