Water Softeners

Find out how you can have high quality purified water at home for your family or business.

Learn more about just how easy it is to own or rent a water softener from Simple Water Softeners.

San Antonio, like much of the United States, has hard water. This means that it’s full of minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Water is considered hard if it has more than 7.1 mineral grains per gallon. 10 grains per gallon is considered very hard. 14 grains per gallon is considered off the charts. The average in San Antonio is 18 grains per gallon to 28 grains per gallon hard. All the water in San Antonio does not come from just one place. San Antonio gets water from about seven different places. To get quality soft water for your family you need a ion exchange water softener in San Antonio and surrounding areas. A water conditioner (salt-less system) will probably not give you the results you desire. We encourage do your research.

When sizing a water softener first you need to know how hard your water is. A family of three with 14 grains per gallon could use  a 30K possibly while a family of three with 28 grains per gallon would need a 45K or even a 60K. After determining the hardness you need to consider a few more things to size a water softener. The number of bathrooms in the house plays a major factor in it. How much water that could possibly be flowing through system at a given time. You have to allow enough contact time for that flow rate, or you will bleed in hard water. Meaning the water softener brings your 18 grains per gallon water down to 0 or 1 grains per gallon. If not enough contact time when there is a high flow rate you probably will not get 18 grains per gallon but probably 8 grains per gallon or a little higher. The other thing to consider is how long will you be in house. Every size you go up will regenerate less and less. The less the softener regenerates the more time you will get out of it. So if you fall between sizes take into consideration the factors of today, five years from now and even ten years.

Hard water is terrible for the plumbing pipes in both commercial and residential buildings. Hard water leaves glassware dull looking and spotted. It shortens the lifespan of water-dependent appliances such as dishwashers, coffee makers, water heaters and washing machines. It makes laundry detergent less effective, which makes clothes dull and causes them to wear out faster and helps to create a scum around bathtubs and sinks that’s hard to get rid of. It also leaves hair and skin dull and dry. In extreme cases, hard water can lay so much scale inside the pipes that the entire system may need to be replaced.

But our plumbing professionals have a remedy for hard water. It’s called a water softener, or an ion exchange unit.

Water softeners are systems where calcium and magnesium are exchanged for sodium ions. First, the hard water comes into the building through the fresh water line. Instead of being sent to the fixtures, it is directed into a tank half-filled with resin beads filled with sodium ions. The sodium ions are exchanged for the calcium and magnesium, and the water flows up out of the tank and continues through the fresh water lines to shower heads, faucets and other fixtures.

Softeners are equipped with controllers that monitor the gallons of flow. After a certain number of gallons, the controller initiates a backwash cycle. This is called the regeneration cycle.

The tank where the ions are exchanged is connected to another tank the brine tank that is filled with water and  salt. This brine tank is where sodium ions are created. During the backwash cycle, untreated water flows in the opposite direction through the resin beads and is discharged via a drain. The controller then turns on the recharge cycle. The brine is pumped through the resin beads, which removes the calcium and magnesium and recharges the beads with sodium. The beads are then rinsed with untreated water. At the same time, the brine tank is replenished with fresh water.

For more information about water softeners, don’t hesitate to call us at Simple Water Softeners. We are pleased to serve both residential and commercial buildings in the San Antonio area. Our number here is (210) 960-2555.