Water Softeners drinking softened water

[Ed209]

Have just fitted a pre owned Tapworks AD11, Works fine but I have not yet made the long pipe run to the kitchen tap with pre softener water. What are opinions/knowledge of using the treated water for drinking & cooking etc. Cant say it tastes any different to me but the wife thinks it does and is a bit concerned about consuming it and giving it to the grandchildren (youngest 2 years old)

 

[mikej460]

I've always believed that drinking softened water is bad for you as it could contain far too much sodium, so I looked it up and read this

The good news is that softened water is pretty much safe to drink as long as your hard water doesn’t exceed past 400ppm so as your softened water can remain under 200 mg of sodium. If the water is harder in your area, then it's more likely that once it is softened it may go over this sodium limit, therefore it would be recommended for your health that a hard water tap is installed too.

I want to install a water softener in our home but I would ensure their was a hard water tap for drinking. That said I wold filter it to remove chlorine etc,

 

[Dee J]

Softened water has a sodium content - the harder the input water, the more sodium in the softened water. Your call if you're happy with the raised level. Why not just link the softener out until you have finished the plumbing?

 

[Ed209]

As far as I’m aware the salt is only used to reverse flush the balls that capture the hardness so unless you consume the very first water after a replenish it should be relatively salt free.

 

[Doug B]

Supposedly there’s no problem with drinking softened water but when I’ve fitted water softeners it’s mainly been to reduce the damage to appliances etc so have run a separate softened feed to what the customer wants.

 

[NikNak]

We've had a water softener for years. No problem. We always used to use cold 'tap' water for hot drinks, tea coffee etc. i.e. boil a kettle.

Then we had some buildings work done and a new kitchen fitted. And we had a Quooker hot water tap installed. The plumber wasn't sure about plumbing our Samsung fridge freezer into the soft side of the water, so called his mate. The answer came back.... plumb the f/f to the cold supply but you can run the Quooker from the soft water supply (his mate also had a Quooker and thats what he'd done). Cant taste anything different and in 18 months theres been no need to do any sort of lime scale cleaning in or around the Quooker (we're in a hard water area).

 

[PerryGunn]

We have had a Harveys water softener for about 7 years and have always drunk the softened water - it tastes a lot better/cleaner than the unsoftened water and makes a much nicer cup of tea/coffee.

We're in a hard water area at around 280 CaCO3mg/L

 

[gcusick]

As far as I’m aware the salt is only used to reverse flush the balls that capture the hardness so unless you consume the very first water after a replenish it should be relatively salt free.

No, the resin in the softener exchanges sodium for calcium, so the softened water has a high(er) sodium concentration. Over time, the resin becomes saturated with calcium ions, at which point it us necessary to regenerate it by supplying a large excess of sodium ions that then replace the calciuml

 

[Ed209]

We have had a Harveys water softener for about 7 years and have always drunk the softened water - it tastes a lot better/cleaner than the unsoftened water and makes a much nicer cup of tea/coffee.

We're in a hard water area at around 280 CaCO3mg/L

Were apparently 313 CaCO3mg/L according to southern Water website


Your water is supplied by Southern Water.
Your water is pumped from underground sources in the chalk at Lord of the Manor,Sparrow Castle, Minster B, Flemings,Woodnesborough, Wingham, Deal, Martin Gorse, Sutton, Ringwould, and from the River Stour.

 

[Ed209]

The Limescale we had in the kettle has almost disappeared after approx. 2 weeks. I some times wonder if my bones and joints are scaled up

 

[PerryGunn]

The Limescale we had in the kettle has almost disappeared after approx. 2 weeks. I some times wonder if my bones and joints are scaled up

If you have a hot water tank keep an eye on it over the next few months.

Over time, ours must have developed a several leaks at the seams. We'd never had any water drips etc. because any leakage was so slow that the water evaporated and the holes became plugged with limescale. A few months after putting in the water softener the hot water tank started leaking quite badly as the softened water had dissolved the limescale.

Still worth it though and I wouldn't go back to unsoftened water. I buy the block salt packs in bulk (usually 64 packs at a time) and store them in the garage - this can save up to 50% on the cost of the salt.

 

[chris.gid]

From the research i did when i was refitting our kitchen (where the softener is) i came across something that said that the water should be safe to drink (ie low enough salt), but because the softener never gets cleaned there is a risk of bacteria build up within the pipes which is why you should not drink the water (bit like drinking water from the tank in the loft but less chance of dead rats in it ).

Our kitchen tap and water dispenser on the fridge is straight off the mains but i have a separate softened cold water tap i use for kettle and coffee machine as that water is heated enough to kill off any potential nasties.

BTW watch out for how old your machine is, the resin filters only last a certain amount of time, we have an engineer come out and look at our last year (as it was not softening much) and concluded that resin was knackered and it cheaper just to buy a new machine than replace the resin. Ours is about 7 years old as FYI, but the engineer changed the slat flush cycle frequency to every 2 days (vs default 6) so its using a lot more salt but still softening. Buying salt from Costco is cheap enough to not worry about replacing the unit yet.

 

[smugdruggler]

My family and I have been drinking softened water for over 30 years and we're still here. No side effects and health checks come back normal. The water in our area is heavily chlorinated which you can actually smell when you run the tap but the softener removes all of this plus it acts as a particulate filter. Before we had the softener our main cold water header tank would get a layer of very fine silt at the bottom over a period of a year but now remains clean.

 

[pgrbff]

From the research i did when i was refitting our kitchen (where the softener is) i came across something that said that the water should be safe to drink (ie low enough salt), but because the softener never gets cleaned there is a risk of bacteria build up within the pipes which is why you should not drink the water (bit like drinking water from the tank in the loft but less chance of dead rats in it ).

Our kitchen tap and water dispenser on the fridge is straight off the mains but i have a separate softened cold water tap i use for kettle and coffee machine as that water is heated enough to kill off any potential nasties.

BTW watch out for how old your machine is, the resin filters only last a certain amount of time, we have an engineer come out and look at our last year (as it was not softening much) and concluded that resin was knackered and it cheaper just to buy a new machine than replace the resin. Ours is about 7 years old as FYI, but the engineer changed the slat flush cycle frequency to every 2 days (vs default 6) so its using a lot more salt but still softening. Buying salt from Costco is cheap enough to not worry about replacing the unit yet.

It is far cheaper to buy a bag of resin than change the softner. There are many YT videos that show you how this is done. Depending on your sother you can also fit a device that during the cycle reacts with the salt and releases chlorine that disinfects the resin and tank.

 

[clogs]

had a softener for years n years.....
BUT the kitchen had non treated water from the mains.....
all the water from that tap went thru an added on in line triple stage filter....
filter changes every 3 months...water tasted good, no smell and the kettle never got lime scale....

 

[Ollie78]

I wouldn't drink it. My parents have a softener and the water from it tastes nasty. It's fine in tea or coffee and doesn't scale up the kettle.
I think part of the reason the water tastes rubbish to me is because I am used to the super hard water around here.
I think it best to have a separate drinking tap either from mains or through a reverse osmosis filter.

Ollie

 

[neilc]

I installed a twin tanked softening system when we built our house nearly 15 years ago as we’re on our own well and the water is very hard. For drinking water, in the kitchen I also installed an under sink 5 stage RO filtration system. This feeds the filtered side of the 3 way sink tap and the fridge. It works well, hope this helps.

 

[pgrbff]

I installed a twin tanked softening system when we built our house nearly 15 years ago as we’re on our own well and the water is very hard. For drinking water, in the kitchen I also installed an under sink 5 stage RO filtration system. This feeds the filtered side of the 3 way sink tap and the fridge. It works well, hope this helps.

I lived in Louth, same system virtually.
80m deep well, storage tank, softener, UV to whole house pump. RO at small sink for food prep on an island.