water sofner and or water filter at the main water supply

lexa34

Hi,

Are these different things- is one for water softening and one like having a brita filter on all water than comes into your house?? Just as we are rumaging about puting joists/ floorboards/ toilets etcs in thought may be a good time to look at these...

Sorry if daft question...

:rotfl:

Sobraon

Water softeners makes the water for washing and bathing nicer.
Water filters remove particulate matter (often iron from the mains) and possibly chlorine from mains water to make it nicer to drink.

We have had a Wickes water softener for 15 years (see http://www.wickes.co.uk/Accessories/Water-Softener/invt/421700) because our water is very hard (a lot of lime scale) like yours probably is in London. The Wickes picture is almost exactly how we have got ours fitted. Running costs are low (I guess about £50/yr ) as you put a bag of salt in the thing about once a month which is used to back flush the resin filter at night (regenerate). Our softener has run faultlessly. The result is that our water for bathing and washing is a lot nicer.
Remember to make sure that drinking water is direct from the main (rather than the softener) and possibly passed through a filter. Soft water may be less good for your health and also tea made with soft water is IMHO foul (I work in a naturally soft water area).

walmslei

Just a note on the softener above.

Softeners come in Timer and Meter controlled - Timer control means it regenerates every night or every other night regardless of water consumption. A meter controlled valve regenerates only when the resin requires back washing.

The difference being if you go away for a couple of days one will continue to use salt and water and the other will not.

As someone that works in this industry (and sells these) the vast (vast) majority of customers stump up for the metered valves (usually about £100 more expensive).

Outside of softeners you can get dechlorinators, polpyphosphate scale inhibitors and sediment filters for whole house applications relatively cheaply.

moonrakerz

walmslei wrote: »

Just a note on the softener above.

Softeners come in Timer and Meter controlled - Timer control means it regenerates every night or every other night regardless of water consumption. A meter controlled valve regenerates only when the resin requires back washing.

The difference being if you go away for a couple of days one will continue to use salt and water and the other will not.

Just to add to that:

Meter controlled ones cost a lot more than timer controlled units and often have a second softening tank "so that you can carry on using soft water when the unit is regenerating."

IMHO these are not worth the money. Water consumption is usually fairly constant, once you have set up your timer it will use very little salt more (if any) than a metered unit. You can buy an awful lot of salt for the extra hundreds of pounds that a metered unit will cost.
You will also find that the more "sophisticated" units use block salt which can only be bought from the unit manufacturer, timed units use granular or tablet salt, available from lots of places at much cheaper prices

If you are going away - switch the timer off !

There are several other threads on this site on softeners - worth a read.

PS: Would "Walmslei" be the same Ian Walmsley apparently praising water softeners (as a very satisfied customer) on a commercial water softener website ? "As someone that works in this industry (and sells these)"