How Long Do Water Softeners Last? Here Are All the Important Details
If you’re wondering how long water softeners last, you should know that the general range is between 10 and 20 years. Well, that kind of answers your question, right? Not exactly.
You see, there are many things you need to consider if you want your water softener to benefit from such a long and prosperous lifespan. In today’s article, we’ll get through the nitty gritty details of how to extend your softener’s lifespan as much as possible and what maintenance steps you should take to ensure you won’t need to call a repairman anytime soon.
Basic Aspects and Tips
First and foremost, you need to be aware of any and all hard water “symptoms”. This is the best way you can detect in due time if your softener is having trouble softening the water. Have you noticed any white spots on your dishes? How about the soap lather? Or have you noticed any small limestone deposits on your bathtub recently?
These are a few of the things you should be looking for to determine if your softener is performing up to speed. If you notice any of these things, your softener might be calling for a little maintenance. The easiest and most obvious thing to check here is the salt. Are there any salt bridges formed? If so, take care to poke them gently with a stick until the salt goes back to normal.
Also, you should check the owner’s manual to see all the necessary maintenance procedures that you should perform on your particular model, since many of them can differ quite noticeably. Another step you can take is to change the filter at regular intervals and always put new salt whenever the tank is only 1/3 full.
If you have a single tank electric softener, you will need to flush the resin bed with water softener cleaner about once a year to retain the effectiveness of the resin beads. Lastly, out of all the basic tips, one of the most important is to not make your water softener work too hard. You will want to set it high enough to work depending on your hardness level, but just low enough as to not overwork it and cause irreversible wear and tear.
More In-Depth Details Regarding the Water Softener Lifespan
Unfortunately, water softeners are bound to fail at some point since they’re being constantly exposed to hard water. If they had the capability of softening water without having it get through their resin bed, then they would probably never break down. However, as it stands, your softener is going to need a replacement at some point.
We’ve already covered the basic gist of things in the previous part of this article. Right now, we want to get a little more in-depth regarding the signs of wear and tear, and especially the signs that clearly tell you that your softener needs immediate replacement.
Make no mistake, by taking the necessary maintenance steps mentioned above, you can make your softener last for up to 20 years, though that’s not a 100% guarantee. However, if you notice any of the following signs and no amount of maintenance seems to be working, then it’s high time for a replacement.
Signs Your Softener Needs a Replacement
If you’ve had your softener for more than ten years, then chances are that it will need a replacement sooner rather than later, especially if you haven’t bothered so much with maintenance or if hardness in your area is especially rough.
Even if you have only had your water softener appliance for a few years and you begin to notice evidence of hard water around your home, then you may need to consider getting a professional to check your system. We don’t want to alarm you or anything, but it never hurts having an expert come and check it out from time to time. That way, you’ll know that you’re getting the softener serviced as it should.
Anyway, here are a few significant signs to look for when dealing with an older and unserviced salt-based water softener.
Soap Doesn’t Lather Properly
One of the biggest gripes when showering is having to use large quantities of soap and shampoo simply because hard water reacts with the chemicals inside of these two things. It can be quite a pain, it makes your skin dry and itchy, and it inadvertently increases your spending. There’s no need to talk about this even further; the bottom line is that you should really call a repairman if this problem persists despite good maintenance practices.
Limescale Around Pipes and Faucets
One of the more noticeable differences will be the amount of limescale or limestone deposits around pipes and faucets – the places where water circulates most frequently. If you notice this, it’s clear that your softener isn’t exactly working as it should. Consider using vinegar to descale these zones after repairing or replacing the unit, whichever comes first.
Clothes Aren’t as Soft Anymore
Washing clothing in hard water can make them scratchy, stiff, and uncomfortable. Fabric softener can help with this issue, but you’ll need to think about examining your water softener long-term. Hard water can also damage your washing machine and other household appliances too, so it’s imperative to use a fabric softener and a liquid water softener until you can manage to fix your regular water softener.
Water Doesn’t Taste the Same
Hard water tastes significantly different when compared to softened water. It’s because of all the excess calcium and magnesium that you’ll find in it. While the taste isn’t exactly ideal, you should know that drinking hard water comes with many benefits. Even so, it’s a clear sign that your softener isn’t working properly anymore.
Dishes Come Out With White Spots
Because of the high concentration of calcium and magnesium in hard water, you'll start seeing white spots on your dishes once you take them out of the dishwasher. Cleaning them properly inside your dishwasher requires rinse aid if you have hard water, or the use of a water softener, water descaler, reverse osmosis system, or other similar device.
How Can I Avoid Maintenance and Other Headaches Altogether?
We know how hard it can be to keep a traditional salt-based water softener running properly for years and years to come. Not to mention the maintenance costs and the ever-increasing price of salt packages and so forth.
For this reason, we recommend ditching traditional water softeners altogether and opting for a more modern and convenient approach. The salt in softeners damages the environment and makes the water unsafe to drink. Not to mention all the previous downsides such as cost of maintenance and so forth.
With that in mind, we’ve made it our purpose to create devices that will aid people with hard water problems while still retaining the benefits of hard water and negating any softened water downsides. In short, we’ve developed some convenient, easy to use, maintenance-free, and economical water descalers.
Introducing the Yarna Water Descaler Lineup
After years of hard research and development, we have finally perfected our water descaler formula. In short, a control unit works in tandem with your pipe’s GPM and GPG to provide the exact amount of descaling necessary without you having to configure anything on your own. Instead, you only need to install the unit exactly as shown in the manual and plug it into a power supply.
Once all of that is done, you can sit back and relax as the descaler works to reshape mineral crystals into smaller and less sticky chunks, effectively removing any limescale problems you might have had up until that point. If you want a more scientific explanation of how this process takes place, you can read more about that here. But in short, all you should know is that capacitive electronic signals react naturally with hard minerals to reshape them.
Benefits of Water Descalers
Water descalers require zero maintenance. You can install them in just about 15 minutes worth of time even if you’ve never done so before. And no, you won’t be needing any specialized tools. Everything required for installation comes straight out of the box. One electronic water descaler is enough for your entire household. Another electronic descaler is excellent for entire office buildings, and so forth.
Furthermore, you don’t need to worry about pipe material or the maximum water flow, as the descaler adapts to the specific needs. All you need is to get the right model for your pipe size directly from our homepage or from our Amazon shop page.
And that’s not all. For every single purchase, we’re offering a 100-day money-back guarantee so you will have enough time to test it and see the results for yourself. A water descaler can also eliminate existing limescale spots in your pipes, and it can take up to three months depending on the harshness of the situation. But with this money-back guarantee, you’re pretty much covered.
Not only that, but once you register your product on our website, regardless of which page you’ve purchased it from, we’ll extend your warranty to a whopping 10 years. If that’s not enough to convince you to give it a shot, then consider the following: ZERO MAINTENANCE. And zero salt packets ever again.
The Bottom Line
If you want a summary of this article, a water softener can last up to 20 years with proper maintenance, and usually a minimum of ten years with the same level of care. Of course, it also depends on the make and model, as well as how you respect the things written in the manual, what type of salt you use, etc.
All in all, we still think that you should give a descaler a try simply because it will save you significantly more money in the long run – up to $1000 per year in water, energy, and heating bills combined. And no more spending money on extra accessories, maintenance, or salt, as previously mentioned (yeah, we can’t stress this enough). We wish you good luck in whatever it is that you choose at the end of the day.
