A subject of great misconception... there is no salt when softening water unless you are softening salt water.

Water is softened by ion exchange where sodium or potassium ions are exchanged for calcium ions.

While either NaCl (sodium chloride) or KCl (potassium chloride), both salts, are used to regenerate the ion exchange resin the "Cl" part of either "salt" goes to drain during regeneration. There are NO chlorides added to softened water and therefore NO salt.

One may taste the exchanged sodium or potassium in the softened water, especially if the source water is very hard (the higher the hardness of the source water, the higher the amount of sodium or potassium ions are exchanged to soften the hard water), but there is NO salt added.

Agreed. But the increased sodium may be a health concern for certain medical conditions. Ask your physician. The refrigerator filter does not remove sodium.

Our water softener is hooked up only to the hot water. We were told "no need to soften the cold", so basically if you tap into the cold water line you shouldn't have a soft water issue, if that is how your softener was set up.
I guess we use hot/warm for washing and cold for drinking and outside watering so it works for us : )
Plus we already have a filter to the water line coming in to the house and the new fridge also has the filtered water too!! Wasn't planned that way but i'm sure it is o.k to double filter LOL
HTH

No need to soften the cold?

Guess then you only need to buy right side brakes when it's time to do so for your car?

Guess I don't get why you would subject your toilets, washer (cold rinse), plumbing valves and all else to hard water when soft is available.

You do blend your cold with hot when bathing right? Why be part soft when you can be all soft? Clothes washing in hot is soft, warm is partly soft and cold rinses and delicates are not soft? HMMMM still don't get it.

A tap in line before softener can be used for drinking and lawn watering, or just use an RO for drinking & fridge.

I didn't grow up with a water softener and our pipes, clothing and toilets/plumbing are still working : ) Not sure why I need to soften my toilet water? I always wash in warm or hot, and in my bath it is still soft enough to make me slip around in the tub and make everthing overly bubbley LOL. I don't find any issues with having only the hot water softened, not sure why it would bother anyone else or have anything to do with comparing it to the brakes on my vehicle LOL. It must be how it is done where I live and I've never had any complaints or dirty whites. Maybe our water isn't as hard as some.
You could have the water line to the fridge connected before the softener too. Hope it helps you out xoxosmom : )

justalurker

i recently added a whole house water filter after my water softener because the DW did not like the aftertaste of the KCL. I added the water filter in (a Big Blue with 2 filters) and she now says the water tastes fine.

Will the water filter remove the aftertaste? I am just curious. The DW will now drink the water (before she would not) so the 300 bucks I spent was worth it. But she thinks, and I actually think so too, that the water tastes better. Are we nuts?

Thanks

sniffdog,

If you have carbon filters in the big blue then yes, it will "polish" the taste.

In fact, the final filter in most RO units and most "fridge" filters is carbon and called a polishing or a taste filter.

You ought to install pressure gauges before and after that big blue filter housing so you can monitor the pressure drop across the housing and element and know when it's time to replace the elements. The gauges will also tell you if the filter housing is limiting the SFR (service flow rate) of the plumbing because you don't want that.

justalurker - many thanks ! I guess I did OK.

The Big Blue filter I bought from Abundant Water Flow has the 2 pressure gauges included with the dual filter unit. I was wondering why they had 2 guages - now I know why.

The first filter is called a pre-filter but I do not know what that means or is exactly. The second filter is the carbon filter.

I learned a lot about water treatment and softeners by reading many of your other posts - quite helpful and saved us a ton of money!

After putting the softener in I realized that we should have been treating our water all these years - even when we were on public water. When we wash our stemware and other glass - no spots! I also had wondered why my humidifiers would always gunk up - we had very hard water.

In my recent build, the builder brought in a guy who wanted to charge us $8000 for an iron filter (which we did not need) and a water softener. We put the softener in for $1000 (cost for the filter and for plumber to hook up main lines). Then I put the water filter in for less than 300. So we were done for 1300 vs. 8000!

Thanks.

OK so what I am getting from the posts above is that having a water softener for the whole house (which we just put in) doesn't mean we have "extra salt" in our cold tap water? Hubby says he can taste it & I say you cant. We were going to put a filter on the icemaker to rid it of salt but if there isn't a reason, maybe we should save our money! He is on a BP pill & that keeps him under control.
Thanks...

What about water that has excess salt in it not from a softener but by from toxic salt levels in the well the water is drawn from? I would like to know if my refrigerator filter system would be able to filter out the salt.

No. The filter on the ice maker is for taste (carbon filter), and to remove particulate matter.

Define "toxic" salt levels. Do you just mean "really high" or "bad-tasting" or is your water so salty it would more accurately be called brine?

It is possible an RO (reverse osmosis) system would take care of the problem, but water analysis is necessary to be certain.

Also, FYI - it is better to start a new thread rather than to resurrect an old one.

Make that an 9 year old thread.. almost older than I am.

Justalurker

thanks for all of your expertise! We had a water softner installed, the gentleman told us because we have it we do not need the refridgerator filter.

he said that he put a layer of carbon with the salt and that would make our whole hose water filtered.

So we haven't been using the refrigerator filter and the water tastes fine.

If your softener installer actually placed a layer of GAC (granular activated carbon) in the SALT tank, then he has absolutely no clue whatsoever about how softeners work. The only water that might filter a little bit would be the water used for the brine draw portion of the first few regenerations after installation.

If, however, he placed a layer of GAC in the resin tank (which is more likely), then he did you an even worse disservice. Placing a layer of GAC in your softener is a terrible idea for a variety of reasons.

1. GAC (granular activated carbon) and softener resin have very different densities, requiring different backwash rates. One or the other (or potentially both) won't be adequately backwash.
2. Loose GAC should be backwashed daily to prevent compaction and damage. The damaged particles cause increased pressure drop, followed by channeling, resulting in poor performance for the softener.
3. GAC is sharp and damages softener resin, which harms softener performance.
4. In order to work effectively, a GAC bed needs to be WAY deeper than is possible if it is placed in a layer in your softener. This means it won't do much.
5. GAC effectiveness reduces over time, at a rate much faster than softener resin, meaning it will need to be replaced. A thin layer like that - you'll get a year max. Unfortunately, since its mixed up with your resin, that means a total replacement of the softener resin as well.
6. GAC takes up space in the softener tank that is supposed to be empty so that the resin bed may be adequately expanded during backwash. If that expansion is not possible, broken beads and other particulates build up over time, negatively impacting softener performance.

I don't believe there's any in there right now. But I do not have a filter in the refrigerator since he told me I don't need one. Is this ok?

Where do you think the GAC went if it's not in "there" right now? It doesn't dissolve.

Filtering for taste issues is purely subjective. However, given that your softener installer appears to be completely ignorant, you may want to think about what may be in your water that you want to remove. If you like the taste of your water, it may be fine - unless there is something in it that is unsafe. Water analysis is the only way to know for certain.