Looking for advice: hard water treatment
 

We're on well water, and thanks to local geography, it's pretty dang chunky.

Considering options for a whole house "make the water not hard" solution. Got a small under sink reverse osmosis system to make she the cats get good drinking water (way, way, way cheaper than dealing with vet bills due to crystals).

Not wanting to jump straight into a whole house RO system (cost, lots of wasted water), and most everything I'm finding with the help of mr. google sure looks/reads/sounds snake oil-ish.

So - looking to the resident team of know-everythings for real-world knowledge and experience. Any suggestions?

There's a shot you can get if it stays hard for more then 4 hours...

I kid I kid.

A Water softening system can be had cheaply if you find one used, I found ours on Craigslist it was newer and only needed to be serviced by the company who made it. Going strong 5 years later

I have a well here with extremely hard water. I got a water softener, partical filter and UV sterilizer installed for around $2k maybe 8 years ago.

I was spending over $350 per year on bottled water and had to deal with the deposits on my faucets before that.

Water softener is needed only on the hot side to keep mineral deposits from forming in the water heater.
Hard water is completely safe to drink, and to me, tastes much better than soft water.
Another concern is where the back flush water will go. If you have a private septic, you will be introducing 20-40 lbs of salt a month into your system.

X2

Try whole house water filters, I have 2 (3 technically but the first is to eliminate the real chunks). First is a big unit coarser, followed by a smaller fine unit.
There are also electronic units that eliminate/minimize the scale issue.

Not a perfect solution, but helpful.

my softener is on the other side of the house, before you go in the softener side of things do check where your water comes in, in relation to your septic system (if Equipped) you can get a on demand RO unit for Each of the outlets you want... the best solution without going full home

I've seen this kind of witchcraft about for quite some time...

I don't know how it works but the "fact" that it has been around for so long and the UK trading standards authorities haven't chased them off the white cliffs of Dover suggests that perhaps it is worth a go?

http://www.discoverymagnets.co.uk/ecoflow_water.htm?gclid=COLE6Y2D-aoCFUJO3godGmGNHg

These aren't the only ones available - you can buy them in virtually every DIY shop in the UK.

We have the same problem ( hard well water, with soluble iron) and installed a softener that solves our problem. It's really not rocket science to install one and skip all the sales BS and enormous markup. Get one that has separate brine well and mineral tank and do some research on a quality timer valve ( Fleck or Osmonics- we have the latter but Fleck is better). You should be able to pull this off for $500-$1000 DIY and a day's worth of clean fun. As noted, you don't want that brine going into your septic tank unless you want another messy problem. Then it's best to supply your drinking water needs from RO (see if your cat will share). You will need a simple filter upline ahead of the softener to keep the chunks out of the mechanism.

The well at my uncles farm had water with a ton of iron. He had a regular softener there, but it did not do much for the iron. Then he heard about a new type of unit to handle the iron. Used volcanic ash or something to filter the iron. Worked pretty well as I recall.

My water is quite acidic so I have a water hardener that runs the well water through a tank of calcium and magnesium carbonates. Got lots of iron too, which right now isn't a big concern. I recently connected to the public sewer line so I may get a device to remove the iron. At least I don't have sulfur water.

I am on well water also
 

in Central Virginia. I had a local water treatment guy install a whole house softener. It has a reverse osmosis tank under the house and a brine tank in the garage. I have whole house filter prior to the treatment system so as to keep most of the particulates out of the reverse osmosis filter.

The system, components and labor was about $1200. Cheap. The iron in the system seems to be well handled by buying the right salt (green bags) that seems to have an anti-iron chemical in it.

I have a separate gray water septic tank that recieves the the effluent when backflushing during the midnight hours.

I recommend you do something about your water if only to have your bride love you for it. Not very expensive. Avoid the Culligan Man. He will suck your wallet dry.