Original poster here....again.... I have an update...but unfortunately, no solution to the spotting problem. It's been a while since I've posted, so let me give a quick summary of what I've done. Over the last couple years, I've had 3 water quality professionals come to my house to help me diagnose my water spot problem. The first guy (a Kinetico rep) had no idea what the problem was but offered a solution: install a Kinetico system and if the problem goes away, then great! If not and the spotting problem still exists, then he will uninstall his Kinetico system for $200. I passed on that offer. The second guy was unsure of what the problems is. I mentioned I had some silica in the raw water (lab tested it 15.9 mg/L) and he suggested utilizing polyphosphate/siliphos. Although he said it was food grade and harmless, my wife and I weren't so sure about adding that to our water supply, so we passed on that too. The third guy pretty much said "it is what it is"....he said they installed a whole house RO system for someone with similar problems....obviously, i declined that expensive proposal.... I contacted another water professional. He's a little far from me, but he helped me over the phone. He had me do a Langelier Saturation Index (LSI) test with a local lab. The results were a -1.5 (serious corrosion) on the LSI Index and the lab stated "Water is undersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate. Undersaturated water has a tendency to remove existing calcium carbonate protective coatings in pipelines and equipment." So, the professional had me use a blending screw on my softener to leak a little hardness into the treated water (approx 1-2gpg of hardness). Well, I still got spots unfortunately...and the water is no longer slippery/slick. I gave up on that idea. As far as the silica, does anyone have any input on that? Are the levels (15.9 mg/L) high enough to cause issues? Has anyone used any siliphos or polyphosphate treatments? Are they safe? Do they work? One other thing: I have noticed that I have some etching/pitting on the glass shower door chrome hinge and chrome screws....Not sure what would cause that....and I did have that before I tried the blending screw.... As I said previously, I've been trying to get to the bottom of this spotting issue. Up to this point, I have been merely wiping down the chrome fixtures after each shower. But, that doesn't fix the problem..........that's the same thing as just adding oil to car that's losing a quart a day. Plus, I can see where spots are starting to accumulate on the tile walls of the tub....and on the sink bowls....and bathtub.... So......fast forward to the past few months: In order to try to figure out what exactly the spots are made of, I took the lid from one of my wife's stock pots (I think it is aluminium?) and filled the lid with water.....about an 1/8" inch or so. Then i put the lid on top of my wood pellet stove. The heat caused the water to evaporate leaving only the white residue (and some wood pellet dust). I attached pictures of the lid for all to see. I did this for a few days and then I took the lid to the local lab and had him test it. Here are the results of the tests on the residue on the lid: Copper: 3.16 mg/L Iron: 10.29 mg/L Manganese: .96 mg/L Hardness: 64 mg/L Sodium: >1265 mg/L Just for reference, here are my water specs (from my original post): Here is my raw water analysis: Hardness - 21 GPG (grains per gallon) Iron - 0.05 mg/l (ferrous) Manganese - ND (not detected) pH - 7.3 standard units TDS (total dissolved solids) - 472 ppm My treated water analysis : Copper - none detected Iron - none detected Manganese - none detected Chloride - 11.9 mg/L Hardness- none detected Sodium - 110.7 mg/L Nitrate as N - none detected Nitrite as N - none detected Color - 0 Odor - 0 PH - 7.8 Turbidity - 0.3 NTU Sulfate - 40.5 mg/L TDS - 364 ppm Silica: 15.9 mg/L My existing water treatment setup: 1. Big Blue sediment cartridge filter 2. Autotrol 255/762 48K water softener (installed in 2006) 3. Big Blue RFC cartridge filter I confirmed that the treated water is at 0 gpg hardness at all fixtures using a Hach 5B Hardness Test Kit. On the stock pot lid, there is a bare spot. I was able remove some of the spotting build-up with CLR. BUT..............and here is the big BUT............the CLR will NOT clean the sink stoppers that have the spotting on them. The only thing that cleans them is my Never Dull chrome cleaner. NOTE: I was also able to clean additional sections of the stock pot lid with water, vinegar, and Clorox cleaner... I attached pictures of the sink stoppers also showing the spotting accumulation. I had nothing to do with the clean spot in the center of the stoppers....i think it's because the stoppers are slightly rounded, no water sits there, so no spotting accumulates. I also attached pictures of the chrome cover piece for the bathtub overflow. There is some slight spotting there. I usually wipe it down after each shower/bath....but some spots have still accumulated. CLR or vinegar will not remove them.....only the Never Dull chrome cleaner. So, in summary, I'm still at a loss. Thank you in advance for helping. mm

Hi Sparky823, your questions are valid, I will try and explain, as best I can. 1. I can drill a well on my own land, but water law would then expose me to lawsuits from neighbors with shallow wells. They could claim I dried up their wells even if their wells have been dry for decades. They may even be waiting for me to do it so they can cash-in on the lawsuit. There is no way to prove either way, of course, but legal precedent in these matters is on their side. Besides, this is a small community and if I alienate someone, I am gonna have to live with them for a very long time and living in a neighborhood where people hate you is the pitts. Soon someone will buy one of their houses and maybe join us non-well-owners side and the balance of power will have shifted. But this is Santa Barbara, and even a piss-poor shack in the woods goes for $2million nowadays so it may be a while. 2.They have wells because their houses were built before mine long ago and my house was probably a guest house or something. There are about 6 houses with shallow wells and 6 without. These wells are shallow, dry or drying, and contaminated but allow the owners of those properties to not have to pay anything for the sketchy water system, even though everyone knows they use the same water from the spring as the rest of us. Those of us who do not have wells pay $25/house/month + $15/person/month for upkeep of the existing water system, such as it is. And who controls the sketchy water system? You guessed it, the shallow well owners! So they are making bank off it to boot. I cant do anything about it, water wars are the history of California and it wont change. So when water is trucked in, they want 1st dibs on it even though us non-well owners are who is paying for it. Its not fair and I may, as I said, go to war over it; but I have only lived here for 7years and some of these bastards have been here for 70+years. I think I can just wait em out, but every year I get angrier. I may drill a deep water well (6-800 feet) if I could hide the operation in my basement or something, but I doubt that its feasible, and I obviously dont know how to drill wells. So they claim they are living off their wells and dont want to lose their "freedom"; and for now I am trying to "get along". But I will not put up with this nonsense much longer and will appeal to the state health board or some government agency to override them if water still runs out.

Just to be clear: I believe your issue is water volume, not pressure. That said, the most obvious reason for a reduction in water volume on just one fixture is a restriction in the pipe or in the fixture itself. Since you've replaced the fixture, I'm going to guess it's somewhere else. The most likely place for a restriction is where the pipe is smallest - which would be the shutoff valves or balancing valve. Were the balancing valve (if present) and shutoff valves to the tub replaced? If not, that's where I would look. I'm suspicious that the water volume is low on both hot and cold... that would seem more like a balancing valve to me. Let me know if you have a balancing valve and if that and/or shutoffs were replaced.

jhall1975, IIRC resin tanks are certified to only 120lbs/in2 and softeners carry a warning against that high a pressure. You're reading 115 on an uncertified gauge... that's very close to 120. There is NO question that you must bring the static pressure in your water system down to under 80lbs RIGHT NOW. Until you reduce your static pressure you run the risk of other failed appliances, connections, washers, seals, o-rings, and such. As far as your softener vendor replacing the tank at no charge, I wouldn't expect it. You installed the unit outside of it's specifications. The vendor might ship you a new resin tank at no charge based on goodwill BUT, you'll disassemble the softener, remove the resin (not a fun job), put the resin in the new tank, and reassemble the softener. You've just learned one of the downsides to buying long distance... or, as many have learned, when you do it yourself there's no one else to blame. Let us know how it works out.