Water Softener Hooked Up to Cold
Dispelling Myths About Hooking Up Only Hot Water to Your Softener
Don't make the mistake of hooking your water softener up to hot water only--you won't get the full benefits that way. It's actually okay to drink soft water.
Don’t worry about drinking salty water—it’s a myth!
The salt in your water softener tank does not dissolve and magically make your water “soft.” Soft water is actually water with the minerals and heavy metals taken out of it. The function of the salt is to create salty brine that cleans the magnetic resin that pulls the minerals out of the water. Very little salt is in the softened water. In a whole gallon of water, there is about the same amount of salt as in a slice of white bread.
Here are some of the effects of using hard water versus soft water in your entire house.
Laundry
Do you wash your clothes in hot, warm, or cold? Most people only wash their whites in hot water and the rest of the laundry is washed in warm or cold. Having only the hot water softened means that you will be still washing in hard water. The warm, remember, would be a mix of hot, softened water plus cold, hard water.
Lint in your dryer is caused by the very fine particles of minerals scraping away at the fibers of your clothes every time you wash them. You’ve always known that it is the washing of the clothes that wears them out, not the actual wearing of them. Now you know why.
Dishwasher
Most dishwashers are hooked up to the cold-water plumbing because dishwashers have their own internal heating unit to heat the water hot enough to sterilize the dishes. If your cold water going into the dishwasher is hard water, then it could be destroying the appliance with the minerals, not to mention the hard water spots and the wear on the dishes. Your glassware might look like someone took fine sandpaper to them. It is not unusual for residents of communities with very hard water to buy a new dishwasher every 2-3 years.
Plumbing
According to the Water Quality Association, “hard water ruins plumbing at an estimated $2.7 billion per year.” The minerals encrust the inside of your pipes and appliances.
Washing your body
When you step into a hot shower, your pores open up. If there are minerals in the water (remember, warm is a mix of hot and cold) then those minerals will clog up your pores and block the natural oils in your skin from lubricating itself. The chlorine in city water can also aggravate the drying effect. Some water softeners come with an additional filter that removes chemicals such as chlorine.
Cleaning
According to Ohio State University, “the average family spends an extra 80 hours per year cleaning due to hard water.” That’s the equivalent of two whole work weeks! The hard water stains and the soap scum caused by hard water does take more time to clean than soft water.
Here’s why. Soap draws dirt away by sudsing up and rinses easily with soft water. When the water is hard, the soap tries to draw the minerals as well as the dirt, and that doesn’t work so well to rinse easily away. The minerals are too heavy to be pulled out of the water like the finer dirt particles. This is why you have soap scum, and why your clothes can get dingy and faded.
Washing the cars
You want to wash cars in soft water so that hard water stains do not make you do the extra step of drying the car by hand. The minerals in the water are not good for the paint, either.
Drinking
The benefits of having soft water throughout the house far outweigh the downside of having a little salt in your drinking water. Give yourself permission to get used to the taste of softened water knowing that it is much better for your health than ingesting inorganic minerals and heavy metals.
Find out more about minerals in your drinking water and contaminants that should concern you.
