No Comments »

Design Trend: Tips on Installing A Whole House Water Conditioning System

• Tweet

• Tweet

If you’re one of those people who gets water from a well or from a municipality with particularly bad water quality, you may have suffered through any one of a legion of problems: cloudy water, water with a “rotten egg” smell, water with a chlorine or metallic or fishy taste, or water so hard that it leaves your skin feeling tight and your hair feeling dry. And if you’ve got that “hard” water problem it’s not only a problem for your health but for the health of your home. Water filled with calcium and magnesium deposits can shorten the life and efficiency of home appliances like dishwashers and washing machines. Water heaters can’t heat hard water as fast as soft water, so your utility bill goes up. In fact, tankless water heaters running with hard water often need replacing every two years. Plus, hard water leaves scaly deposits on your plumbing system which build up over time, causing clogs and corrosion that can shorten the life of your home’s plumbing system. If you have hard water you know it, just by the number of showerheads you run through over a few years time.

Fed up with all the problems brought by substandard water quality, more and more homeowners, particularly those looking for Northern California water services, are taking advantage of whole house water conditioning systems that can treat water flowing throughout the house. Not only do these homeowners get clean, filtered water to drink from the kitchen tap, but washers and dishwashers need not suffer the insults of overly mineralized water either. Plus, homeowners can again luxuriate in baths and showers that leave skin feeling refreshed, not layered with gunk.

Are you thinking of adding a whole house water conditioning system? Here are a few tips:

1) Ask the professionals. There are a number of different types of systems , from drinking water systems to whole home water softening and filtration systems. Each is designed for optimal performance based on various factors, including the source of your water (well or municipal), size of your plumbing, as well as your overall volume of water use, and level of purification needs. The best way of finding a system that will work for you is talking to the experts and evaluating your situation accordingly.

2) Drinking water isn’t needed throughout the house. It’s impractical, unnecessary, and extremely expensive according to experts at DeAnza Water Conditioning. In fact, they say, the bulk of their customers are opting for two systems — one to soften and/or filter the water for the entire house and then a separate water filtration system in the kitchen exclusively for drinking and cooking. That separate system uses advanced reverse osmosis (RO) technology to remove all of the particles that cannot be removed by standard purification.

3) Shop around and consider not only the system design and planning but technical support. Your choice of water systems will be based not only on the conditions at your house, but also on the kind of technical support you’ll be getting in the future. All water systems need maintenance and support, so you’ll want to choose a company carefully, that you know will be around over the long haul.

4) Compare apples to apples. Prices on water filtration systems can vary enormously, from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. Keep in mind that what’s on offer also varies enormously. Ask a lot of questions and keep the differences in mind as you assess costs.
Adding a whole house water filtration system to your home is a serious undertaking, but the benefits in terms of water quality, life extension of plumbing and appliances and, of course, the health benefits are enormous. Once you’ve made the change, you’ll never want to go back again!