Water Softener question

Looking to buy a water softener and have heard that there are the standard ones that use salt and the ones that use NO salt.
Anybody have any experience with these saltless ones?

 

bump

 

We have a salt one and it makes a HUGE difference!!!!

I can get the name brand of it if you want.

 

at work we use salt. works good. its industrial, so its a big unit, and every now and then the boss has me dump another 50 lb bag of salt in there. . . to tell the truth our system is so elaborate with all the tanks, i cant give you to much cause i don't understand it all. the water aint rusty and it taste fine so everybody's happy.

 

thanks guys!

 

What exactly are you curious about? I have some water treatment experience. Like the differences between Salt in general or the effects.

 

we also have salted. Not sure on brand but we just ran to a Sears and bought it on sale. One thing you'll want to think about is plumbing the water for the recharge or whatever they call it. It'll cycle every so often and pump out a bunch of water to sorta flush it's self. A lot of people plumb it to their septic, the only real issues with this is are the salts are bad for the bachteria in your septic system (I assume you aren't on city water) and the added stress of water on the system (only an issue if you're near capacity for your holding tank) Best bet is to run the cycle water out to a grassy area, though it may kill the grass.

I know nothing about the un-salted systems but our salted works wonders. without it our shower is orange in a matter of days. could the un-salted be reverse osmosis?

 

i agree with all that as well. hope my less thank knowledgeable input helps.

 

reverse osmosis is a filtering process not a softener.
We have a rain soft system for the entire house then an RO system just for the fridge and the sink, when ever I care to drill our granite counter top for the sink tap.
I buy my salt in 50lb bricks and it has a rust retardant in it. Although I have well water it is nice to remove the mineral taste.
Also have no experience on the saltless softeners.

 

If you've got the $, then go Reverse Osmosis

 

The salt is to clean the softner itself .Sort of like a backwash . The salt does not end up in your water system .There is some kind of bead type media in the softener itself that removes the hardness from the water.

 

What I was explained when I bought my softener was there is a bunch of tiny resin balls with dimples all over, like a golf ball. The city water goes through the resin and the dimples collect the crud. And the salt is used to clean the resin balls. My system runs at 2am to clean the resin.

 

You are correct !

 

We had a Kinetico system installed a couple months ago. No electricity needed and it cycles only when needed. The softener side of it uses salt. Spendy but good so far.