Applying Crucial Sanitation Concepts to Real Life

Adding A Water Softener To Your Home's Plumbing

A water softening system can be an excellent feature to add to your home, as it can substantially improve the water quality inside the house. Yet, many homeowners may consider these systems to be somewhat mysterious in nature, and this leads to them have a few basic questions.

How Will a Water Softener System Work to Improve the Water in Your Home?

Hard water is caused by an excessive amount of minerals or sediments in the water. Unfortunately, these particles will be too small to be removed by traditional filtration systems. However, a water softener will utilize salt to remove these substances, as the salt can actually bind to these substances as the water passes through it. While it is easy to think that this will cause the water that is passing through it to develop a strong salty taste, these effects will actually be minimal.  

How Will You Know If the Salt Is Needing to Be Changed?

Periodically changing the salt in the water softener system will be a necessary step to keep it running effectively. Luckily, modern water softening systems can make it easy for a homeowner to know when this is needing to be done, as there may be an indicator on the system that will have a gauge on it to notify the homeowner when the salt is needing to be replaced. Without one of these systems, you will have to periodically check the salt reservoir, to ensure that it is filled. Luckily, a water softening system's salt reservoir should only need to be changed or refreshed every few months, which can help to keep this work to a minimum.

Will a Water Softener Take Long to Soften the Water It Is Processing?

Homeowners may assume that a water softener will work similarly to a water heater, in that it will have a reservoir that stores the water that has been treated. This can lead to people thinking that it is likely that the water softener will run out of water at some point, if it experiences heavy use. However, this is not the case, as the water softener will generally treat the water that is currently flowing through it, as needed. While the need for the water to flow through the salts and filtration components can slightly reduce the capacity of the plumbing system, a professionally installed system is less likely to cause these problems, as it will be balanced to the home's water pressure and plumbing needs.

For more information about a residential water softener installation, contact a local company.