I have had city water for a long long time and now have a well at the house I am building so I am out of practice with soft water.

I keep hearing about issues with getting the soap off your body or shampoo out of your hair but are those exagerations?

Are there any magic bullets when it comes to soaps, etc?

Also where do you guys dump your regeneration water? Won't it kill the grass? Can it go in the septic system?

I haven't had my water tested as yet, that will happen this next week. I don't expect much iron but I do expect a lot of calcium

 

Mine dumps into the sump pump which eventually pushs it up and out the main drain from the house and into the sewer system (prior to a sewer system it would have gone into the septic system).

 

Be careful where you put the discharge.

our leach field failed several years ago.
We are in a area of high iron content.
The first question the inspector asked was "do you have a water softener?"
The second was " does it discharge into the leach field?"
although the softener companies dispute it, it will kill the field.
our town now has legal restrictions on the practice.

as I understand it, ( caveat i'm an electrical engineer not a chemist) the iron binds with bacteria in the field creating a biomat which becomes impervious to drainage.

we put in a dry well specifically for the softener discharge.

 

It takes awhile to get used to the "soapy" feel, but I've found I like it. My skin isn't as dry and you don't need conditioners for your hair.

Mine discharges on to the lawn via the sump pump. I have not noticed any problems with this.

 

Are their any soaps/shampoos that feel less slick than others?

bolton blue how big is your dry well? I have a tractor with a blade and a back hoe so I could dig some sort of well. Is yours just a big stone filled hole?

 

It really isn't the soap or shampoo. You will get used to it and it is actually better for your skin. The minerals 'hardness' is gone.

Just use less soap / shampoo and you'll be fine. They actually work better in soft water.

Also you may use less coffee and other ingredients that may work better with softer water. You will figure these out over time.

The one area we had a lot of trouble with was finding the right Pasta. We were constantly overcooking it. We finally had to change brands.

 

Pasta huh?

Why didn't someone mention that before, I'd have totally nixed the well and hooked up to the community water. ')

Now that's something I've never heard of!!

Since I cook a fair amount of pasta what brand do you use?

Does the less coffee also apply to tea? We don't drink that dark brown stuff.

 

it has been awhile. Softwater saturates faster. You need to experiment. I think we had a problem with ronzoni.

yes, tea should brew quicker due to the faster saturation

 

it was a concrete preformed unit.
I don't know precise volume.

it would depend on the volume of backwash and the perk rate of the soil it's in.

 

I'm on city water, but it is very hard, and we have a water softener. Ours drains back into the city sewage system.

First softener I've ever had, I, too, like the slippery feeling and have less problems with dry skin now. What I could not stand was the salty taste of the water! I don't use salt on anything, and I could clearly taste it in the water. Simple (but expensive) fix - we switched the softener over to potassium chloride.

Dave