Remineralising softened water to make it taste better

SunnyCat

A few months ago I had a water softener installed in my house and am very please with the general disappearance of limescale. However, solving one problem created another... bad tasting drinking water (due to our plumbing setup it was not possible to bypass the kitchen tap when installing the softener). I am not worried about salt, as according to my research the amount is negligible, and still want to keep soft kitchen tap, but the soft water doesn't taste good.

ETA: the taste of drinking water is the problem I am looking to fix.

I've considered some options for that:
- get a water cooler with those big bottles of water - cons: space and faff with water deliveries
- get a water cooler that draws water from mains and adds minerals back in - cons: these seem to come as a reverse osmosis set up, which I don't care much about and it looks very costly.

The above options seemed on the extreme side and I settled on this instead:


- get a remineralising pitcher (which also appear to be sold as alkaline pitchers). Seems to be a cheap solution and might be a good option to try first.

Does anyone have any recommendations on the remineralising pitcher?

Section62

SunnyCat said:

A few months ago I had a water softener installed in my house and am very please with the general disappearance of limescale. However, solving one problem created another... bad tasting drinking water (due to our plumbing setup it was not possible to bypass the kitchen tap when installing the softener). I am not worried about salt, as according to my research the amount is negligible, and still want to keep soft kitchen tap, but the soft water doesn't taste good. I've considered some options for that:
- get a water cooler with those big bottles of water - cons: space and faff with water deliveries
- get a water cooler that draws water from mains and adds minerals back in - cons: these seem to come as a reverse osmosis set up, which I don't care much about and it looks very costly.
- get a remineralising pitcher (which also appear to be sold as alkaline pitchers). Seems to be a cheap solution and might be a good option to try first. Does anyone have any recommendations on the remineralising pitcher?

All those options sound more expensive or complicated than it should have been to arrange a hard water supply to the kitchen tap.

What is it that made the installer think it wasn't possible?

silvercar

I have a reverse osmosis filter, that filters the softened water. It's relatively hassle free, the filters get changed every 6 months.

If you look on the ingredients of the remineralisers, the key ingredient is seaweed, so the cheapest, low fuss option would be to add a small amount of seaweed to your diet.

SunnyCat

Section62 said:

SunnyCat said:

A few months ago I had a water softener installed in my house and am very please with the general disappearance of limescale. However, solving one problem created another... bad tasting drinking water (due to our plumbing setup it was not possible to bypass the kitchen tap when installing the softener). I am not worried about salt, as according to my research the amount is negligible, and still want to keep soft kitchen tap, but the soft water doesn't taste good. I've considered some options for that:
- get a water cooler with those big bottles of water - cons: space and faff with water deliveries
- get a water cooler that draws water from mains and adds minerals back in - cons: these seem to come as a reverse osmosis set up, which I don't care much about and it looks very costly.
- get a remineralising pitcher (which also appear to be sold as alkaline pitchers). Seems to be a cheap solution and might be a good option to try first. Does anyone have any recommendations on the remineralising pitcher?

All those options sound more expensive or complicated than it should have been to arrange a hard water supply to the kitchen tap.

What is it that made the installer think it wasn't possible?

The best access point and where we have space to keep the softener is before the kitchen tap connection. Besides, I want the soft water in the kitchen tap for washing dishes and cooking, I only want get a relatively small amount remineralised for drinking. I suppose I could just buy mineral water, but would prefer to skip all these plastic bottles.

SunnyCat

silvercar said:

I have a reverse osmosis filter, that filters the softened water. It's relatively hassle free, the filters get changed every 6 months.

If you look on the ingredients of the remineralisers, the key ingredient is seaweed, so the cheapest, low fuss option would be to add a small amount of seaweed to your diet.

Does your RO filter have a stage to put minerals in after? 

I'm not worried about the effect on the body, but my husband won't drink the water from the tap now and keeps on complaining about the taste (which was fine before softener)

Bendy_House

In terms of drinking quality, were you happy with the original hard water supply from your cold kitchen tap? If so, the easiest - and very probably cheapest - solution is surely a 10mm supply pipe to a dedicated drinking tap mounted on, or near, your sink.

silvercar

SunnyCat said:

silvercar said:

I have a reverse osmosis filter, that filters the softened water. It's relatively hassle free, the filters get changed every 6 months.

If you look on the ingredients of the remineralisers, the key ingredient is seaweed, so the cheapest, low fuss option would be to add a small amount of seaweed to your diet.

Does your RO filter have a stage to put minerals in after? 

I'm not worried about the effect on the body, but my husband won't drink the water from the tap now and keeps on complaining about the taste (which was fine before softener)

Not as far as I'm aware. It tastes fine - very fresh and far better than the original hard water tasted. Basically you, are getting as near to pure water as you can in a domestic setting. If you aren't worried about the effect on your body (if any) I would suggest you finding someone local with a RO filter on soft water and trying their water.

Alnat1

I moved from a soft to hard water area and thought the water was disgusting. 6 months later it didn't bother me at all. Now when I go to my son's house in the area we used to live, his water tastes weird.

I think your husband's problem is, it doesn't taste like it used to, it's different. I'm sure given enough time he will get used to it. Tell him if he still has a problem after a year you'll agree to do something about it.

Section62

SunnyCat said:

Section62 said:

SunnyCat said:

A few months ago I had a water softener installed in my house and am very please with the general disappearance of limescale. However, solving one problem created another... bad tasting drinking water (due to our plumbing setup it was not possible to bypass the kitchen tap when installing the softener). I am not worried about salt, as according to my research the amount is negligible, and still want to keep soft kitchen tap, but the soft water doesn't taste good. I've considered some options for that:
- get a water cooler with those big bottles of water - cons: space and faff with water deliveries
- get a water cooler that draws water from mains and adds minerals back in - cons: these seem to come as a reverse osmosis set up, which I don't care much about and it looks very costly.
- get a remineralising pitcher (which also appear to be sold as alkaline pitchers). Seems to be a cheap solution and might be a good option to try first. Does anyone have any recommendations on the remineralising pitcher?

All those options sound more expensive or complicated than it should have been to arrange a hard water supply to the kitchen tap.

What is it that made the installer think it wasn't possible?

The best access point and where we have space to keep the softener is before the kitchen tap connection. Besides, I want the soft water in the kitchen tap for washing dishes and cooking, I only want get a relatively small amount remineralised for drinking. I suppose I could just buy mineral water, but would prefer to skip all these plastic bottles.

The installer should have suggested running a pipe from the hard water side to the kitchen sink and adding an extra tap for hard water, much as Bendy has suggested.

Unless the hardness of the water is very low (in which case you shouldn't need soft water for washing up/cooking) the sodium added to the water in the softening process means that it shouldn't be used for drinking or cooking.

There are people who will say that ion-exchange softened water is harmless to drink, but the long-term effects of excessive sodium intake are widely reported.  And although softened water doesn't contain 'salt' it does contain higher levels of sodium as a result of ion exchange (i.e. from the removal of calcium).  The harder the incoming water, the more sodium in what you drink.

Did you get the water hardness level tested?

Moss5

All water softeners can revert to 'Hard' by use of change-over taps. My Monarch twin-cylinder has a plastic manifold and a simple push button. Push for hard/push for soft.
You could select 'hard' and fill containers for drinking.

Keith_F

Section62 said:

SunnyCat said:

Section62 said:

SunnyCat said:

A few months ago I had a water softener installed in my house and am very please with the general disappearance of limescale. However, solving one problem created another... bad tasting drinking water (due to our plumbing setup it was not possible to bypass the kitchen tap when installing the softener). I am not worried about salt, as according to my research the amount is negligible, and still want to keep soft kitchen tap, but the soft water doesn't taste good. I've considered some options for that:
- get a water cooler with those big bottles of water - cons: space and faff with water deliveries
- get a water cooler that draws water from mains and adds minerals back in - cons: these seem to come as a reverse osmosis set up, which I don't care much about and it looks very costly.
- get a remineralising pitcher (which also appear to be sold as alkaline pitchers). Seems to be a cheap solution and might be a good option to try first. Does anyone have any recommendations on the remineralising pitcher?

All those options sound more expensive or complicated than it should have been to arrange a hard water supply to the kitchen tap.

What is it that made the installer think it wasn't possible?

The best access point and where we have space to keep the softener is before the kitchen tap connection. Besides, I want the soft water in the kitchen tap for washing dishes and cooking, I only want get a relatively small amount remineralised for drinking. I suppose I could just buy mineral water, but would prefer to skip all these plastic bottles.

The installer should have suggested running a pipe from the hard water side to the kitchen sink and adding an extra tap for hard water, much as Bendy has suggested.

Unless the hardness of the water is very low (in which case you shouldn't need soft water for washing up/cooking) the sodium added to the water in the softening process means that it shouldn't be used for drinking or cooking.

There are people who will say that ion-exchange softened water is harmless to drink, but the long-term effects of excessive sodium intake are widely reported.  And although softened water doesn't contain 'salt' it does contain higher levels of sodium as a result of ion exchange (i.e. from the removal of calcium).  The harder the incoming water, the more sodium in what you drink.

Did you get the water hardness level tested?

This!
Get a connection from hard water supply to a separate faucet. Run this through a simple filter such as this https://www.twintec.com/our-products/water-filters/
filter only needs changing once per year and makes an amazing difference to taste.