In this article we will touch on water softeners and salts. It is important to understand both of these in order to troubleshoot other plumbing issues. Lets dive in.

Water Softeners

There can be a number of problems that arise when your home has hard water running through its pipes. For starters the hard water dos not dissolve soap properly. This means you will find a lot of scale deposits on items. These include plumbing fixtures, dishes, and even in the inside of your water heater.

Water softeners can fix these problems. They do so by chemically removing the magnesium and calcium that are responsible for the hard water. These types of units are installed in your home after your water meter is in place. However, prior to the water line branching off to all of your appliances and fixtures. There is one exception to this. That is the piping to outside faucets should branch off the main line before the softener. The reason is because treating your outside water is essentially a waste of money.

Each water softener unit comes equipped with an overflow tube and a purge tube which allows it to rinse out the minerals that are extracted from the water. These two tubes should be attached to a laundry sink basin or floor drain. If the laundry sink basin is near by and accessible it is the better choice of the two.

Types of Salt

Now that we have a better understanding of water softeners and how they function, lets quickly touch on the salt that is used for water softeners. They come in three basic types: rock salt, solar salt (crystals), and evaporated salt (pellets). Rock salt is a mineral that is mined from salt deposits. Solar salt is a crystalline reside that is left behind after seawater is naturally evaporated. Evapourated salt is similar to solar saltbox the liquid that is in the brine is evaporated using a mechanical method. Out of the three rock salt is the cheapest but leaves behind the most residue and due to this requires more frequent cleaning. Evaporated salt pellets are the cleanest out of the three and because of this require the least maintenance.

Let Caldwell Plumbing Help

In the coming weeks we will be writing another article on how to install a water softener unit in your house. Alternatively if have any questions for Caldwell Plumbing  about water softeners and salts please feel free get in touch with us. We provide plumbing service to Toronto, the Courtice, Ajax, Pickering, Whitby, Uxbridge and the rest of Durham Region.