How We Got Soft Water Without Spending a Fortune
Buying a water softener is one of those household purchases you'd rather not make.
Mostly because you spend so much money on something that you can't really enjoy like you would a TV or couch.
But there are ways to buy water softeners without spending a small fortune.
Here's how we did it.
We had the usual home visit from the water treatment company (you know, sign up to win a car and you get harassed by them to do an in home demonstration that shows you how awful your water is).
After he showed us how hard our water was we decided it was time to investigate water softeners, but not at his prices.
Sheesh.
It was over $1000 plus regular visits for salt, etc.
Surely there's a better way.
So we went to Sears and looked at their units.
We looked at Menard's.
Home Depot.
Everywhere we could imagine in the home improvement world that would give us price, size and feature comparisons.
We ended up spending about $400 on a unit that would handle water for 4 people and we could get our salt at Sam's Club for about $3 a bag (they usually average around $5 a bag in my area) and it would cost us only $20 a year or less to maintain the system.
Definitely a bargain.
You may be like I was, wondering if a water softener was really necessary? If you have noticed spotty dishes, soap scum, soap left over in the washer and stiffer clothes then you probably have hard water.
There is also a noticeable taste difference between hard and soft water.
Having soft water will allow you to use less soap in the dishwasher and washing machine and use fewer cleaning supplies getting rid of the hard water stains thereby offsetting some of the cost of the unit itself.
Hard water has a higher mineral content, usually of calcium and magnesium.
The home water inspector will give you a number to measure how hard your water is based on the mineral content in grains per gallon.
Water softeners can be installed by your handyman husband or you can hire a plumber to do it.
We did our own install and it wasn't hard.
Mostly because you spend so much money on something that you can't really enjoy like you would a TV or couch.
But there are ways to buy water softeners without spending a small fortune.
Here's how we did it.
We had the usual home visit from the water treatment company (you know, sign up to win a car and you get harassed by them to do an in home demonstration that shows you how awful your water is).
After he showed us how hard our water was we decided it was time to investigate water softeners, but not at his prices.
Sheesh.
It was over $1000 plus regular visits for salt, etc.
Surely there's a better way.
So we went to Sears and looked at their units.
We looked at Menard's.
Home Depot.
Everywhere we could imagine in the home improvement world that would give us price, size and feature comparisons.
We ended up spending about $400 on a unit that would handle water for 4 people and we could get our salt at Sam's Club for about $3 a bag (they usually average around $5 a bag in my area) and it would cost us only $20 a year or less to maintain the system.
Definitely a bargain.
You may be like I was, wondering if a water softener was really necessary? If you have noticed spotty dishes, soap scum, soap left over in the washer and stiffer clothes then you probably have hard water.
There is also a noticeable taste difference between hard and soft water.
Having soft water will allow you to use less soap in the dishwasher and washing machine and use fewer cleaning supplies getting rid of the hard water stains thereby offsetting some of the cost of the unit itself.
Hard water has a higher mineral content, usually of calcium and magnesium.
The home water inspector will give you a number to measure how hard your water is based on the mineral content in grains per gallon.
Water softeners can be installed by your handyman husband or you can hire a plumber to do it.
We did our own install and it wasn't hard.
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