The Best Choice For Hard Water
Hard water makes it harder to wash your laundry and to bathe, leaves spots on your glasses, and may be responsible for clogging your appliance, boiler, or plumbing pipes.
A Fleck water softener works on a simple principle of chemistry that involves positive and negative charges on ions. Anyone familiar with a magnet knows the two negative or the two positive ends will push the magnets apart.
Water softeners work on that same principle. Salt-based water softener systems use carbon resin beads coated with sodium or potassium ions to attract and replace the calcium, magnesium, and iron. The metals causing your hard water are then carried out of your home’s water system into your water softener’s conditioning tank.
Since the salt used to remove calcium and other metals from your water will be used up after a period of time, there are several options for that renewal process.
Meter-based systems replenish the salt supply as necessary, but during its initial installation you will usually have to tell the machine your water hardness and how many users in your house on an average day will be taking showers.
Manual systems obviously have no timer or meter to renew your salt supply. Sure it sounds like more work than the other two, so buy a big water softener and you won’t have to perform this process as often.
Timer-based systems replace your salt at a specified time of day, or night, usually once per week. A fixed amount of salt is replaced each time this process takes place regardless of how much water was used during that period.
Salt-based water softeners work so well that it is probably your best choice if you live in an area of extreme water hardness. However, if you are worried because you are on a strict low sodium diet, simply use potassium salt which does cost more and talk to your doctor about your situation. And these systems certainly are not eco-friendly.