What You Should Know Before Buying a Water Softener

Many people live in areas where their water is calcified to the point that they feel that they have to add a water softener in order to get fresh tasting water. There are chemical water softeners, and certain filtering methods will also lessen the severity of the calcification, but which steps are the best when it comes to softening your water?

Distillation is the oldest method used as a water softener, being literally thousands of years old. This method employed two tanks, one from which the water is vaporized and one that acted as a catch tank. The vaporized water was drawn into the catch tank leaving all of the mineral content back in the holding tank.

Another one of the mechanized water softeners is known as a reverse osmosis system. This is the type of system that is used at your local treatment facility. It is usually a very good system for the de-mineralization of our drinking water, but sometimes people still have trouble with having "hard" water.

There is also a style of water softener that is hooked up to the main water line running into your house. From there it further filters for calcium and magnesium that cause scale buildup in your pipes. These machines don't actually remove these "hard" elements from your water, but rather exchanges them for potassium.

There are just a couple of problems with these water softeners though that you should know about before you buy them. For one thing all that these machines do is demineralize your water, they do not filter out any of the chemical and biological contaminants that are commonly found in our tap water system, and they are outrageously priced.

A quality water softener can run you $600 or more, and if you ask me that's simply too much money for such a one dimensional apparatus. You would be far better off by purchasing a home purification system that offers you all of the protections from pollutants that you need, and that includes an ion exchange feature.

This feature gives you all of the benefits that the larger water softeners do, because all that they are performing is an ion exchange. These smaller models remove "hard" debris from your water just as efficiently, and will actually offer you both potassium and sodium exchange as opposed to just one.

In addition to being a water softener the ion exchange filter in a home water purification system will also remove any trace metals such as lead or copper from your drinking water, and it will act to keep your water's pH level balanced. Just because this type of filter is smaller does not mean that it doesn't do a lot.

Water softeners don't have to be bulky, and they don't have to be expensive. You can get a high quality full service home purification system for as low as $125, and it will keep your family safe from 99.99% of all of the impurities that may harm you. A simple water softener won't offer you that kind of protection.

Autor: David Surgeon

If you're scared to death of the drugs found in drinking water, we compare the various water filter systems at http://www.best-water-filter-guide.com and show you which ones have been scientifically proven to remove the highest amounts of contaminants.

Added: December 26, 2008
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/