Hi, Paul here from Calgary Alberta Canada. I have a Bosch dishwasher that requires salt. Less expensive water softening salt is great, and it works. Your Miele should be fine. RISK.. Money, I don't understand those who have posted their thoughts asking why you would risk your machine to save money on Salt. Spending money on a product due to the Brand Name is foolish and something as minute as the water softener is not going to damage the machine. Bosch strongly suggests Finish for the soap and it works for sure but the machine will not shut down if you happen to use a different soap, it may not clean as well.

Living with well water is more comlpicated than living on a water system and requires some routine maintenance. I would accept the highest tested levels as average and use them. In general an ion exchange water softener will successfully treat about 3ppm of iron, no more. Kinetico does offer models that are designed to treat higher iron levels and, of course, they cost more. Kinetico has been around a long time and has an extensive dealer/service network and a large and loyal customer base. One rarely sees anyone posting about problems with their Kinetico softeners. Culligan has been around a long time also but are complained about more often on these forums. ECO has also been around a long time. ECO, Culligan, and Kinetico are all proprietary desihns and parts and service are only available from their respective dealers. If you have a good dealer that doesn't matter but if you have a bad dealer... with real estateit's location, location, location, and with water treatment its' DEALER, DEALER, DEALER. Ask lots of questions. Softening the entire house or just the water heater (bad idea)? Warranty, parts & labor or just parts, how long and on exactly what? Install, permits required, licensed plumber? Routine maintenance and costs? Do they stock parts? Response time for emergency (water leak) calls? If they don't explain things to your satisfaction that is a good indicator of how you'll be treated after the sale. Ask your neighbors if they have any water treatment experience. They might tell you who's good or who to avoid.

Well I didn't have any luck finding the web pages I found back then about the interaction of ozone and sodium bromide as the primary form of sanitization. Here's a copy/paste of what I did find """Protocol for total pool management is as follows. 1. Use of ozone as the primary disinfectant. 2. Use of sodium bromide as the secondary stable disinfectant. This is the natural constituent to sea water which can not act on its own. Needs the ozone to activate it. 3. Use of hydrogen peroxide for super oxidizing the pool. 4. Use of an algaecide if necessary. In an ozone treated pool, ozone activates sodium bromide to hypobromous acid. Ozone (O3) +Sodium Bromide equals Hypobromous Acid. Hypobromous acid is one powerful bactericide and is more powerful species than chlorine and more stable than Ozone. Hypobromous Acid +Organics equals Sodium bromide. Cycle is set up with the ozonation system in which the sodium bromide goes from the bromide to the hypobromous acid and then back to the bromide. In this way the bromide losses are minimized and one only has to add sodium bromide once each 6 month period to compensate for losses from backwashing""" What I liked about this set up was that it was a very hands off system which really delivered a very strong disinfectant, Because I have a very very large pool what I didn't like about the system was that there was no residual and I would have to circulate 24/7/365. I run 3 equipment sets and thought about dedicating one for the ozonator to handle it and let the other 2 run on normal daily cycles. I also didn't like the price of the commercial grade ozonator. I really didn't want a salt system because I have an Arizona flagstone which doesn't like salt systems and I didn't like the price of the 3 SWG's it would of taken to handle my pool size. So, I ended up with no system at all. Kind of stupid on my part, LOL!!! I use the BBB method, it's a daily regimen of adding bleach every morning and checking the balance of my chem's once weekly. I keep crystal clear water but can't miss a day of chlorinating because I run a low stabilizer PPM and my pool will grow algae almost instantly if I miss doing it. See ya, Kelly

We just bought a home that had an existing Culligan water softener system installed. We had a technician (and yes, you will be married to a Culligan dealer for ANY issues/repairs/service) come out and check to ensure the equipment worked properly and was at the correct setting for our water & our usage. My husband said the guy was in & out before he knew it. The technician told him the equipment was working fine. He never even checked our water quality which cough, cough I'm not sure why hubby didn't insist it be done. We used to have well water & a very good softener years ago, and we never had the issues we have with using this Culligan system. I taste salt in the water, our faucets all have white scale on them, 3 months into moving here our brand new fridge ice maker doesn't work, toilets are lined with orange, our white laundry is dingy and my daughter & I use tons! of shampoo and soap in the shower and our skin is not soft at all. My husband adjusted the ? I'm not sure what to try to correct, but I'm not even sure he's done it right. Hate to call the technician again and get their $250 charge for nothing. Wish I could remember the brand of the old unit we had. After reading several sites, I am leaning towards the Fleck brand. But, like other readers have stated, it's not about the cost of the unit initially, it's more important to LOVE our water!