"Why would you soften ALL the water in the system, when only the heated water is usually the problem?" A common question and often asked... Back in the day when homes were rarely, if ever, plumbed for a softener retrofits were installed at the water heater because it was easy, quick, and cheaper than interrupting the water service. When door-to-door water treatment hucksters prowled the neighborhoods an easy install was an effective close. When new homes began to include softener loops some had the kitchen and hose bibs plumbed pre-loop so soft water wasn't servicing the kitchen sink and outside. As time went by it seems that excluding the kitchen and hose bibs from water treatment was lost in the shuffle and new construction provided a softener loop for the entire house, if they provided a loop at all. Softener retrofits continued to be whole house, except for those old-timers who learned one way and that's all they knew and in cases where it would be very expensive or not easily done other than to soften only the water heater. People also discovered that washing their cars with soft water was a good thing... just like the car washes have been doing for decades and decades and decades. If the water entering the home is hard and you only treat the water heater then everywhere there is cold water the water is hard. Every faucet, appliance, pipe, and fixture. Everywhere in the house the hot and cold mix the water will be less hard, but not soft. You won't get the advantage of soft water. With today's efficient water softeners it really isn't much more costly to treat the entire house than exclude the kitchen and hose bibs if you factor in the accelerated wear and tear and more frequent repairs to faucets, appliances, pipes, and fixtures that hard hard water will bring not to mention the savings from using less soaps and detergents. Why would anyone want to pay for soft water and then not get it?

In addition to plumbing I have also been doing commercial refrigeration & HVAC for over 35 years so I like to believe my soldering & brazing skills are at least slightly better than the average homeowner/DIY'er and based upon the problems involved I would not attempt to put a tee on that bipass line. First off, it would be nearly impossible to get all the water out of those lines, yet if even a few drops of water are present you will not be able to heat the pipe enough to break one of those solder joints. Second, both the hardwater line & the conditioned line are very rigid so even if you could melt the solder you could not get enough movement in the pipe to separate the joint, but you could introduce some very interesting leaks that would be a nightmare to fix. Fortunately there is a much simpler solution. The bottom line in the first picture is the hardwater line. If you were to install a tee about 1/2 way between where that paper tag is hanging and the cabinet wall it would be fairly easy. (see attached illustration). Begin by turning the main water shutoff in the cabinet off and turning both of those valves to the off position then mark the fitting allowance on the pipe so you know how much pipe to cut out while making sure there is sufficient pipe to fit in the Tee. There is enough space between those two lines that you can get a Mini- pipe cutter in there. Next, using a strip of emery cloth, clean the ends of the pipe. You could solder a tee in there but given that you are not skilled at soldering, I would strongly suggest you use a sharkbite 3/4x3/4x1/2" reducing Tee. Note, in the illustration I showed the tee pointing down but if you need to go up you can also do that from this point. To install the tee the hardwater riser in the cabinet can be sprung back about an inch to give you clearance to get the tee in. (You may need a helper to reach the pipe in the cabinet). I would then solder a short piece of 1/2" pipe into a valve and once its cool insert that pipe into the side opening of the tee. At this point you could turn this valve off and open the mainwater shutoff valve and the water conditioner feed valve on and you will have to water restored to the house, so you could finish running the line to the hose bibb now, or do that at another time.

I'd love to believe that these no-salt water softeners work as it is a chore to lug salt to the water softener but none of them have an understandable scientific basis with solid controlled experimental evidence to support it. While conventional water softeners work on a clearly understood and easily confirmed chemical process. When we move to our present home, it was clear our water had unacceptable levels of calcium in it. We're on a neighborhood well and well water in many regions has this problem. We have both a front loading washer as well as a continuous melting ice maker. Both had problems with our water immediately. Continuous melt ice makers don't tolerate scale at all. The deposits on the freezing plate interfere with the sheets sliding off and cause the unit to jam up. I was having to clean the freezing plate on ours monthly. Front load washers also have all sorts of problems with hard water. The soap forms scum deposits which quickly become smelly. I was running two packs of washing machine cleaner through ours every month to try to combat this. Plus I had the usual scale on the dishes and bath fixtures, plus the soap scum buildup in the showers. I installed a basic Whirlpool water softener from Lowes and this immediately solved all our problems. I clean the ice maker about once a year which was the same frequency I had done it in our previous house on city water. And occasionally I run a washer cycle with washing machine cleaner but no longer does our washer continuously get smelly. This is also a good place to point out that the science behind calcium removal using resins with salt or potassium salt is the same across all brands. I won't argue that $3,000 water softeners have a lot of extra features that you will not find in a $400 Whirlpool one. BUT the way the remove calcium is exactly the same. They ALL use an ion exchange resin that substitutes sodium for the calcium. Periodically the resin is flushed with super saturated salt water to unbind the calcium, dispose of it, and replace it with more sodium for a new cycle. Note, it is a myth that water softeners add salt to your water, they add sodium, not salt. For those that are concerned with sodium intake, for a little more money, potassium chloride can be used instead of regular salt in just about any resin based water softener. As a plus with potassium, those with gray water systems can have a water softener and still use the waste water on plants and the lawn.

Will be looking for someone to do a water test. Is there some kind of standard named test to be done, or is it a matter of identifying each parameter a la carte? The old water heater location to the left of the door can't be used because there is no drain available there. The heater will be wall mounted (right wall) about 12" away from the corner due to venting clearances from door, outside corner, eaves, gas meter, etc. We weren't originally planning on a softener so there was no space allotted for it in the original location. Also, that door wasn't supposed to be there originally and was planned to be on the wall to the right, and at slab level (another long story). So now, we have 16" between the steps and the wall to see if we can fit a softener. Otherwise, it'll have to encroach towards the parkable area. Luckily, we have about another 3' before the restricted zone. The gas line on the lower left will be removed. I forgot to ask him about whether he'll be teeing off the existing gas line at the ceiling or just running a separate line to the meter since it's very close behind that wall. It came up as an option to avoid recalculating loads. Also, the recirculation stub down by the platform will be removed and moved over to the other wall as well. I haven't found or heard anything about enclosing the heater. It will have in and out vents, spaced 2' apart, directly out the wall. Well, the output will turn right for 2' first, then go out. Due to the height, we weren't required to have vehicle protection. The plumber had reviewed the current plan with the city already, so hopefully no new surprises with this setup. Also, due to the planned position of the heater, it will be tight for him to tee off for a whole house bypass at the current location. We're going to have to deal with the softener rework later then since we just want this part done as quickly as possible to get in already, and we don't want to add costs to this work to complicate the responsibility since we want the architect and/or gc to be covering the cost of the current rework. BTW, the standpipe will tee right above that bend and he had the iron(?) tee and trap and it looked to be 4", but he said that a separate vent would not be needed and was ok'd by the city.