O/T water softener

I trust you all so you are my main source. That's a lot of power.

We are on rural water. It smells like a swimming pool and is very hard. I will be redoing our kitchen and all of the plumbing in the house soon. Now would be the time to put in a water softener if I am going to do it. My folks have one but they live in town now, so they can't help.

Can a septic tank take the brine flush that comes with them? Do you run the regeneration out to a French drain? It just seems like that wouldn't be good to put into the system, let alone that it might be tough to orchestrate in a 100 year old house.

I have already figured on doing the right plumbing. I don't need softened water filling all of the stock tanks. Pressure side of the plumbing is not an issue (supply) as it all needs a redo anyway. It is the waste side of it that worries me.

So let's hear from some rural people who have a softener.

When I set my place up 35 years ago the septic guy said run it all through the system, the salt won't hurt a thing, so that's what I did. Softener recharged every other night when the kids were home and it still all works good, would do it the same way again.

I'd rather have the stains than drink softened water, my house had a culligan water softener, I bypassed it the day I moved in, I drank softened water at my neighbors and it tasted like sea water, to heck with that, by the way were on a 230 foot drilled well,. Hard water all the way for me.

We've had a softener for years and it doesn't seem to affect the septic tank. It's a double tank system installed in 1949 and has never been opened up. I haven't heard any of my neighbors complain about a softener hurting their septic tank. Jim

We've had three different systems over the years and all three were problematic, using lots of salt. We've had hard, iron and sulfur water. Two years ago, we bit the bullet and bought Kinetico systems for our home and business, both deep wells in the country. Now our water is absolutely perfect, no rust, no smell...we installed 'reverse osmosis' units on our kitchen sinks and plumbed those to ref. icemakers. Now our ice cubes are nearly clear. You can not destinguish the difference between our reverse osmosis water and bottled water. The system uses maybe 1/3 of the salt our old systems used. They are a little pricey, but dishes are spotless, clothes cleaner...high recomment Kinetico systems

Code in my county will not allow the waste side to be hooked to the septic.
It is run to a dry well instead.
I'm fairly sure that varies depending on local code.

I agree on not drinking soft water. Our kitchen tap is straight from the pressure tank.

Glenn

I did some research before I installed one and I believe there was a paper from Iowa State that actually tested a septic system that dumped the softener rinse water into the septic tank and they found no difference in performance of the septic tank or the drain field. I have a condensate drain from the furnace that runs into the drain plumbing so I just ran my rinse line into that. It"s been about 8 years and no problem attribuable to this.

Ex-outlaws had one and ran it into the septic for ten years. Never had a problem.

I have a well and always had a water softener. It went out about 2 years ago...for about the fifth time in 50 years.
I put an Eden Pure hard water treatment system called scale-rid on the pipes that come from the well to the pressure tank for about +- $200.00 and it works like a charm, no more toten 100 lb sacks of salt or #50 blocks down to the basement.
Breaks down the chemicals and lime in the water by electrolisis if I remember right. I'll NEVER own a water softener again!

I have had a water softener that dumps to the septic system for many years. I have the septic tank pumped about every 5 years and every time the technician has said the system appears to be working just fine.

My well is through basalt, which has some iron in it. When I built a new home about 18 years ago, I added the water softener to try to deal with the rusty iron in the water. It did that job very well for a long time, and our new house did not require brushing out the toilet every day and washing white clothes at the laundramat. Soft water also requires less soap and detergent.

However now I am wondering if the rust/iron problem might be at least partly from the galvanized iron pipe I used for the waterline when I built that system about 35 years ago. The underground pipe has apparently rusted out and has been leaking badly. I plan to use heavy Poly pipe to replace the galvanized water line in a couple of months. But for now I am supplying the house with a garden hose from the pump house to a hose bib. I have a heat tape on the hose and run a small amount of water through it when it is below freezing, so hopefully that will work for a while. But one of the things I noticed when I started using the hose, rather than the old galvanized line, was that my whole house water filter stopped getting clogged every week or so.

One poster mentioned that he did not want to drink softened water, and he is right, you should not, especially if you have high blood pressure. I purposely plumbed the kitchen sink cold water so it got regular well water, rather than softened water. I think I had read in the code when I built the house that you were supposed to do it that way. But over the years, the water got worse and worse tasting, and was obviously a bit orange from rust. We have been drinking bottled water for years. It will be interesting to see if the water will taste better when I get the new poly water line operational.

In my opinion, a water softener can really help make the well water more useable in a house, if the well water has problems with hardness or some other types of contamination. Installing a water softener is not that difficult if you are a little handy with plumbing, and while they can be very expensive, systems are available for about $500 that work very well. I think a softener is a very worthwhile addition, if your water needs treatment.

It is probably a good idea to have your water tested, to see just what kind of treatment might help its quality. I wouldn't worry that much about salt in the septic. Good luck!

As Digger said, a water softener and a Reverse Osmosis will give you the water that you need. Also connect the RO to the fridge icemaker; it only uses 7 PSI as opposed to water system pressure that may cause a leak (flood) in the fridge.

We've used this system for the past 20 years; my wife wouldn't be without it.

When we bought our place, the original owners had run the softener discharge out on the ground, leaving a dead spot. I dug a dry well for it, and that has worked well.

You should use a demand softener, this will insure you use the minimal amount of salt, and will reduce the amount of sodium chloride going out the softener drain. Most of the waste salts should be sodium chloride and magnesium chloride.

235 ft drilled well...Brita pitcher in the fridge.
clothes as white as, I suppose, they can be. I'm happy.
good luck
k

I found an ad that you might want to check out. It's for a "salt free" water softener, manufactured by NUVO H2O - (800) 387-0652 .

After about ten years in the house with about 16 grains hardness, and all the problems that go with it, I had a friend who used to work for one of the big companies and then started his own business put in a softener. We plumbed the backwash drain out through the pipe to the abandoned water well. I don't believe that the salt will help the environment for your bacteria. In addition the softener is a substantial addition to the flow. You may want to check the results for your perc test to see how good it is relative to the standards so that you can assess if the ground should be capable of handling significantly more. Around here it has always been common knowledge that it was bad for the system.

We use Water Boss softner on well for all indooor water. Used it for ten years with septic tank no problems. House is plumbed with out side facuets that do not go through softner. Saves many dollars on facuets, water heaters, icemakers etc. Also use whole house filter. House has cpvc pipe. Line from well is pvc. Works good for us.

Softener bar none was the best dollar I ever spent. I run the flush into a dry well. I figure the drain field does not need the extra 90 gallons of water each week.

Can a septic tank take the brine flush that comes with them?

Yes. I grew up in a house built in the 50's that had a 300 gallon septic tank. That house had a water softener on it for at least 30 years I knew about. Dumping into the septic tank. The septic tank dumped into the field tile that went to the creek but that's another story.

As a plumber working for a water softener co I installed 1000's and dumped them into septic tanks. Never an issue. In later years with the advent of aerobic septic systems the state of TX decided that it was not acceptable. We did it any way without any issues. My personal residence has had water softener dumping into an aerobic system of over 10 years with no problems.

The argument goes that the salt water will kill the bacteria that processes waste. Any one who's ever fished the salt water bays or offshore know that everything seems to rot faster in salt water than in fresh water. Bait not on ice will be rotten and stinking by the end of the day.

Your rural water supplier should be able to send you a very detailed analysis of your water, including water hardness and everything else that is disolved in the water. You'll need that info when you setup the recharge setings.

A water softener that recharges based on demand rather than on a timer can save a lot of salt, those add some value when you sell your house.

Unsoftened water at a kitchen faucet for drinking and cooking is nice. Also send unsoftened water to all outside spigots except maybe by the driveway. If you often wash vehicles at home unsoftened rinse water does not spot as much and the spots are easier to wipe off.

Some poeple save $20 by skiping the shutoff and bypass valves at a softener, but they are handy for preventing a mess when something goes wrong or the softener starts leaking.

I have a coustomer that I mow for and he has a septic tank and a softner,I went there one day to mow and the top of his tank had litterily rotted through,I just mowed over it the week before.The concrete had rotted where you could tear it apart with your hands

jimmy

Been putting softener discharge in my tank and field for 28 years without a problem. The system is 38 years old. Whatever you do, get a softener that regenerates based on gallons through and not on a time limit, you'll be much happier.

Softenened water does not spot as much.

We tried one of those. Totally worthless! Water tasted bad & did nothing to make the water soft.

(quoted from post at 04:45:24 02/28/13) I'd rather have the stains than drink softened water, my house had a culligan water softener, I bypassed it the day I moved in, I drank softened water at my neighbors and it tasted like sea water, to heck with that, by the way were on a 230 foot drilled well,. Hard water all the way for me.

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I'd hate to see your plumbing fixtures if you have iron in your water. We had a none functioning system in our place when we first moved in and everything the water touched turned orange, until we got a new softener.

We run the discharge into the floor drains that go out under the surrounding farm fields. In our other house it went into the septic tank.

I think the bigger issue is not the salt in the brine but the volume of water than is going into your septic system with every flush. Can your system handle that increased volume? If you have soil that percs well I dont think it would be a problem. Personally I plumbed my flush water into our sump pump pit and it gets pumped out into the yard with the rest of the sump water.

(quoted from post at 06:53:10 02/28/13) Your rural water supplier should be able to send you a very detailed analysis of your water, including water hardness and everything else that is disolved in the water. You'll need that info when you setup the recharge setings.

A water softener that recharges based on demand rather than on a timer can save a lot of salt, those add some value when you sell your house.

Unsoftened water at a kitchen faucet for drinking and cooking is nice. Also send unsoftened water to all outside spigots except maybe by the driveway. If you often wash vehicles at home unsoftened rinse water does not spot as much and the spots are easier to wipe off.

Some poeple save $20 by skiping the shutoff and bypass valves at a softener, but they are handy for preventing a mess when something goes wrong or the softener starts leaking.

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If I wash my dark blue truck in unsoftened water it looks like I have just driven in salt on the road.

I've had one for years, back washes into the septic, no issues.

Our septic tank was getting ruined by the salt softener. We now use ScaleWatcher no salt hard water conditioner with great results. I recommended it. Take a look at aquagenesisusa.com they have good products and good customer service. They will solve your doubts, they are very knowledgeable and friendly. Good luck!