Answer: If you are bothered by a sticky, gummy soap curd deposit in your bathtub or by the buildup E of white deposits (called scale) on your cooking pots and coffee maker, a water softener can help with these problems. You can find out the hardness of your drinking water by telephoning your water supplier. The higher the hardness number, the more a water softener will help. If it is more than 120 milligrams per liter, abbreviated mg/L sometimes called 120 parts per million or 7 grains per gallon-then you might consider a water softener to reduce the formation of scale in your hot water system and to make washing easier. The water softener replaces the nontoxic "hardness" minerals with sodium or potassium. The amounts of these elements are relatively insignificant in comparison to what you get in food and should not be a problem, unless your doctor has put you on a special restricted diet. Whether to put the softener on your main water line or just the hot water line is a complicated issue. Softening only the hot water has some cost and environmental advantages related to regeneration, which is a process by the softening materials (called resins) inside the softener can be used over and over again. Water softeners are regenerated with salt. After the salt is used, it goes down the drain and into the environment-so the less salt used the better. Using less salt also saves you money. If you soften only the hot water, less water goes through the softener, so it needs regeneration less often, meaning less salt is being used. Also, regenerating a softener after a selected amount of water has gone through it rather than on a particular time schedule is better, as this prevents wasting salt by regenerating too soon or using the softener after it has stopped softening. Finally, some people think bathing in completely soft water (both hot and cold water - softened) is unpleasant-it feels like the soap won't rinse off. You may be surprised to learn however, that rinsing is actually more complete in soft water than in hard water. Although you can't see it, when you bathe or wash your hair in hard water, some of the same stuff that causes the bathtub ring gets on your body or in your hair. With soft water this material does not form, so rinsing is more complete. Softening only the hot water has two disadvantages. First, if you wash your clothes in cold water, you won't get the benefit of soft water, however you can buy products to add to your wash to help if this is a problem. Second and more important, if your water is very hard more than twice the numbers mentioned above, when you mix the hot and cold water together the water will still be hard and you won't see much benefit from the softener. Concern has been expressed by some whether the installation of a water softener may raise the lead and copper content of drinking water in homes that are experiencing problems. Probably not, but the US Environmental Protection Agency is conducting research to investigate these matters.
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