Hello all,
We have EXTREMELY hard water here at my house. It drives me crazy, especially with the laundry. My towels are always crunchy and my whites come out gray. I use cloth diapers for my LO and when I wash those I use Calgon along with my detergent. It works pretty well, but costs $10 a box
Does anyone have suggestions on how to deal with hard water? Is it worth getting a water softening system?
TIA!
April

We have had a water softener for years. I truely think it saves you money in the long run. At our previous house we rented a very large (big family) water softener and a reverse osmosis drinking water system from Culligan. It was well worth the monthly fee. It saved us from buying bottled water and kept the rust off our clothes and toilet and shower, etc! Now the house we bought already had a water softener, we contract with Culligan for salt services and maintenace

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~Happiness is a large family~

we had the same problem w/hard water. we got a water softener installed last year & love it. we will never go w/o one. but instead of buying one, we are renting ours. this way if it breaks, etc. they have to pay for it & not us. the only down side is that we have to use their salt which is ok w/me. they drop it off at our house, put it in the softener for us and then send us the bill.

Absolutely, a water softener saves money in the long run. Hard water is very hard on your pipes and appliances (like toilets, shower heads, washing machine, dishwasher, etc). Plus you'll notice a huge different in the amount of cleaning product you use, including personal products like shampoo and moisturizing lotions. However, I'm surprised by the replies from people who rent a softener or has an outside service. All a water softener needs is salt added once a month to every 6 weeks. It's not a huge deal. And I've never had a water softener break on me. As a matter of fact, the water softener we have now is an old Sears model that I wish WOULD break because I'd love to justify the cost to replace it.

Absolutely, get lots of quotes from different water softener companies OR plumbers. When we bought our first water softener we got quotes from every water softener company in the phone book. They all insisted they wanted to do a water quality test because they wanted to sell us a water filter, too. I refused and the quotes for the water softeners turned out to be horribly expensive - in the thousands of dollars. I finally called the last company in the book - a weird, off brand company with a funny name. They came out, gave us a straight quote without the hard sell, and the quote was incredibly far lower than anyone else - a few $100's. I asked around and found out they were a good company so we went ahead with them. Later when we had anyone else (like a contractor) visiting the house, if they happened to walk by our water softener they'd all stop and admire it. So many people told us it was the best on the market and the water softener put into commercial buildings and multi-million dollar homes. Huh?!?!?! It was sooooo much cheaper than any other water softener out there. It definately pays to shop around!

A good water softener is all about the control box that sits on top. The rest is just a salt container. It you have a good control; I believe FlowMaster is the brand to look for, then you have a system that will save you money in terms of water and electricity.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."