Water softeners are one of the most underrated home appliances in America today. While some new homes come with water softeners pre-installed, may new and old homes do not.
That leaves homeowners with raw, unfiltered city water. City water may be safe to drink, but that doesn’t necessarily mean its good water. The water may have a weird taste and it may leave scaling on your sink and toilet.
You can avoid these problems – and many more – by buying a water softener. There are dozens of advantages to buying a water softener or water conditioner. After much deliberation, we’ve narrowed our list down to the five best advantages:
5) Extend the life of your appliances
“Softening” your water simply refers to the act of reducing or eliminating dissolved minerals from the water – like calcium or magnesium. These minerals make the water “hard”, which can have a number of negative effects on your home and its appliances.
When you use a water softener, you can extend the life of your appliances. Most home appliances aren’t built to withstand hard water. Over time, scaling can build up within these appliances, causing all sorts of blockages, problems, and filtration issues. Softening your water extends the lifespan of many appliances, including:
-Dishwasher
-Washing machine
-Fridge (with ice cube maker)
-Toilets
Using hard water on an appliance won’t instantly break it. However, appliances will last much longer when using soft water compared to hard water.
4) Give your skin and hair a break
Hard water is problematic on your skin. It clogs your pores, which can lead to acne, dryness, and blotchiness.
Soft water, in comparison, does the opposite. Soft water encourages your skin’s natural oils to come to the surface of your skin, where they can easily be cleaned and washed away. You don’t need to buy expensive lotions or worry about dry skin: instead, you can relax knowing your water is helping your skin: not hurting it.
At the same time, hard water can be harmful to your hair. It can leave it dry and flat-looking. Soft water, on the other hand, makes your hair feel soft and gives it a healthier-looking glow.
Ultimately, installing a water softener is an easy way to give your skin and hair a makeover.
3) Use 80% less soap
Want to save money on soap? That’s one of the major benefits of soft water. Hard water is resistant to soap, which means you have to use significantly more soap when cleaning everything in your house.
Of course, with hard water, you’re doing even more cleaning than ever before. Hard water leaves scaling stains all over your toilets and sinks. So not only do you use more soap, but you spend more time cleaning than ever before. Nobody likes doing that.
Soft water installation companies will tell you that you'll use 80% less soap after installing a water softener. The real number is probably closer to 50% or 60% less soap – but that’s still a significant amount of money you’re saving.
Some even say that your water softener will pay for itself within one or two years based on how much you’re saving on soap!
2) Avoid water spots
Water spots are one of the most visible and annoying problems caused by hard water. Nobody likes to take their dishes out of the dishwasher only to find that they’re covered with unsightly spots.
If your dishwasher is leaving water spots, then your dishwasher might not be the appliance at fault! Instead, it could be a problem with your water: dissolved minerals build up on glassware, silverware, and dishes, leaving the unsightly water spots we all know and hate.
1) Improve the lifespan of fabrics by 15%
Think of all the fabrics you wash in your house in an average month. There are towels, dishcloths, shirts, pants, bed sheets, and countless other items. Hard water significantly reduces the lifespan of all these fabrics.
Some say that switching from hard water to soft water can improve the lifespan of your fabrics by 15% or more. Soft water is also friendly to detergent, which means you can use less detergent while still enjoying a better clean.
What’s the difference between a water softener and water conditioner?
Water softener companies typically offer a few different water cleaning systems. They offer water conditioners and water softeners. What’s the difference?
Well, water conditioners don’t typically remove the hardness from your water. Instead, they filter it in order to reduce sediment, chlorine, and other impurities from the water. Water conditioners also reduce scaling – although they typically don’t remove it entirely.
Ultimately, water softeners affect the quality of water throughout your entire house, while water conditioners mainly affect the taste of your water.
Talk to your local water softener experts to learn what kind of water filtration system is popular in your area! De Anza Water Conditioning currently services the San Francisco Bay Area and uses advanced reverse osmosis water filtration systems to vastly improve the taste and quality of the local water.
Friends Read Free