Water softener

matelodave

I dont think they save heating costs but thye do make showering & washing a lot nicer,- we do notice when the salt is running out.
However that said, the state of our old hot water tank before the siftener was installed was s ight to behold. I cut it open and there was well over 1 cm of limescale on the heating coil and the immersion heater couldn't be removed because it was so thcik and encrusted,

I guess if you assume that it eliminates or reduces limescale inside the tank, on immersion heaters or heat exchangers and it it makes them a bit more efficient then there might be a marginal reduction in costs.

They also virtually eliminate limescale so cleaning the bathroom, shower and toilets is a lot easier.- there's no soap scum

Not sure about whether they save washing powder though - one tablet chucked in the machine does the job.

Our running costs amount to two bags of salt a year, costing a total of £18 so hardly a kings ransom.

coffeehound

It sounds reasonable to claim some fuel savings on DHW heating.  Where the coil is insulated by scale it must take noticeably longer to heat the tank.  Plus the volume of the tank is reduced over time so maybe it needs to be heated more often.  Probably the biggest saving will be with making appliances and plumbing last longer though.  E.g. In the Thames valley our electric showers only lasted a year or so.

Reed_Richards

matelodave said:

They also virtually eliminate limescale so cleaning the bathroom, shower and toilets is a lot easier.- there's no soap scum

Without a water softener you expend a lot more physical energy in scrubbing away at the limescale, get hot so turn down your heating for a while.  This doesn't happen with a water softener so your heating bills are greater.

Grumpy_chap

MWT said:

The aversion to water softening is that both myself & my wife detest the sensation of showering and hair-washing with softened water and I prefer drinking normal tap water as well. 

Personal preference about using soft water for showering etc - I definitely prefer it.
However, a properly installed water softener should still leave the drink water on the mains supply taken from before the softener is plumbed in.

matelodave

Grumpy_chap said:

MWT said:

The aversion to water softening is that both myself & my wife detest the sensation of showering and hair-washing with softened water and I prefer drinking normal tap water as well. 

Personal preference about using soft water for showering etc - I definitely prefer it.
However, a properly installed water softener should still leave the drink water on the mains supply taken from before the softener is plumbed in.

Thats how ours is plumbed, direct cold feed to the kitchen and the outside taps and everything else (including the toilets) via the water softener. the only stuff that scaled is the kitchen tap, the kettle and coffee machine. The dishwasher also has a direct feed but thats because it has it's own built in softener and it saved plumbing a softened feed into the kitchen.

I'm not really sure whether the toilets need soft water to flush but we dont get limescale in them and it did eliminate the requirement for a direct feed to the cloakroom and bathroom as well as soft.The washing machine has a soft feed as it's located next to the softener in the utility room.

Thomas_Holding

coffeehound said:

It sounds reasonable to claim some fuel savings on DHW heating.  Where the coil is insulated by scale it must take noticeably longer to heat the tank.  Plus the volume of the tank is reduced over time so maybe it needs to be heated more often.  Probably the biggest saving will be with making appliances and plumbing last longer though.  E.g. In the Thames valley our electric showers only lasted a year or so.

The thing is that they don't claim it, they suggest it.
There is no guarantee just a hope. 

Thomas_Holding

MWT said:

Thomas_Holding said:

Thanks for that - it looks like it doesn't help.

I think the real message in that link is that the biggest improvement comes from reducing/eliminating the use of the triggers, and soft water naturally encourages you to use smaller amounts of soaps and detergents in general so it 'works' from that perspective, but you can achieve the same results through care and attention.

Good luck though, hope you manage to identify the triggers and get life back to some sense of 'normal'.

Thank you, we are going to very carefully measure detergent levels.

Greatgimp

The only stuff that scaled is the kitchen tap, the kettle and coffee machine.

I use softened hot water in my kettle and coffee maker (before it has chance to get hot through the tap) and as as far as I'm aware, without having an adverse affect on our health.

matelodave

In general softened water isn't injurous to health but it does have a higher sodium content than normal due the the salt used in the regeneration process so it's advisable not to use it to make up baby feeds, especially for small babies - have a shufti at this for more info https://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/blog/health-effects-drinking-softened-water/