Best Water Softener & Filter Systems 2017 – Reviews and Comparisons

The best softener for a large home is the Fleck 7000SXT Water Softener. Fleck is a well-known name in water softeners, and it presents the type of the valve used in the process of water softening. This unit is similar to the5600SXT we mentioned before, but with more capacity and a bigger water flow thus making it perfect for large homes and medium-sized industrial facilities. It provides scale reduction, preservation of the plumbing system, prevents the buildup of minerals, and more.

The maximum flow rate of this unit is about 35 gallons per minute which is more than enough for a bigger home. With 48 thousand grains per gallon, it is capable of working with water that has high amounts of calcium and other minerals that cause scale accumulation in the pipes. It’s easy to install, and you don’t need a vast plumbing knowledge to set it up, program it, and get it running as soon as possible. Also, in case you suddenly lose power, rest assured it would “remember” your settings and apply them after the power loss.

The salt capacity of this unit is around 250 pounds. The consumption depends on the hardness of your water. However, an average period optimal for salt change is around 12 weeks (3 months). One thing that sets this softener apart from others is the ease of installation. While other units require extensive knowledge, installing this one is a piece of cake. It can be done within an hour by an inexperienced individual. However, if you’re unsure of your plumbing skills, it might be better to call a plumber and let a qualified person install your device. If you’re looking for a solid softener with a high water flow, don’t hesitate to buy this one, you won’t regret it.

The best salt-free softener is the Eddy Electronic Descaler. Although it’s in the softeners group, it’s a water descaler, not a conventional softener. However, this is the best alternative to a softener. Eddy Electronic Descaler is easy to install and use. All you need to do to get it up and running is put two different coils on two pipes and wire up the device. Instead of hassling with complicated and sophisticated equipment you’ll just need to wrap two coils around two pipes, simple as that.

The technology that this unit uses is called a complex magnetic wave. The coils on the pipes emit magnetic frequencies and manage to break down the compounds that turn into scale. This concept means you’re going to reduce the accumulation of scale within the pipes greatly. Bear in mind; this water reducer does not alter the chemical hardness of the water. The reason behind this is that, for example, calcium has been linked with the reduction of heart disease risks. It does not break the chemical elements because of the health benefits.

It is eco-friendly, and it does not require salt. This benefit makes this system an easy and cheap thing to run. Also, because it uses magnetic waves, there are no detrimental effects on the environment. One thing you should bear in mind is the material from which your pipes are made. This unit will work with any materials except iron and lead. It has a 12-month risk-free warranty and a lifetime warranty on repairs and replacements. If you’re looking for a descaler which saves you time, money, and effort, this is a unit worth looking into. It’s not the cheapest on the market, but the cost efficiency levels are high. Instead of buying multiple bad ones, opt for one good quality water descaler.

What Is Hard Water?

Hard water is rich in various minerals, in oppose to soft water. It is formed when water flows through chunks of limestone and chalk which consist of calcium and magnesium. Even though drinking hard water can have beneficial effects on one’s health, it’s a different story with industrial units, machines, and other. Hard water tends to leave scale when it dries out. The problem with scale is that it jeopardizes the integrity and function of a particular part, for example, a heating unit within a boiler.

The hardness is determined by the concentration of positively charged metal complexes with a charge value bigger than 1+. The fewer ions there are in the water, the softer it is. Calcium and Magnesium enter into the water supply by percolating from minerals and rocks within the aquifer. Hard water poses a serious risk for modern households.

Some of the issues include clogged pipes because of the accumulation of minerals within the pipes, white spots on dishes and the shower, reduced cleaning abilities of detergents, reduced efficiency of water heating units, and more. Testing for hard water isn’t that hard. If you suspect you have hard water and you’re connected to a public supply, call them and just ask if the water is hard or not. If you’re connected to a private supply, collect a sample and feel free to take it to a testing lab.

If you get a positive response in both cases, consider buying a water softener. It’s an efficient way of preserving your appliances as well as drinking and using healthier water. There are three basic types of softeners – automatic, DIR (demand initiated regeneration), and portable solutions. There is a high possibility that you indeed have hard water in your home. Don’t hesitate to install a water softener in that case.

How hard is the Water in Your Area?

It is a well-known fact that the United States has a pretty tough situation with hard water. However, the water softeners market is vast which means there is a solution for this problem. This said, statistics show that 85% of the population has hard water, but only 30% of them use water softeners.
The top six cities with hard water problems in the United States are Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Tampa. If you live in any of these cities, you should check out the hardness of your water. Bear in mind; city water may be softer than surrounding suburbs depending on the water source.

Some of the mentionable areas are South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. These are not the states with super-high concentrations of hard water, but they are worth mentioning. On the other hand, Oregon and Washington are the leaders in soft water.

Make sure you pay attention to the hardness and test it as soon as possible to avoid any possible damage to your health, appliances, and water-operated devices in general. Having a water softener will save you a lot of time, and more importantly – money.

How hard is the Water in Your Area?

There is a DIY test for checking out the hardness of your water, and it’s easy to do it. Instead of taking samples to a lab and paying loads of money for analysis, you can do it by yourself. Follow these steps, and you’ll find out if your water is hard without much effort.

There is also an option of sending a water sample for testing to a certified laboratory. Everything above 1 grain of hardness per gallon is considered as hard water. A grain of hardness is an amount of calcium and magnesium equal in weight to a kernel of wheat. Values:

The only successful way to get rid of hard water is by using a water softener. There are other alternatives such as water filters, chemical softeners, mechanical softeners, and magnetic conditioners. There is some lower tech stuff you can do to prevent or clean hard water and scale. First of all, choose a proper laundry detergent. By using cheap detergents, you risk damaging inner heating units within the washing machine. Find a suitable one and use it constantly. The consistency is the main factor here, once you find the perfect detergent – stick to it.

Even though hard water isn’t a major threat to your health condition, it’s always better to have clean water. However, the health factor is the least of your worries with hard water and scale residues. The first benefit of clean water is that it doesn’t leave stains on mirrors, tiles, shower cabins, and other smooth surfaces. Clean water is well-known for its ability to reduce headaches, help with mental alertness, regulate body temperature, and more. Clean water also regulates the pH values within your body thus supporting many physiological processes. Staying hydrated is the most important thing because water is a crucial element for every human being.

Serious dehydration causes multiple health problems like diabetes, fatigue, loss of energy, high blood pressure, and more. Make sure you always drink transparent, odorless, and tasteless water. Any other (except for commercial ones) water with a particular taste or smell is polluted and not safe. Water also helps various organs in your body to maintain an optimal level of performance. For example, if you don’t hydrate your body enough with clean water, you have an increased chance of getting a kidney stone. There are also financial, environmental, and contextual benefits.

FLECK

Fleck has been on the market for over 50 years, and it is one of the oldest brands. It is the top recommended brand on the market at the moment. The fact that Fleck influenced the development and improvement of water treatments make it the most reliable brand available at the moment. As a company, it has the best ratings on all major merchandise-selling websites. Choosing this brand will solve most of your dilemmas.

Waterboss

Waterboss is a well-known company on the water softener market. They manufacture water softening systems with the concept of water waste reduction. Their products always get high ratings on trusted websites, and that makes them the second-best brand on our list. Because of the long experience in the water softening improvements, Waterboss stands near Fleck when it comes down to the quality of manufacture.

Morton

Morton is best known because of their salt products. They have been in the salt business over 160 years. Among the vast variety of salt products they also have a few water softeners available. Morton has a good reputation for being a reliable brand, especially in North America. Following that logic, their water softeners tend to be good quality units. A vast majority of buyers and clients left positive grades on major selling websites.

Aquasana

Aquasana is best-known for their environmental concerns. Every product they produce is eco-friendly and safe for the environment. They have been on the market for a while now and have proved their quality through millions of sold units. The units are manufactured with minimal waste recyclable parts.

Culligan

Culligan is also a well-known manufacturer of water treatment. They are on the market for over 75 years with proves their quality and devotion to improving and innovating new things constantly. They are also known for following the modern technology and producing modern designs and concepts. The range of their water treatment products is wide and vast. Choosing this brand will assure good quality, reliability, and durability.

Buying a bigger softener than the one you need won’t improve the quality of the water, you will be left with an overpaid product. That said, you should also be careful not to purchase a smaller softener as well. It won’t be able to meet your demands, and you’ll be left with a product that can’t follow the required capacity and demands.

One of the most notable things about water softeners is the cost-efficiency. People often get underwhelmed by pricey products without considering the efficiency. Although water softeners can be expensive, they are worth every penny in the long run. If you calculate the benefits of water softeners, it will be easier for you to comprehend the value of them. For example, you could use your washing machine twice as long with a water softener installed. By eliminating minerals that cause scale and residues, you’ll preserve the heating unit within the washing machine thus avoiding a purchase of a new one. The principle is simple – it saves expensive and sensitive hardware from potential hazards such as scale accumulation.

By owning a quality softener, you’ll prevent many other expenses. Also, the plumbing will remain clean and smooth instead of being filled up with scale and clogged. As you can see, the prevention is the main parameter with water softeners. Although the results may not be as obvious as you might think, there are some major benefits regardless of the visibility of results. Instead of spending thousands upon thousands of dollars for repairs and renovation, opt for a water softener and avoid massive expenses.

The first step of finding out whether or not you need a water softener is testing your home water for hardness. There are a few ways of testing, but the most reliable one is through the test kits available on the market. However, if you don’t want to buy a test kit, you can check for hardness in many ways. One of the ways is checking out if the soap foams up as it should. The inability of the soap to produce foam is a good indicator of hard water. After you determine that your water is in fact hard, you should consider buying a water softener for following reasons. The first reason to buy a softener is the preservation of kitchen appliances and sensitive hardware in your house. Hard minerals such as calcium and magnesium that are found in water have a negative effect on sensitive instruments because they leave scale and residue after the water dries out. The scale accumulates and acts like a layer of isolation thus preventing the heating units found inside kitchen appliances to work properly. Instead, you get high power consumption because the heating unit tries to achieve the desired temperature regardless.

There are many different variations of water softeners, and you should consider investigating each to fine-tune your needs. When you narrow down the choice of water softener’s abilities, it won’t be hard to choose a particular one for your household. The hardest part of the process is finding a suitable one, once you do; everything else will be a piece of cake.

Many people argue about health benefits of soft water. The majority of scientists say there are no major health hazards when it comes down to hard water consumption. However, the main focus drops on the word “major.” In other words, no one absolutely agrees whether or not hard minerals cause any severe damage to the human body. This said, having a water softener installed in your household cannot harm you but not having it potentially can. So, the philosophy is simple – why wouldn’t you buy one and simply play with a safe card? It is not mandatory, but it’s strongly advised.

One of the notable benefits is the elimination of stains. Homemakers, restaurants, bars, and other objects that use cutlery often have issues with scale residues and stains on glasses, silverware, and other. Any smooth glass surface will suffer from stains if the water is hard, including mirrors. To avoid exhausting and endless polishing of glass surfaces in your home simply buy a water softener. Although this benefit doesn’t save money, it surely saves a lot of effort and stress.

There are also magnetic water softeners that work on another principle by using current and electromagnetic energy to separate the hard minerals from the water. They tend to be easy to install and easy to use. Installation requires putting two coils around the plumbing and that’s it. They are less popular than other ones because they are not conventional water softeners but rather descalers. They are suitable for smaller houses and smaller water demands. Because of their compact size, you can fit them anywhere in the kitchen, even under the kitchen sink.

The whole process is simple, and it doesn’t get in the way in any sense. All you need to do when it comes down to maintenance is to change the salt when it’s due. These things are made to last for decades, so durability is also guaranteed.

All the conventional water softeners use either sodium or potassium chloride. Whether you choose one or the other, it all comes down to personal preferences. Each one has its pros and flaws. However, people most often use sodium chloride. Other than standard units, there are magnetic softeners, salt-free softeners, and electronic softeners. If you want a compact system with as less hassle as possible, opt for electronic or magnetic systems. You cannot miss with your choice because everything is pretty clear and straightforward. In addition to these water softener types, there are some that offer iron elimination as well. These softeners help people who have dry skin or damaged hair. It also helps with laundry.

Water is essential for every human being. Water also takes up to 70 percent of the overall size of our planet. Needless to say, water is mandatory for every living creature. However, water can also be detrimental, especially when it’s polluted and not kept drinkable. Because it’s so important to keep it clean and drinkable, humanity has been struggling with the ideas and methods of purifying water and making it drinkable and safe. Some archeological evidence shows that people have been trying to find the perfect method for millenniums.

In the early times of humanity, people associated taste with purity and cleanliness. That’s why they added various herbs and spice to improve the taste and make it pleasing and drinkable. However, we now know that had nothing to do with cleaning the water from harmful elements. There are also indications that people used boiling as a method of purification somewhere around 2000 B.C. A well-known Greek doctor by the name of Hippocrates comprehended that boiling water does not remove residue and solids, so he poured it through a piece of cloth. That is the earliest evidence of ancient filters. It happened in the 3rd century B.C. This method got a name Hippocrates’s sleeve.

In the 17th century a man named Sir Francis Bacon read about purifying water with sand. He arranged ten experiments and tested this method after he saw its success with sea water. By the end of the 17th century, an Italian physician wrote about multiple layer sand filtrations. This system included three sand filters with the upward and downward flow. After these crucial discoveries, sand filters, and cisterns for rainwater were developed.

A French scientist by the name of La Hire had an idea at the beginning of the 18th century that all households should own a sand filter and a rainwater cistern. One century later a first civil water treatment facility was built in Scotland.

In the 20th and 21st century, cleanliness of the water became a major concern. With the industrial revolution and modern technology came much better filters and water softening systems. Chlorine was first acknowledged as useful by Jon Snow when he used it to clean the cholera contamination in London. Recognizing the usefulness of chlorine with the cholera issue, the British government issued an order to start purifying city water with chlorine. This sudden change brought impressive results including fewer deaths from typhoid as well. It was a major success, and the United States started using the same method soon after. It started with New Jersey and soon spread throughout the country.

As years went by in the 20th century, more and more countries started using chlorine as a primary element for water purification. Many countries have recognized the value of treatment plants and started building them. By the mid-20th century, there were multiple laws regulating this matter. However, despite the massive improvement in technology and general knowledge about the matter, water issued from home taps is still pretty contaminated. Even though city plants try to clean the water as much as possible, it still gets contaminated when flowing through lead pipes, and it picks up other chemicals along the way as well. By the time it comes to your home, it’s already polluted again. So, the problem isn’t in the plants; the problem is in the plumbing system.

Throughout the years, scientists have been finding more and more contaminants in the water that pose a threat to your health. Because of the constant pollution of the water and a physical need for fresh and clean water, scientists have developed a filtering system. Water filtration is one of the reliable alternatives.

One of the crucial breaking points in the development of the water cleaning systems is the invention of the microscope. They are seemingly unrelated, but in reality, the discovery of the microscope helped the research abilities. This happened in the 17th century, and it was done by Anton van Leeuwenhoek. In the 18th century, a Scottish engineer by the name of Robert Thom designed the first water plant. His massive plant was able to provide clean water to the whole city of Paisley in Scotland. This achievement helped to prove scientific evidence about the decrease of waterborne diseases such as cholera or typhoid. In 1852 they passed the Metropolis Water Act that required all water coming to London to be filtrated by the slow sand method.

There is a rising concern about the negative effects of chlorine such as the creation of the toxic gas chloroform. Chlorine can react with the natural elements found in water and form THM which is a byproduct of the reaction. Chloroform is detrimental to your respiratory system, and it can cause severe issues and consequences.

Water softeners as any other mechanical device can experience some issues in their lifetime. These are some potential issues you might stumble upon.