Salt-free water softener advice sought

[three_jeeps]

I will be replacing an old, unused salt based water softener in my house. I am turned off by the salt-based (sodium and potassium) units because of the high salt content of the water that would possibly be consumed. I am looking and doing quite a bit of reading on salt-free units with a specific interest in Natursoft unit.

I am interested in getting some advice as to pros/cons of this technology in general but also for the Naturesoft unit (or alternatives). Also interested in installation advice or things to look out for should I do the install myself.
Thanks
J

 

[jeng]

hi there. i, too, was interested in a non salt-based water softener because i did not want to buy large bags of salt and also because of the environmental impact of injecting large amounts of saline into the water supply during disposal. i looked up information on whole-house water descalers and settled on an ao smith one. why? first off, i am not a professional water scientist - just a regular consumer. i was struck by how some units are upwards of $1,000 while others are $850 and others are $300. the jargon on the various advertisements was unintelligible to me. i did notice that the aquasana rhino descaler (6 year, 600,000 gallons) was $600 and the ao smith descaler (6 year, 600,000 gallons) was $300. it's possible, though i do not know this for sure, that the descalers are exactly the same - just packaged to look different. but i'm an amateur and i felt that if i was going to install this myself, then i would start with the ao smith one, see how it works and then decide on any changes afterwards. i DIY things to save money.

install went pretty well. and the water has a noticeable slicker feel. so far i'm happy with it but time will tell about the product overall. if you're pretty comfortable with tools and have decent common sense, i think you could do this project yourself! i'll post info about the install separately.

 

[three_jeeps]

Thank you. I read your other post. Where did you buy the AOSmith descaler? and What filters did you buy and are they necessary?
I'll probably be doing my own install...btw, I notice the bypass valve eliminates the filters...why wouln't you keep the filters in no matter what?

 

[jeng]

i bought the decscaler on ebay. the sediment filters are ispring 100 micron and then 50 micron. i bought them to have extra filtration before the water goes into the descaler (and eventually the reverse osmosis filter inside the house) because clearing out sediment will cause less stress on the descaler and the reverse osmosis filter and i thought that extending the life of the descaler through pre-filtration would be a good idea. i got the ispring sediment filters because you don't have to replace the internal filter - just open the petcock at the bottom once in a while and it blasts out all of the crap it collected. the bypass valve in the middle of the two tee connectors is currently off so water channels through the descaler and into the house. in the event that i have to change the filers (either sediment or descaler, i can open the bypass valve in between the tee connectors and close the other two and still deliver water to the house while i service the other components. hope that clears things up!