School me on water softeners

[Jay5.9L]

The new house has very hard water and we were being bombarded by companies offering a free 30 day trial water softener. Utah Water was the first to swoop in so we are "testing" one of their basic units. So far its doing a good job. We have also had offers from Superior Water and from the plumbers who were contracted for the house.

So what should I look for in a softener? What companies have you had good experience with?

The house was plumbed with a softener loop so should I save some $$ and buy a Home Depot/Lowe's system and install my self.

 

[DOSS]

My friend Sam's house wasn't plumbed for a water softener but he took up one of those companies on their 30 day trial, they plumbed the house up nice and then he said that he wasn't interested and got a cheapo from Home Depot and says that it works better than the superior water (supposed to be one of the best) softener.

 

[ATOYA4U]

I say the control valve is the most important component of a softener. I also say you should decide if you are going to want to be a DIYer and fix a problem with your control valve or if you want to be dependent on the usually one and only local national brand dealer. If you want to go with a national brand dealer, you're locked into whatever they sell. I currently install Dominator water softners and have had 0 complaints from any of my customers. If you want to be an independent DIYer, buy a softener with a Clack WS-1 control valve. It was designed to be the easiest to program and repair. Clack has many fewer parts; and features like soft water brine refill and variable reserve along with gobs of history like the max gpm each of the last 6 days and the highest ever etc. etc., and then troubleshooting data.

 

[JoeT]

Herriman has very hard water also. I had a Kenmore water softener installed, along with a filter on the main line with a reverse osmosis system under the kitchen sink. Then I fill a Brita water pitcher from that. I've had no issues with the Kenmore unit, just added salt.

 

[Caleb]

Don't buy one of their systems. What you will pay for them, you can buy the nicest unit you can find from Lowes/Sears/Home Depot/etc and still have money left over to buy a second many years later when your first one fails. There's many different types of water softeners but the main thing you want is that it only recycles on-demand. Many will cycle daily whether it needs it or not which just wastes salt.

 

[MR.CJ-7]

I have a "cheapo" from depot and it works great. IIRC paid less than $500 for the unit. Install was super easy. Ditto to the on demand cycle. I use very little salt.

 

[JackKeslerCustoms]

Don't buy one of their systems. What you will pay for them, you can buy the nicest unit you can find from Lowes/Sears/Home Depot/etc and still have money left over to buy a second many years later when your first one fails. There's many different types of water softeners but the main thing you want is that it only recycles on-demand. Many will cycle daily whether it needs it or not which just wastes salt.

X2. Just don't buy the cheapest one you can get though, I did that in Riverton and it only lasted 18 mo. After that, I "rented" one from superior ($22 per mo) and it worked great. It was the equivalent of a +-$500 unit at HD.

 

[Jay5.9L]

Update:

The trial period softener is working well and its nice not having all the hard water stains on every faucet. The follow up guy from Utah water came over last night and gave the high pressure sales on their line up. To be fair the guy was not overly aggressive and never bad mouthed his competitors. So now it comes down to cost vs. warranty. I can go get the home depot bad as for under $600 or can get Utah Water's top of the line for about 3 times more but it has a life time warranty on the entire system. Plus the Utah Water guy made some interesting points on how the DIY ones are not built as well as the ones from them/Superior/Culligan, etc.

 

[Caleb]

Like I said in my first post. IMO, the lifetime warranty doesn't mean much because you're paying three times the cost. The softener from HD or Lowes will probably last you 10-15 years. In 10-15 years you can buy a second and still be money ahead. Then in another 10-15 buy another and you've finally broken even. Do you think technology won't have changed in that time? So have a current model and spend less, or spend three times as much and have an outdated model...the choice seems pretty obvious to me

 

[Jay5.9L]

Good point

 

[MR.CJ-7]

no warranty and no problems on my waterboss from depot. I've had it 4 years now and if it died tomorrow I'd buy another one without hesitation