Primarily, a water softener is used to reduce the effects that hard water causes on pipes, heating elements, and other home appliances. However, selecting an ideal water softener that will meet your needs can be challenging, particularly if you are not well-versed with water softening units. To make your purchasing a lot easier, here is a
comprehensive water softener guide.
Hardness of Water
For starters, you should assess the hardness of your water. To achieve this, you can hire a water company to evaluate the quality of the water that you use. Alternatively, you can purchase a home water test kit online. These test kits come with instructional details that are easy to follow. For some kits, the homeowner only has to place a few water drops on a tablet that comes with the kit. A bar code is provided to determine the hardness of the water, based on Water Softener Guide the subsequent color changes that occur.
Holding Capacity
When shopping for a water softener, another aspect that you should take into account is its capacity to regenerate and provide softened water for a household. With this regard, the best water softener is one that is big enough to regenerate tons of liters each day without depleting. Nonetheless, a small-sized water softener is also desirable if you only use little amounts of water. As such, you should first assess the quantity of water that you and your family utilize on any given day.
Presence of High-Quality Components
The ideal water softener is one that has quality components, which include a metered-style valve. That way, you are guaranteed that your unit will last longer and operate optimally. High-grade water softener components are likely to cost more upfront, but they save you money in the long-run. On the other hand, poor quality elements are cheap, but they require frequent replacements and result
in wastage of water and salt. Another must-have for every water softener is the metered-style valve. Chiefly, this element allows users to program the unit at different levels of hardness depending on the number of people there are in a particular household.
Eco-friendly Systems
Another aspect to pay attention involves the environmental-friendliness of a particular system. Advisably, you should opt for a water softening unit, which has an integrated energy-saving mechanism while still regenerating considerable amounts of water. In addition to cost-savings, such a system also lowers the emission of greenhouse gases that result in deterioration of the ozone layer.
Installation and Maintenance Costs
Before rushing to purchase the water softener, you should also ensure that it is within your means, in terms of setting it up and long-term maintenance. Many homeowners make the mistake of buying the expensive water softening units, which they then find difficult to maintain. You can always inquire the repair and maintenance manual to gauge whether you can maintain the water softener with ease.
When shopping for a water softener, you will need to make certain decisions with care. This way, you can end up with a system that works smoothly and efficiently. Some of the factors to pay keen attention to, are the hardness of water, holding capacity, the quality of the water softener components, eco-friendliness of the system, and costs involved.