Questions · Water treatment
Will a water softener hurt my pipes or my plants?
Softened water does not attack normal household piping. The plant worry is not about the water at your faucet either; it is about where the regeneration drain water goes. In a normal install that drain runs to the sewer, not the landscape, and that is the thing worth confirming.
The pipe question
Softening exchanges hardness mineral for sodium or potassium. That is a change in what the water carries, not an acid attack on the pipe. Houses across the Valley run softened water through copper and through plastic supply lines without the softener being the reason anything failed.
Where pipes do suffer here, the usual causes are pressure that is too high, poor support so lines move and rub, and water hammer. Those are worth measuring, because they are fixable and they are not the softener.
The plant question
A salt based softener regenerates by flushing brine through the resin, and that brine has to drain somewhere. Sent to the sewer, as a normal install does, it never touches the landscape. The stories about dead plants come from drains that were routed into the yard.
So the question to ask about any softener install is simply: where does the drain line go, and does it go there legally.
What we check on an install
- Where the drain line runs, and that it terminates properly with an air gap
- That the loop or the tie in is done so the house can be bypassed
- The static water pressure, because high pressure is hard on everything downstream
- That the unit has power and is set for your water, not for a default
From the job log
Work we’ve done
Answers
Can I water plants with softened water?
The tap water question is different from the drain water question, and people mix them up. If watering with treated water matters to you, a hose bib left on untreated water is the straightforward answer, and it is much easier to plan at install time.
Does softened water corrode copper?
Not as a rule in normal household use. When copper fails here it is far more often pressure, movement or a manufacturing flaw than the softener. That is why we measure the pressure rather than blaming the softener.
Can the softener drain go into the yard?
That is exactly the arrangement that gives softeners a bad name with landscaping, and it is not how a proper install is done. The drain belongs in the sewer.
If you need this done
- Water softenersValley water is some of the hardest in the country. A softener removes the minerals that scale fixtures, spot glass and shorten a water heater's life.
- Water pressure and regulatorsPressure checked with a gauge, and regulators repaired or replaced when the house is getting more than the plumbing should take.
- Pipe and leak repairDamaged, corroded or leaking pipe repaired or replaced, including hidden leaks behind walls, with as little disruption as possible.
- Where we workEvery town and ZIP across the Valley we cover.
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