Water Softener Advantages & Disadvantages | A Master Plumber's Advice on Water Softeners 

@jflan8536, sorry I am late getting back to your question as we have been visiting with family over the holidays. Warm up the house first before turning the water on in those temperatures.

No, you do not have to worry about sodium buildup in the pipes.

A water softener would probably help a lot with that problem.

You don’t want to have the water draining into the ground or on top of the ground. If the water is draining into a pipe, that’s okay. A water softener can push the drain water 30-40 feet and up about 8 feet. Take the softener drain and connect it to a surface pipe if possible. You don’t want it draining onto the ground unless you’re using potassium to clean your brine tank. Salt can kill plants, grass and trees.

Around 15-20 years or more until you have to replace the unit.

It’s easy to install a water softener. Looking at the softener from the front, the water goes in on the right side and the softened water comes out on the left side. There are arrows marked on the body. Use sharkbite male adaptors and two 3/4x24 water flexes. The drain is usually a half inch and you can use a male or female adaptor, depending on the threaded outlet of the drain. Use some flexible hose to run the water to the drain. Hope this helps as I don’t have a video.

If you’re talking about the brine tank for your water softener, you don’t need to add water. The water level is controlled by the water softener. If you don’t see water in the tank, look down the float tube and you’ll see water there.

We use to do that exact thing years ago but, when you take a shower, you’re mixing hot and cold water so you might as well soften both. You can add an RO system for the drinking water. There is almost untraceable salt in the water after it’s been softened with these newer softeners. The salt is only used to clean the mineral bed and then it’s flushed out of the bed.

@@TheGrumpyPlumber my outside faucets would also be softened and the boss (wife) doesn’t want to water all her plants and garden with soft water. Would it hurt plants over time?

Definitely do not use soft water for the irrigated of plants and lawn. In your case, you want to soften just the hot water. Or, repipe all your outside faucets and cold water at the kitchen sink before the softener.

@@TheGrumpyPlumber we put it on the water intake to hot water heater. Even with the faucet on full hot it’s only somewhat soft. We used to have the whole house softened but we had to get a new unit after 20 so we put it on the water heater. We’re going to give a while and if we (wife😆) aren’t happy I’ll move it back and run an additional outside faucet. Thanks for your help.

To have soft water to all of your fixtures in the house, you need to have it on the hot and the cold. If you just have soft water to the water heater, the only way you’ll have soft water when you take a shower is if you only use hot water. You can’t do that. If you soften both the hot and cold water, you want to drain the water heater completely and refill it with soft water. Even doing that you might not have perfectly soft water for a few weeks. I would recommend disconnecting the outside faucet from the soft water system. That’s the only way to make your wife happy.

Regeneration runs for 1 1/2 hours and I’m not sure how much water is used. A remember that a friend used a descaler device in his cottage. When he was at the cottage and using the water, it seemed to work fine. When he would leave for a week and come back, he noticed it wasn’t working. It seemed that when the water was flowing, it worked fine but when you’re not using it, the descaler didn’t work. I know water softeners work. I’m not sold on descalers.

In 90% of homes where I install or recommend softeners, I use a 2 cubic foot mineral bed which will regenerate at about 1600 gallons of water usage with a 16 grain hardness. It doesn’t cost any more to buy a 1 cubic foot or a 2 1/2 cubic foot softener.

@@TheGrumpyPlumber thanks!

@@TheGrumpyPlumber lastly, what adapter setup do you recommend going from copper plumbing to the rheem setup?

Sharkbite makes a fitting that goes from copper to male or female iron pipe. Just make sure you buy the one made for copper. They are color coated.

Water softeners do not leave a salt residue in the water like they did years ago. The easiest thing to do is put in a charcoal filter somewhere in the refrigerator water supply. I highly recommend water softeners but they will not change the taste of the water.

TRD ROCK WARRIOR_SPORT, I buy my water softeners from a company called Performance Water. They are located in the City of Industry in LA. The control head product name is Flex 5812. You can use any water softener company but the brand name I recommend has the Flex head.

We had a softener for over 30 years on a septic system and never had a problem. If you’re worried about the salt, you can always use potassium.

It sounds like the discharge is going into the ground. I don’t recommend that if this is the case. The discharge hose can be run 8 ft. vertically and then tied into a drain. Or, run 50 ft. as long as there is a slope on it. It’s rare not to be able to drain a water softener. I definitely don’t recommend the pipe draining out into the ground as it can kill the grass and plants.

@@TheGrumpyPlumber it's a pretty large pipe tbh. Like 20 feet. My concern is more can it cause foundational issues since it's so close to the house?

If it was my house, I’d have it moved away from the foundation. You don’t want to screw with the foundation.

Katheryn Miles, to repair an instant hot you need an Everhot repair kit for the faucet. It comes with all the parts and tools to repair it. You need to remove the spout and it might have a set screw holding it on. The spout just pulls off. This will expose the plastic tube that is not attached to the spout. Replace the two O-rings attached to the spout. The handle has a pin that holds it to the valve stem. Push the pin out, push handle forward toward the spout opening to remove the handle. Unscrew the small barrel that slides into the handle. Then use the little socket that comes with the kit to remove the stem. Install a new stem, put barrel back on and adjust to where it was originally when you removed it or as close as you can get it. The barrel must be perpendicular so it will slide back into the handle. Reinstall the pin to hold the handle on. Put spout back together and tighten the set screw on the spout if you want. The tighter it is, the less it will swing. Another thing you need to check…..on the tank there is a 1/4” John guess fitting for the hot water. If leaking, replace with a 1/4” John Guess coupling or you can cut off about an inch of red tubing and insert back into the coupling and see if that stops the leak. On the cold water supply, there is a 3/8x5/16 John Guess coupling. If that is leaking, replace it. First try cutting it off and reinserting back into coupling. Any time you remove the tubing from a John Guess fitting, you must cut an inch off before you reinsert. Unplug the instant hot before you work on it. The tank can’t be repaired but the faucet and tubing can. One more thing, when the instant hot is heating water, the faucet drips. Once the water is to temperature it stops dripping. There should be a mark showing where to set the temperature on the tank. You can buy replacement tanks. They have a life of 5-10 years. Hope this isn’t overload for you!

You always set the water softener to the size of the mineral bed.

@@TheGrumpyPlumber I'm not even sure what that means. Mine has a setting for hardness of the water in grains. I had to get the city's water test report and then learn how to convert that to grains. I was glad of this because the plumber who installed it said to just set it at the default of 25. That was too high, and our water tasted salty. Not counting for iron, it needed to be 11. But then we got spotting on our dishes, so I set it to 13 because of the iron content and it has been great for two years now.

@mariojuarez9566, hard water does not damage copper pipes. It can cause problems with washing machines, toilets, faucets and your clothes. That’s why you want a water softener. A water softener will not make your water heater last longer or your copper pipes last longer but will not hurt them.

Cut way back on the soap in your dishwasher. That will stop the water spots.

Is the softener making that noise when it regenerates or when you’re using water? When it regenerates, it can be quite noisy and it takes 90 minutes to regenerate. There is only one moving part in the softener, called a turbine, that spins when water is flowing through the softener. It also counts the gallons of water being used. The turbine can be replaced. It’s located on the outlet side of the softener inside the valve. You can disconnect the water supply and pull out to replace.

@MNcntrygal, Kinetico water softeners are good quality. I have seen a number of them in my customers’ houses and they like them. They do a good job.

​@TheGrumpyPlumber what brand do you recommend and have seen the most success with?

Scott Edwards, it must have been a good day! 🤣