Hard Water

Thomas the Tank

Hi there,

We moved into our new house about four months ago and have got a really bad problem with hard water. I've been trying to source info about water softening units, cost etc and find that there's a lot of different models out there, the prices vary a good bit and I haven't a clue where to start! Just wondering if anyone else has had to install a water softening unit and if so how much it cost to purchase, install etc and most importantly if it works!

Thanks a mill,
TTT:)

Beach Head

Got a system installed Jan this year. € 1100 including a filtered water drinking tap on the sink.

Honestly, its a cheap system that works and you can really notice it in the shower when it runs out of salt.

This is its drawback. You have to continuallly top it up, usually about once a month. Bag of salt is € 6 in the hardware. If you run out of salt, it takes a day or two to get back to normal. I have now set my phone for a reminder every 4 weeks to fill the thing.

There are a lot of other types on the market, friend of mine just purchased one for € 2000 that filters to 3 microns whatever that is, he says it will even remove e coli.

Ours has a stainless steel cover on the unit, which is mounted outside and I know that people pay more for a wooden cover but ours is in a yard that cannot be seen from the patio etc so the stainless is grand.

Thomas the Tank

Thanks for the info Beach Head! Really helpful. So the system is installed outside then rather than up in the attic on the water tank? Are you based in Dublin? I was looking up these units on the net yesterday and saw a company in Cork that does them, one in Galway but didn't come across any Dublin company.

mrs aol

We've moved to a rented house while building and it has /had hard water. There is a softening system of some sort in the shed. It needs bags of salt which we top up every few weeks or so. I don't have any information on the system but I wanted to warn you that we can't drink the water here because it tastes of salt. I can't imagine it could be good for you. I think it is quite likely we'll have hard water at our site but there is absolutely no way I'd have a system installed where salt is used. There are other alternatives but I researched them enough to advise you - just something to keep in mind.

smarten31

Hi

I received a flyer in the post yesterday of a company that does all of this , inspection , testing and installation. I think they were based in Dublin.. I will get the flyer tonight and post the details for you tomorrow

Cmar-Ireland

I thought the salt system was for washing-up/showers etc, and then there was a seperate filtered cold water supply for drinking & cooking

Thomas the Tank

smarten31 wrote:

Hi

I received a flyer in the post yesterday of a company that does all of this , inspection , testing and installation. I think they were based in Dublin.. I will get the flyer tonight and post the details for you tomorrow

Brilliant! Thanks so much. Any info would be greatly appreciated. I rang a company in Naas and they said the first thing to do is get the water tested, which they will do for free once you post them off a sample. Then they will ring you and advise you which system you need, cost etc - problem is I'm a sucker for a sales pitch so would like to know the general cost of these things before I go agreeing to anything!!

Thomas the Tank

mrs aol wrote:

We've moved to a rented house while building and it has /had hard water. There is a softening system of some sort in the shed. It needs bags of salt which we top up every few weeks or so. I don't have any information on the system but I wanted to warn you that we can't drink the water here because it tastes of salt. I can't imagine it could be good for you. I think it is quite likely we'll have hard water at our site but there is absolutely no way I'd have a system installed where salt is used. There are other alternatives but I researched them enough to advise you - just something to keep in mind.

Hey,

That doesn't sound like it's working properly to me?? I've done some reading on how these things work over the past couple of days as far as I know your drinking water shouldn't taste of salt! From what I gather the water doesn't actually pass through the salt at all, rather it's used to create this brine which rinses the the filter bed once the stuff that's causing your hard water has been removed. So maybe there's a leakage in your system or summat?

mrs aol

Thanks, Thomasthetank, I think you're probably right. Our landlady is overseas and I would have to take care of getting it looked at / fixed myself. As we'll only be here for another 3 months or so I just don't have the time or inclination to bother. We have regular visits from my parnets who have kindly been bringing us water from their tap. All that said, I know the supplied did do a routine check this summer and reported nothing wrong.

Beach Head

Cmar-Ireland wrote:

I thought the salt system was for washing-up/showers etc, and then there was a seperate filtered cold water supply for drinking & cooking

Thats excactly right. Our seperate drinking tap is filtered separately from the rest of the house. The drinking tap filter is installed under the sink and the main filter is located outside. None of the water tastes of salt.

The company that installed it is Leo Forde and they are based in Dunshaughlin I think.

samo

We got a reverse osmosis unit with seperate drinking tap and a water softener (Metered one) installed from EWS technologies (found them after doing a search on boards) who are based in blanch but seem to cover most parts of leinster.

Cost was approx €1300 IIRC but they do finance options etc as well and some sort of leasing deal. Had priced around a few places but needed it done in a bit of a hurry and got prices ranging from €1300 - €2500 for what was essentially the same thing!