Most Texas residents complain that their hard water supply is causing the reduced performance of their washing machines. A whole-house water softener can help solve the issue.

Indeed, hard water consists of minerals like calcium and magnesium that form a scale-like build-up when it runs through appliances like faucets, dishwashers, ice makers in your fridge, and clothes washers.

As a result, these machines can start to deteriorate and need a replacement around three to four years earlier than usual.

How Do Whole House Water Softeners Work?

Softeners use micro-porous resin beads that fish out metal ions and damaging minerals. They replace them with sodium and other useful metals in the regeneration cycle.

Types of Water Softeners

Ion Exchange: They have a resin that binds the minerals and regenerates them into salt. But they also produce waste.

Template Assisted Crystallization: They don’t bind the minerals and use catalytic media instead of an electrical source. Furthermore, you can set and forget them.

Electromagnetic: They provide similar benefits to the above, but their effectiveness is still under research.

How to Choose a Whole House Water Softener?

Although many people use a water softener system in Texas, they may pick something that is trending or within their budget.

Here’s where they often go wrong.

Brine or saltwater to be released depends on the water usage of your home.

Therefore, when you buy a whole-house water softener, it is crucial to consider the following factors:

Grain Size

Water softeners come in grain capacity, using which you can determine the right one for your daily needs. It depends on your daily water consumption, the number of people in your home, and the hardness of the water.

Hardness

You can call the local municipality to help you evaluate the water hardness or use a test kit to find it yourself. The unit of measurement is gpg or grains per gallon, which is equal to 17.1 ppm (parts per million).

Home Size

The basic water softener uses a 0.7 cubic foot of resin, yielding 15,000-grain capacity. So, one cubic foot of resin or a 32,000-grain unit is sufficient for most homes with less than 4000 square feet. This requires 18 pounds of salt, but if you are a large family household.

Calculating

Based on the amount of mineral content to remove, you should choose the best whole-house water softener. To do this, multiply the number of individuals in the household by daily water usage in gallons. Further multiply this number by the water hardness measurement, which gives the load requirement.

Choose a water softener per your needs.

How Soft Water Protects Your Washing Machine

With a water softener system in Texas, your laundry machine removes stains much better. It also uses 50% less detergent.

Since there is no excessive scale formation, the appliances remain well-maintained and pose no repair issue for a longer time.

You can also use cold-water settings, lowered to 60 degrees F, to get the same results. Besides, your washing machine will no longer pull more power, and hence, you also get reduced energy bills.

In addition to buying a whole-house water softener, you can also choose a low-rate energy plan to decrease your electricity bills.

Explore various cheap rate energy plans in your location on Shop Texas Electricity.