Conventional water softeners use sodium chloride, which is bad for the environment and increases municipal sewage treatment costs. That’s why many cities and states have made new installations of conventional water softeners illegal, which in turn has prompted many people to turn to saltless water softeners to solve their hard water problems.
What do we mean by saltless water softener? Well, it means different things to different people. It includes technologies such as magnets, electrical pulses, and a variety of filter media in place of the traditional salt-based mechanism. Some of these methods are well-established, while others are more dubious. However, there are a few things all salt-free water softeners have in common.
One, is that they obviously don’t use salt – so they don’t add sodium to your tap water. For some people, especially those on low-sodium diets, this is an attractive feature.
Another thing saltless water softener systems have in common is that they don’t actually soften your water. Sound strange? Well, water hardness is measured by the amount of dissolved magnesium and calcium in the water. No-salt water softeners don’t remove those minerals, so the water is just as hard as it was before the device was installed. Instead, manufacturers of these devices maintain that their devices work through other means to simply prevent scaling, while leaving those minerals in your home’s water.
For this reason, some critics say that using the term water softener to describe these appliances is deceptive. Instead, they suggest the term water conditioner is more honest. These people argue that by calling these devices water softeners, they’re preying on people who are looking for a solution to their hard water problem, but can’t use a traditional system.
But whatever you call them, customers don’t seem to worry too much as long as the devices actually work. Saltless water softeners will continue to be popular in the United States for the foreseeable future, especially in areas where traditional solutions to hard water problems are no longer available.