Calgary Water Softeners

[Brotato]

Hey guys,

In prepping the nest for a new arrival, I am entertaining the idea of a water softener for at least the showers, dishwasher and washing machine.

Any suggestions from fellow hardwatergarians (haha) on what the best 'bang for your buck' system is? I know there are cheap salt based units that require many trips to the basement with pellets, and I know there are other more exotic systems. I am definately willing to pay if there are benefits to the more expensive systems, but would like to know from other Calgarians what works best in our climate, with our water!

As an aside, I apologize for the quantity of Calgary-specific threads... This is one of the most well-informed Calgary-based forums around, so it's the only place I consider asking (online) for this kind of info...

[Ace]

We have a culligan, ours has an aquasensor or something that basically knows when to soften the water which helps utilize the salt properly...apparently with most softeners that don't have this, you have to go down and adjust the dial at different seasons of the year, which most people forget to do...

I think we literally only use 2 maybe 3 bags of salt all year. When we first signed up I got 4 bags of salt delivered every 3 months for a year or two included as part of the purchase...I still have salt left and have never had to actually go out and buy any yet.

Also take this with a grain of salt, but the culligan sales guy had a bunch of articles showing that 'saltless' water softening systems are basically a scam. I really had never heard of these so I didn't take too much notice to see if this was true or not.

[redforever]

You will probably need different units, depending on if you live in the country, or in the city. City water is already treated somewhat and is not as hard as country water is. If you live in the country, and have very hard water, or other issues such as iron, then the units with aquasensors might not be as effective in the long run. We had a Culligan water softener while we lived in Calgary and it was great...but in the country, the sensor gummed up or something. They might have different units out now though.

Whatever type of unit you do get, try to get one that you can program as close as possible to the actual water that you are using. That is one thing the sensor units are great for. The unit we have now recycles based on the number of gallons we use. The guys who installed it first tested our water for hardness, and then programmed it for that hardness, as well as the number of people in our household.

So it does not necessarily regenerate at a certain hour every day. It is dependent on when you use up the programmed amount of gallons. This works very well for when you are vacationing, because if you are not home, it does not regenerate as no water is going through the system. If you get a unit where you can only set day and time, they will always regenerate according to those settings, no matter if the you are home or not, or if the water is hard or still soft.