Ok, so my wife and I just moved into a new house in Pearland. We've already been solicited by 3 different companies wanting to sell us some sort of water softening system. What I am wondering is, are they for real? Are they worth the $4000+ for one? They did tests on our water, and all 3 companies came up with pretty much the same results: our water sucks. They said that the worst city water is actually in Katy, if you can believe that.
$4000? Thats a ripoff. You can get them @ Lowes for $500 plus about $50 in materials. They are pretty easy to install. To see if you need one, get a hard water test kit @ Lowes or Home Depot.
It's prob more cost-effective to just fit every water spout in your house with a filter than drop $4k on a whole system..
Not sure how much you really need a softener in Pearland...here in Vegas, the water is extremely hard (insert Beavis & Butthead joke here ) and I had to buy one when I moved to Vegas because my kids' skin kept breaking out due to the water. We bought a $500 system from Sears and it seemed to work ok...but later moved into a house that had one of the $4000 type systems (Kinetico, it was probably more like $2500) and it works awesome. But I'm still not convinced that Pearland needs it...unless you're on well-water that is naturally hard (insert Viagra joke here). I would be more apt to get an RO system for filtering your water rather than a softener.
I guess I had no idea that the water was that bad. I grew up here, and always drank the tap water. I've been relatively healthy and have never even had a cavity (the water was flouridated). I was actually looking into getting one of those systems that you would get from a Sears or Home Depot, but I guess I just wanted to research it. A guy I work with has one of those high-end systems as well, and they told him that he could drink the toilet water if he wanted to. I didn't know what to say to that. His house did have some good tasting tap water though.
Drinking hard water isn't unhealthy as far as I know. Maybe it is. However, hard water will ruin your fixtures, piping and shower doors. Most new neighborhoods tend to have hard water of sometype. If you don't want to test it, just keep an eye on your shower door. Don't clean it for a few days and see if you start seeing white scales on it after it is dry. If they show up within a few days, you have pretty hard water. My neighborhood has very hard water. I put one it and my neighbor, who built his house the same time as I did, did not. After about 2-3 weeks of showers, his shower door looked like it was painted white and he could not get it off.
We had one in our house in Spring and then did not have one in the next place we lived in. They make a WORLD of difference on washing stuff (including yourself). You will end up using a LOT less soap / detergent and the water that you use to cook and drink is much better for you. If you can afford it, I would recommend the whole house water softener.
Good point...but most high-end softeners can take salt or potassium tablets. So, if heart issues are present, then definitely utilize the potassium tablets.
Oh that reminds me... The company that installed ours used the potassium and funneled the drainage to the front lawn to fertilize the grass...
Calcium in water is good for you and is suspected to be the factor behind the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon went searching for. As for safety, the EPA's water guidelines are far stricter than the FDA, which regulates bottled water. Water from your plumbing, from the garden faucet to toilet water, is mandated by law to come out drinkable. Most people think bottled/filtered water tastes better, but I can't taste the difference if I put faucet water in the fridge. Since the source of the water is different from region to region, that last bit might not work.
There is a big difference between a plain basic water softener, the $500 that codell refers to, and the complete in-line water softener/filtration system (reverse osmosis, etc.), the $4000 option. The water softener only softens but does not remove the "gunk" and other suspended stuff in water.
This is my understanding too. We've had an in-home test with this stuff. What's amazing is how much laundry detergent isn't coming out of your clothes and towels that you wash. We didn't end up buying the system back then....but I could see doing it.
4000 is a rip off. You should not spend more than 2000 on a waster softening system. You are not building a medical lab right?
yeah, i can't remember the price we were quoted...it was in the thousands, but it's been about 4 years back.
