If you are living in a city or town that provides you with water for your home, you should understand that no matter how your water gets to your home, it still has come from the earth and will probably contain hardness.
But do I really need a water softener when I have city-supplied water?
City or any municipal water supply can contain calcium and magnesium (hardness) just like private well water. Municipal water supplies will often have a similar hardness as private wells in the same area.
But doesn’t the city or town treat the water for hardness?
Municipal water supply is usually only treated to the point of being sure that it can be consumed safely by the people of the community that will be using it.
Water softening is simply too expensive of a process for most cities to produce soft water.
Generally, any water treatment beyond making sure water is safe for consumption is the responsibility of the individual homeowner. So if the water is supplied by the city that you live in is hard and you want it soft, you are going to have to get yourself a water softener.
What else is in the water I get from the city?
Fortunately, most city water supplies will only contain hardness and possibly chlorine for water disinfection. It is not very common to find any iron, manganese or other water issues in water provided by a city or town.
Since it is in the cities best interest to provide good, usable water to encourage the development of the city, they will go to great lengths to provide a source of water that will be usable right out of the tap, with minimal additional treatment needed.
So is my city water safe to drink?
Because water hardness is more of an inconvenience than a hazard, and it would be extremely expensive to soften the huge amounts of water needed for a growing city, water softening would be an option at the expense of the homeowner.
More importantly, since a cities water supply will most likely be treated in order to make it safe for consumption, there may very well be chlorine in the water as part of the disinfection of the water.
Depending on your location in relation to the water treatment facility, the water that you are receiving may have levels of chlorine that could be harmful to you or your home.
If you get your water from a municipal water supply and are concerned about chlorine or fluoride in your water, you should consider one of my recommended reverse osmosis drinking water systems to remove chlorine, fluoride, and other contaminants in your water.
Chlorine disinfects water, cleans food stains and eliminates odors caused by organic materials because it is toxic to organic organisms.
So what is wrong with having chlorine in my water?
Chlorine can cause sickness and irritation to humans, animals, and plants when they are exposed to it at adequate levels of concentration. Also, the resin most commonly used in standard water softeners will absorb chlorine out of the water.
This may sound like a good thing at first since you don’t want to have chlorine coming into your house. But the reality of it is that the chlorine will gradually make the water softeners resin become soft and swollen.
This changes the structure of the resin, making it less effective at removing hardness and iron from your water.
Also, when the resin swells and becomes soft, the individual resin beads will press against each other and reduce the size of the openings between them. This means less volume of water that can run through the water softener and loss of water pressure throughout the home.
This deterioration of a water softeners resin by chlorine will normally take many years depending on the level of chlorine in your water. In some cases, it may be more economical to just re-bed the water softener when the resin is no longer able to soften the water.
Learn more from my article “Can Water Softener Resin Go Bad?”
In many cases, chlorine can have an effect on the moving parts within the water softeners valve, and cause them to malfunction.
When this happens, the valve may need to be rebuilt, which usually involves the replacement of several pistons and valve seals that can cost several hundred dollars if you have it done by your water treatment professional.
Can I use a water softener when there is chlorine in my water?
To help avoid the negative effects that chlorine can have on your water softeners resin bed and control valve, there are systems that are specifically designed for use with chlorinated water.
These water softeners have a separate chamber in their tank that contains carbon to remove the chlorine from the water before it gets to the systems valve and resin bed.
As the chlorine passes through the carbon, the carbon will absorb the chlorine and then get cleaned when the water softener goes into its regeneration process.
The only significant downside to these systems that I find is that the carbon wears out after several years. I find that the carbon will usually have a life of about five to eight years, but of course, this will depend on how much water is used and how much chlorine has to be removed.
Some but not of these softening resin and carbon combo water softeners have a side port to make the replacing of the carbon quite simple. You just have to depressurize the system by putting it in bypass and then running it through its regeneration cycles.
Then you can open this side port, and then using a wet/dry vacuum, you can remove the old carbon and poor in the new carbon. It may take you an hour or two the first time you do it but the amount of money you can save is worth the effort.
Will chlorine from municipal water damage my reverse osmosis system?
If you are looking into getting a reverse osmosis drinking water system for your home, good for you and enjoy your great water.
But when choosing the reverse osmosis system that is right for you, be sure to treat your municipal water with a carbon filter to protect the reverse osmosis membrane.
Many reverse osmosis drinking water systems only have a sediment pre-filter on them which will allow chlorine in the water do deteriorate the reverse osmosis membrane, this will result in your water not being filtered as it should.
Be sure to look for a reverse osmosis drinking water system that has a carbon pre-filter on it to remove the chlorine from your water.
If you already have a reverse osmosis drinking water system but do not have a carbon pre-filter, you can probably add one in place of the systems regular sediment filter. If not, let me show you how you can add one before the reverse osmosis system.
When you have a whole house filter for your home, you can simply put an activated carbon filter in the filter housing in place of the sediment filter that you were using before.
How you can add a carbon filter before your RO.
If you do not have any filter before your water gets to your reverse osmosis system, you will need an in-line carbon filter that is for the correct sized tubing that your reverse osmosis system uses to feed water to it.
The most common sizes of tubing used are 3/8 inch or 1/4 inch. You can check your users manual, and it should state what size tubing is connected to your water supply and then fed to the reverse osmosis system.
Once we have determined the tubing size for the in-line carbon filter that you will need, you can easily order one online or you can probably pick one up at your local water treatment store if you have one in your area.
To install your new in-line carbon filter, we are going to have to first shut the water off that feeds the reverse osmosis system.
There should be a tube coming from your cold water line that goes up to your sink faucet. It should have a little knob or lever that you can turn a quarter turn to shut off the water to your reverse osmosis.
There should also be a second shut off valve on top of your reverse osmosis systems storage tank. Turn the lever to shut the water to and from the tank as well.
Once you have shut off the water going to the system, turn on the reverse osmosis system faucet and let it run until the water stops completely.
Now your reverse osmosis system should be depressurized and you are ready to add your carbon filter.
Now put your carbon filter on the supply line.
Using a tubing cutter or a sharp utility knife, cut the tubing going from the sinks water feed to the reverse osmosis system somewhere around the middle of the tubing if possible so that the filter will be able to sit evenly and without any sharp bend to the tubing.
Be sure not to squeeze the tubing when cutting it as it must stay very round to ensure a waterproof fit when inserted into the filter.
I recommend putting a tiny bit of silicone-based lubricant on the ends of the tubing and use your thumbnail or a knife to clean any burs off of the tubings ends.
Then insert the tubing into each end of the filter and take note of the direction the water should go by the arrows on the filter or it may say in and out by the openings.
Turn the storage tank valve back on and then the water supply valve and you should have your water as usual but without the chlorine that will ruin the taste.
Change this carbon filter along with your other filters when you do your regular filter changes.
