What Is A Water Softener?

Water Softeners remove magnesium and calcium minerals from your water. Without one, you are prone to hard water, which comes with a lot of damage.

By removing those minerals, your water will not only be cleaner, but it will also be easier on your appliances that use water, faucets, pipes, clothes, and even your skin and hair.

How Does A Water Softener Work?

A Water Softener cleans the water before it goes through all of your pipes in the house. It is what you would call, a whole-house water filter. It removes the minerals through a process called “ion exchange“.

First, the water softener charges the minerals with positively charged ions. Those minerals that are now charged with protons go through a tank that then, charges the minerals with negatively charged ions (anions). The negative ions come from the resin beads, which are charged with sodium ions.

So basically, hard water enters the house, and travels through the water softener. As the positively charged ions pass through the tank filled with resin beads, they are attracted to the negatively charged ions, thus moving towards the beads and leaving the water. When the minerals leave the water, the sodium moves into the water to replace the minerals that left. That is “ion exchange“.

Of course, these resin beads don’t have an infinite supply of anions. So, in order for the water softener to go for another cycle, regeneration needs to happen. A water sensor inside the tank monitors the ion levels, and when it gets to a certain point, it initiates the regeneration cycle. The mineral buildup in the beads are washed away, and sodium chloride in released from the brine tank providing fresh new anions.

Why Should I Get One?

Here’s a list of horrible things that hard water can do to your house:

• Clogged pipes
• Decrease in water pressure
• Spotted glassware
• Faded clothes after putting them in the laundry
• Gross drinking water
• Decreases lifespan of your appliances and faucets
• Dry skin and hair
• Frequent plumbing repairs

Getting a water softener is an investment that will make like better and easier in your house. It may be a little on the expensive side, but it is totally worth, especially since they can last up to 20 years! There are even smaller ones that you can install to either you kitchen faucet, bathroom faucet, and your shower head (they work a bit differently).

Make sure to check out our shop to find the best faucets, shower heads, sink, and more all at affordable prices.