Cabin Fever. septic question

[michiganfarmer]

Will a water softener harm a septic tank or septic system in anyway?

I want to put a softener in because the hard water is pretty tough on my water heater, and faucets.

[Cabin Fever]

If your septic system is up to code, the addition of a water softener should have no negative effects.

[Bluebird]

Cabin Fever,
Our septic us up to code but about 50 years old or better and I too have been wanting to put a softener in for the same reasons. What would problems would it cause? Thanks

[Cabin Fever]

There are some concerns about the additional water use overloading leachfields. For newer aerobic systems, there have been concerns about the salt negatively impacting the systems biologi (ie, mircroorganisms). And finally, there has been some concern about salt causing clay soils to seal up. Although these are all valid concerns, research and experience have found the concerns to be unfounded.

[Bluebird]

Thank you!!

[chestnut]

I have a sandmound sytem and was told to NOT run the salt water into the system, the brine that is used to cycle your softner. It will destroy your dosing pump much quicker. Mine runs into a floor drain that goes to a hole filled with rocks

[deaconjim]

You may want to take a look at this.

[michiganfarmer]

my septic ssytem was up to code when it was built 30 years ago. It has a 1000 gallon tank, and a drain field

[Joshie]

We have a septic system that's less than 10 years old. DH put in a humongous water softener last year because our water is so bad. The water no longer stinks when you turn on the faucet. It doesn't dry out my skin like it did before and the washer cleans the clothing much better. The model we have is designed/sized for our water.

[mountainlaurel]

We are country plumbers. We install water softeners all of the time and they are almost always installed on houses that have septic systems. No problem.

[tiogacounty]

I have been installing them on most of my new homes, with septic systems, for several years, with no issues. They are great for removing large amounts of soluable iron in the water. In my area it's nothing to spend $3k for a water specialty outfit to install a system to remove the iron. I use a medium sized Whirlpool brand softener from Lowes and do the whole job for less than $600. When I first ran into this issue, I asked the local water conditioning outfit if they would sell me the parts to do my own install? They hemmed and hawed and then agreed to let me have the "treatment system" for $900. It looked a lot like a salt based conditioner with a brine tank, but their "specialist" swore it wasn't. I called the manufacturer and talked to their engineer. He politely said that his dealer was a liar, possible had removed some labels from their display model, and that the salt based water softener I was being shown would handle about seven times as much soluable iron as I had in my water sample. What he didn't say is that they wanted much more $ than it was worth. Water conditioning is one of the many services where homeowners can really get robbed, be careful, or do it yourself.

[Rusty'sDog]

I would tend to think that the extra salts would be offset by the fact that you will be using one half of the laundry/dish detergents as before.

[Mickie3]

Originally Posted by deaconjim

You may want to take a look at this.

Those folks run snakeoill ads all the time on talk radio around here. Surprised they are still in business. As for the BBB rating, any company that pays dues to it gets a "A" rating, so that means nothing.

As to the efficacy of these kind of "devices", Penn State Scientists took a look at it. Read their results at:
http://resources.cas.psu.edu/WaterRe...s/magnetic.pdf to debunk all these kind of "miraculous devices."

Sorry folks, but the laws of physics are still in effect today.

[||Downhome||]

why not a filter system in front of your appliances?

I was in a township that many had changed over to city water but a few legal wells, anyways the water table was pretty nasty, a few put in good filter systems and it was night and day.

I have a aunt 1 mile or so away even the next door neighbor for that matter has some
pretty hard water, I would rather drink the neighbors water over the aunts, you can taste the minerals but the aunts seems like brine, always has. some reason ours is sweet even if it is full of minerals.

[Mickie3]

If you simply want good drinking water, you can get a reverse osmosis water filter. They take most everything out of the water, but are kind of pricey. Also, they only process water slowly, not enough for whole house, but for drinking, they are great.