Magnetic/Electronic Water Softener

I searched this thread and found one 'Water Softener question' posted in 2011, the OP inquired about saltless softeners but got no answer, only replies concerning salt H2O softeners.
Does anyone have experience or knowledge on these electronic softeners i.e. Hard Water Genie or Calmat Electronic Anti-scale H2O Treatment? Do they work?
It would be nice to cut down on my salt bill every year.

 

I do. While I'm not a plumber I have purchased and installed 3 in the last year for myself, a friend, and my daughter. The software industry is fraught with pseudo-science. You must REMOVE the calcium and magnesium from water to soften it. This garbage about realigning the molecules with magnets is such a crock of crap. Only softeners that use charged resin beads to attract the calcium and magnesium molecules work. The resin eventually lose its charge when too much calcium/magnesium is pulled from the water. The brine (salt) or potassium chloride if your city won't allow salt, solution is used to remove the cal/mag off of the beads and give them back their charge. The brine is then flushed down the drain and the cycle repeats.

I can tell you that the new softeners use very little salt not because the resin needs it but because they measure water usage and not time. I go through about 160 lbs of salt (4 bags) in 6 months. We have 3 adults at home and are not water conserving nazis. I would recommend a system the uses a manual and not electronic timer. They are rock solid, cheap, and easy to replace. I like a Fleck 5600 because they last for ever. I am not a salesman. I'm a computer programmer/manager. I ended up buying the 3 I've put in from http://www.qualitywaterforless.com but you can find them anywhere. If they don't use salt or potassium chloride you are getting snake oil. They are not hard to install if you know where the water runs in your house. You want to keep the outside taps, kitchen cold water, refrigerator, ice maker on hard water. Everything else is soft.

One more point, to size the correct system you must know the hardness grains in your city water source. You can usually find that on their website. Sometimes they tell you PPM instead of grains. 17 PPM = 1 grain of hardness. I live where we have mountain runoff and well water. I have about 21 grains of hardness/gallon in my water. I use a meter-based softener that has 1 cu/ft of resin which is rated at 40,000 grains. There is a balance between salt usage and getting all of the 40,000 grains out of a charge. I figure about 30,000 grains before a recharge so 30,000 grains will do about 1400 gallons of water between cycles. Read the FAQ and DIY areas in that site above to school you on softeners.

 

Thanks for the response, I will take it to heart