Whole House Water Filters and Softeners, Installed and tested.
After years of having a Falsken 20″ water filter/softener sitting in front of my tankless water heater and seeing how much gunk it filtered, I decided it was time for a whole house filter. The original Falsken case broke so I ran to the warehouse to get a new one. There I learned there is “media” inside the filter to reduce scale in the water heater.
Water Filtering v. Water Softening
If you look at the photo there are two giant canisters and one small blue one. One is a chemical filter, the small blue one a “particulate” filter in case any of the coconut based charcoal makes it out of the big tank. I can live with that. The slightly smaller tank is a “salt free” water softener.
Water filters remove the “stuff” that is in the water, the softener removes or changes the physics of the minerals that are in all water. If you have very hard water the salt systems are the only way to go. If you get hard white or greenish white buildup around your faucets and showers, that is a result of excess minerals. When you heat water the minerals fall out of solution. Basically if you didn’t have hot water you probably wouldn’t have as much mineral build up.
Salt Free softeners don’t remove the minerals like a salt based softener. They change the composition slightly so the little molecules don’t leave the water and attach to your faucets and showers.
Why Filter Water?
In the US we are spoiled with continuous running water. By world standards it is pretty clean too. As a kid in southern Mexico the water only came on an hour or two a day. It filled a tank on our roof that would grow just about anything imaginable. Sometimes we ran out of water for a day or two at a time. Here in the US that isn’t a regular occurrence anywhere.
Compared to what I drank as a kid in Curenevaca Mexico our water systems in the US are pretty amazing. That said, when I service my tankless water heater I am pretty wigged out by the stuff in the filter. Then I realized I live in a place that “recycles” 100 Million gallons of water a year.
The thought of toilets to taps water made me a little winded out about what I am drinking. So I ran to the local Lowes and grabbed a two stage under sink filter that filtered out pharmaceuticals. Reading that on the box, started me down a rabbit hole to see what is really in the “clean” water coming out of my tap.
Why Soften Water?
The shower in our bathroom is clear glass. Before the softener we needed to squeegee it every time we used it. All of our faucets are covered in a white and green ring of minerals. Our hope is to greatly reduce that problem but only time will tell. I will post photos in a couple of months to match the photos of the faucets. I am told that the minerals can actually start to self clean if the softener is good enough. We’ll see.
The other benefit touted by water softener companies is better feeling hair and skin after a shower. The softened water is supposed to make your skin feel smoother and your hair thicker and softer. We’ll see about that too.
We chose a DIY kit from Springwell at the recommendation of a friend. Otherwise I think I would just pay LifeSource water to install their system and be done with it. I saved a little bit of money going the DIY route but spent a lot of time installing it. While I didn’t get a quote from LifeWater, my installed cost was just north of $4,000. It still feels like a bit much to make good water better but again, we’ll see. Look for an update about the holiday time.
Not written by AI, written by a real person who really bought this stuff.