Pre-Plumb for Water Softener Questions

[Gytaryst]

My house was built in 2000 and not pre-plumbed for a softener. I talked to a water softener company and they sent a guy out to estimate the install. My water enters my house on the East wall. My garage, water heater, and laundry room are on the west wall. The guy was saying he needs to tie into the outside spigot on the east wall with 1"PEX, trench thru my front yard, tunnel under my driveway, and run it around to the west wall and go in to the garage. I'm no plumber, but the softener will be in the garage a few feet from my water heater, which is in the garage. Just on the other side of the back wall where the water heater is, is my laundry room with the washer hookups and drain. Isn't it possible to tie in there somewhere and avoid digging up my yard and laying 100' of PEX?

I can probably do the grunt work myself. In other words, I can take drywall off, run pipe, (or PLEX), where it needs to go, and have that all ready so an installer just needs to tie into it. That water softener installer guy wanted $1,200 to dig up my yard and run water from the other side of my house.

The pictures below show the little recessed area in my garage where the water heater sits. The next picture is the opposite side of the back wall behind the heater. Again, I'm not a plumber, but it seems to me everything I need to tie into to install a water softener is already inside those walls somewhere, and there's no need to trench up my entire front yard.

 

[TomFOhio]

Are you going to soften everything in the house since everything is covered with drywall. You should be able to install it
right where the main water comes in. You'll have to open the wall and get to the piping.

 

[RS]

I think the reason for his recommendation is to avoid softening the outside spigot. If you do much watering with that you wouldn't want to soften it. It might be simpler to add a new hard water spigot near where the water enters the house, for watering. Then use the existing spigot which will be soft water for washing vehicles and windows. I have always had both at my houses.

 

[FishScreener]

It all depends on how your plumbing is layed out. Depending on where you are, the feed to the house could be installed under the slab or in the crawl space, from east to west, and then charge the system from there. Or it could enter on the east wall, feed the hose bib, and then feed all the rest of the cold feeds on it’s way to the input for your water heater. I’ve seen a lot of installs, which just leave me shaking my head in wonder, trying to figure out what the last guy was trying to accomplish.