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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 12:12:04 GMT -5
Anything I need to know. We are getting one installed right now. It is the whole house not just the hot water. They will be installing a faucet outside for reg water for outside use. What about my irrigation system, is that being bypassed, Shoot should have asked that.
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Mad Dawg Wiccan
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Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Mar 31, 2011 12:14:57 GMT -5
I would have suggested to just do the hot water. Softeners that use salt make the water unhealthy to drink due to increased sodium.
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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 12:16:22 GMT -5
Damn, we debated that. Now I am going to have to use the fridge water for everything. I can't get anything right.
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ken a.k.a OMK
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Post by ken a.k.a OMK on Mar 31, 2011 12:20:59 GMT -5
Good thing you kept the outside water off the system. No sense in paying for that. Like MDW said some systems use salts, but some use reverse osmosis.
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Jake 48
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Post by Jake 48 on Mar 31, 2011 12:23:02 GMT -5
Lulu, don't beat yourself up, should be fairly straight forward to separate the hot and cold water. You save on salt also since it will last longer. Look into a filter for the cold water for the kitchen sink and fridge. Bet all the water used for cooking/ prep comes from the kitchen sink
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Mad Dawg Wiccan
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Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Mar 31, 2011 12:24:41 GMT -5
RO purifies but doesn't soften. I do know some systems that use potassium chloride, more expensive but not unhealthy.
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Post by ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ on Mar 31, 2011 12:29:34 GMT -5
We bypassed the kitchen cold water.
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verrip1
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Post by verrip1 on Mar 31, 2011 12:35:07 GMT -5
RO will reduce calcium and magnesium ions as well as all other ions. Zeolite water softeners simply replace calcium and magnesium with sodium, and give no reduction of other ions.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2011 12:45:17 GMT -5
some systems use salts, but some use reverse osmosis.
Maybe it's just me but the systems that use salt just make the water taste salty to me. I don't like the taste of salt so that just makes me go from water that I don't like to water with a salty taste which I don't like. That's why I don't have one.
As for reverse osmosis (Warning, I don't know if this is true but I was told this by the people that sell the units & that I buy water from). I was told that you just want a small reverse osmosis unit for drinking water. You shouldn't do all of the water that comes into your house because it does something bad to the pipes. As I remember it the bad was drawing minerals out of the pipes which I guess is a bad thing). Anyway I would "assume" they told me the truth because they would have made a lot more money selling or renting me the RO unit. It wouldn't do me any good just to get a unit for drinking because it's not a big deal to buy drinking water here ($1 for 5 gal). I was wanting it for the shower, bathtub, & possibly a spa. Our water here is not something you want to sit in for an extended time period. This was just what I heard.
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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 13:00:03 GMT -5
Okay, so the whole house is being done. We have a fridge water dispenser that is filtered but it takes ages. So what do I need for the kitchen sink faucet, one of the things that is under the sink and don't want to give the dogs and cook with the softened water or can I.
On a side note I am in horribly bad mood today, we had to pay guys to till the back yard and now have to order sod and DH is annoying me, we NEVER agree on anything.
Plus I have to pay my car insurance and that is hefty.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Mar 31, 2011 13:15:14 GMT -5
lulu, in our houses, the irrigation water comes off the water line before it goes into the house to the water softener. I suspect that your homes plumbing system is designed the same way. The water softener installers I have watched work take the irrigation system into account when they re-route the water flow to the water softener.
I don't get the comments about salty water. Unless the timer on your water softener is set wrong, and you are using water while the system is re-charging, the only water in the softener tank should be fresh water. Had salt based water softeners for the last 25 years and I don't remember ever tasting salty water.
Regarding reverse osmosis systems and damage to pipes, I seem to remember hearing about this, but can't imagine it's a big deal. I used to work in a plant that made jams, jellies, and preserves for a national food company. We had an enormous reverse osmosis system to remove minerals from the water that was used to process our product. The plant was a long way from new. Never had any problems with water supply piping.
My biggest concerns with home reverse osmosis systems are the cost (around here they wanted about $5K to do only the kitchen sink while a whole house water softener was about $750), the limited supply of filtered water (seems to me the salesman was talking about less than 5 gallons an hour), and that the filtration process consumed about 3 gallons of untreated water for every gallon of filtered water it produced. I believe that the rest of the water went down the drain. Since I live in the desert, it didn't seem like a good idea to waste two times the water that went through the kitchen sink, and then pay for waste water processing on that water to boot. I thought that it sounded pretty expensive to operate a reverse osmosis filtration system. Some people may not like the taste of reverse osmosis filtered water. All of the things that create the flavor have been removed (who knew plain water had a taste?). Remember watching a TV program about making bottled water. They used reverse osmosis filters to remove all the minerals from the water, then added back a special assortment of minerals to create the flavor they wanted and to ensure that the water would always taste the same, regardless of the time of year and source of supply.
A side note. Salt based water softeners do an effective job of removing calcium from the water. The water supply to our current home contains a number of minerals in addition to calcium. We have some deposits around sink stoppers, etc., because the water softener doesn't take all of the minerals out. Guess that's why they push the reverse osmosis systems around here. They get everything out.
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Mad Dawg Wiccan
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Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Mar 31, 2011 13:20:19 GMT -5
<<Okay, so the whole house is being done. We have a fridge water dispenser that is filtered but it takes ages. So what do I need for the kitchen sink faucet, one of the things that is under the sink and don't want to give the dogs and cook with the softened water or can I.>>
Household filters won't remove the sodium. Sorry to break the bad news when you're having a bad day, but you're stuck with it unless you somehow bypass the softener for the kitchen.
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Mad Dawg Wiccan
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Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Mar 31, 2011 13:26:18 GMT -5
<<Regarding reverse osmosis systems and damage to pipes, I seem to remember hearing about this, but can't imagine it's a big deal. I used to work in a plant that made jams, jellies, and preserves for a national food company. We had an enormous reverse osmosis system to remove minerals from the water that was used to process our product. The plant was a long way from new. Never had any problems with water supply piping.>>
I suspect the piping was stainless steel. The pharmaceutical plant I used to work at produced water so pure (<1uS) it would even attack 304 stainless, we had to use 316 or better.
And yes, softened water tastes salty to me too.
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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 13:27:01 GMT -5
1800 for the water softener. 600 for the sod. 500 for labor. 1000 to car insurance. Fuck.
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Post by ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ on Mar 31, 2011 13:37:33 GMT -5
When we bypassed the water softener to the kitchen cold water, the ice maker for the fridge was automatically bypassed too since it's hooked up to the kitchen cold water line.
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ken a.k.a OMK
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Post by ken a.k.a OMK on Mar 31, 2011 13:42:40 GMT -5
My last house was on a well, 280 feet deep in a rocky, acidic area in Maryland. The water was hard but didn't taste bad. Soap didn't suds up well and my wife said her hair didn't feel as soft as when she showered at her mothers. We never added a softener though. The plumbing fixtures were affected by the minerals.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Mar 31, 2011 14:10:37 GMT -5
Verrip - this isn't exactly your normal type of post. Usually you are hilarious - not all knowledgable and shit.
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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 14:14:17 GMT -5
Bratty daughter just came home and gave me an attitude because the water was off. Poor water softener guy knocked on the door and told me he could turn the water on so she could get a drink. Yeah we were shouting.
Yea I will be taking some xanax soon to take the edge of. I want to rip the throats out of all my family members.
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kgb18
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Post by kgb18 on Mar 31, 2011 14:16:46 GMT -5
We need a water softener. My parents have one because they have well water. I've never noticed that their water tastes salty. We have city water, but it's so hard I'm surprised it doesn't hurt to shower. It leaves a nasty, white coating on everything. And I have to use more detergent because of it.
One thing I notice now that I live somewhere with hard water is that my parents' soft water feels "slimy" or slippery to me.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Mar 31, 2011 14:41:34 GMT -5
The marketing materials for those give the amounts of sodium that are actually included. Of course it is a chart, so you have to know how hard your water is. It said the average is 100mg per quart. For cooking with, probably not a big deal - I mean, I salt the pasta water anyway. For drinking that is about 5% - 7% of the recommended intake - if you drink a full quart of water.
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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 15:23:11 GMT -5
aahhhh it didn't feel like I got all the soap of my hands.....me no likey so far.
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verrip1
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Post by verrip1 on Mar 31, 2011 15:30:06 GMT -5
Verrip - this isn't exactly your normal type of post. Usually you are hilarious - not all knowledgable and shit. OK. Ahem - 'Naggie, you should get the RO unit because the brine makes an excellent enema or douche. At 3 gallons per minute, it shouldn't take you too many hours to get that 'fresh' feeling.' Better?
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Mar 31, 2011 15:44:33 GMT -5
ROFL!
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Post by 973beachbum on Mar 31, 2011 16:06:09 GMT -5
I think the right answer depends on why you are getting a water softener as to if you should separate out the cold water lines. If someone in your family has kidney problems or high blood pressure or something that requires them to restrict their salt that is different and you would need to make arrangements to separate the cold water line at least to the kitchen or buy bottled water for drinking etc. If you are getting the softener because you have hard water that is different. We have extremely hard water. We have very high iron levels as well as other minerals in the water naturally. So if I wanted a tap not to go through the softener I really should just pick the pipe that I want to rust through and burst the most because that is what will happen. I don't think DH would have gone for that.
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Mar 31, 2011 16:28:00 GMT -5
Lulu, we've been in this house over 10 years, and I STILL remember what a pain it was to get a water softener, washer & dryer hooked up and all the other "fun" projects when you first move in.
Hang in there!
By the way, our water was so hard you could tap dance on it before we installed the softener!
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Mad Dawg Wiccan
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Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Mar 31, 2011 16:35:44 GMT -5
aahhhh it didn't feel like I got all the soap of my hands.....me no likey so far. Feels slimy. doesn't it?
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Mar 31, 2011 16:39:53 GMT -5
And yes, it takes longer to wash the soap off your hands after the softener is installed. Kinda weird, huh?
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Post by lulubean on Mar 31, 2011 17:25:40 GMT -5
Weird hope I get used to it. We had the house built 10 years ago this June and I still have a list of what I want. Between maintenance and things we have done it takes forever. I imagine we aren't going any where any time soon. BTW when should you replace the roof?
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Mar 31, 2011 21:05:43 GMT -5
After a bad hailstorm!!!
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