Do Brita Filters Soften Hard Water

In contempo years, more and more of usa accept woken up to the issues faced when using and drinking the h2o supplied to our homes.

Whether you have a private well or you're hooked up to a municipal supply, your water likely contains a wide range of trace amounts of impurities that tin affect its taste and odor – and even bear on your health.

Luckily, information technology'due south easier than e'er to deed on these bug and enjoy clean, pure drinking h2o.

Two common water treatment systems for homes are whole house water filters and water softeners. While these can both provide benefits for the h2o you drinkable and use, they're very different in the results they produce. In this guide, I'll outline everything you demand to know about water softeners and water filters, and explain why you might demand a h2o softener, water filter or both for your domicile.

What is the Difference Between Softening and Filtering H2o?

Comparing the water softener vs water filter process, there's not much that unites the two at all. While both produce higher-quality h2o for your domicile, they each have different purposes.

While water softeners are designed to remove calcium and magnesium hardness-causing minerals from water, h2o filters focus more broadly on contaminant reduction. Water softening systems accept a main goal of producing soft water. Whole-abode h2o filters, on the other hand, remove a variety of contaminants with the aim of producing clean, not necessarily soft, water.

How Exercise H2o Softeners Piece of work?

At that place are two common types of water softeners available: salt-based h2o softeners and table salt-free h2o softeners.

Salt-based softeners use ion exchange resins to physically remove calcium and magnesium hardness minerals, replacing them with sodium ions.

This ion exchange water treatment procedure tin remove almost every magnesium and calcium mineral from your water, helping to protect your home from hard water problems like scale buildup. When the resin chaplet are saturated with difficult water ions, the softener system's resin bed is flushed and replenished in regeneration.

Salt-free softener systems utilize a special media to perform template-assisted crystallization (TAC), a calibration control media technology in which hardness minerals are crystallized, preventing them from sticking to surfaces in the form of calibration.

While a salt-costless h2o conditioner still prevents calibration buildup, it won't actually issue in a different water quality. This is because h2o is nevertheless technically classed as difficult after it has been treated in this kind of system, because the hardness minerals are still nowadays, though unable to crusade scale. Many people prefer table salt-gratis softener systems because they don't utilise sodium to soften water. Y'all might need this type of softener if yous're on a low-sodium diet.

👉 Read more about salt-based vs salt-complimentary systems

What Issues do H2o Softeners Accost?

Water Heater efficiency

A water softening system can improve the efficiency of your hot water heater by preventing calibration build-up, one of the most common hard water problems, on the inside of the heater. Scale acts as a layer of insulation and causes a heater to accept longer to heat upwardly.

Cleaning chores

Hardness stains on sinks, effectually faucets and in bathtubs can be a nightmare to clean. With a water softener, you can cutting downwards on the rigorous cleaning duties considering yous'll no longer have scale and soap scum to scrub off your appliances. Some water softener systems are also capable of removing iron & sulfur, which can stain your faucets and plumbing too.

Unpleasant water taste

On the subject field of fe and sulfur, if you purchase a softener that can remove these impurities, you'll greatly improve the taste of your water. Sulfur has a distinctive gustation and smell that many people liken to rotten egg, while atomic number 26 has the sense of taste and smell of rust.

Appliance longevity

Mutual home appliances similar java makers, dishwashers and washing machines can all exist affected by long-term exposure to limescale. Using a water softener will ensure your abode's appliances have longer lifespans and operate more efficiently.

Pare and hair weather condition

Water softeners use nothing but table salt (or, in the case of saltless softeners, nothing at all), to soften your water. At the aforementioned time, they're removing the hard water ions that could stick to your peel and pilus and cause itchiness and dryness issues.

Laundry quality

Washing your laundry in hard water tin can result in your fabrics taking on a starchy, rough texture and an unpleasant grayish colour. A h2o softening organization can eliminate this issue – and you lot'll exist able to use less detergent per wash.

👉 See the best water softener systems of 2022 reviewed side past side

How Practise Whole House Water Filtration Systems Work?

Whole house water filter systems consist of a series of filter cartridges, which remove everything from chlorine and lead to arsenic and chromium – and even, in some cases, fluoride.

Adsorption filters, made from activated carbon or carbon block, are unremarkably featured in whole house water filter systems. Y'all can normally too find a pre-filter and post-filter, and in whole dwelling reverse osmosis filters, you'll besides observe a reverse osmosis membrane.

A reverse osmosis membrane offers the highest level of TDS (total dissolved solids) removal vs water filters that simply use a series of filters. RO is a nifty option for anyone who is in need of the most thorough filtration treatment. Withal, contrary osmosis systems come up at a higher price than standard whole home filter systems.

Related: H2o softening vs contrary osmosis: Fundamental differences explained.

A whole house water filtration system is installed at your home's point of entry, which enables information technology to provide the whole firm with filtered water. Water first travels through one of several pre-filters, known also every bit sediment filters, before passing through a multi-water filtration stage, and finally passing through a second sediment water filter that removes whatsoever lingering contaminants.

What Issues Does a Whole House Filtration System Address?

Poor water sense of taste

A number of contaminants found in drinking water, namely chemicals similar chlorine, fluoride, heavy metals, iron and hydrogen sulfate, tin give tap water an unpleasant taste or smell. A whole house filter organisation is the best style to remove the contaminants responsible for poor sense of taste or odour, leaving much tastier, more appealing tap water.

Plumbing and appliance damage

It isn't only difficult water minerals that tin cause damage to appliances and plumbing. High sediment contamination, such likewise water, can line the surfaces of your pipes and plumbing over time and decrease their efficiency. A water filtration system removes a high level of sediment, helping to greatly reduce this consequence.

Unhealthy or dangerous water

The bulk of impurities found in our drinking water is bad for us. Some well sources even comprise unsafe contaminants, like bacteria and viruses, which could seriously harm your family' due south wellness. Water filtration systems can remove unhealthy minerals from our drinking water, and whole-home well water and reverse osmosis filters tin can remove harmful pathogens from water.

Poor-quality bathroom or shower h2o

Municipal h2o sources are especially known for being high in chlorine. When nosotros shower in water with a loftier chlorine content, nosotros inhale it into our lungs, which so transfers it into our bloodstream. Chlorine can as well bail with the proteins in our pare and pilus, causing dryness. Whole domicile water filtration systems employ carbon filters to remove the bulk of chlorine from water, making it safer and healthier to bathe and shower in.

👉 Come across the best whole firm h2o filtration systems of 2022 reviewed side by side

Water Softener vs Whole Firm Filter: Do I Need Both?

It's obvious that both water softeners and water filters have their benefits. Instead of trying to decide between water softening systems vs h2o filters, you might need both water treatment solutions if you have hard h2o that contains a high level of contaminants.

To make up one's mind the quality of your water, you can either request a h2o quality report by your local authority (if yous use city h2o) or use a testing kit. You tin buy testing kits online, and they can betoken all sorts of contamination problems in water, from chemicals similar chlorine to lead to iron and bacteria. Nigh water testing kits besides exam for water hardness.

If you lot find out that your water is high in both hardness and contaminants, yous may want to invest in both a water softener and whole home water filtration organisation.

By installing a filter upstream (or before) your water softener, you will be protecting the water softener from potential damage and extend the lifespan of the resin by removing damaging contaminants like chlorine.

While investing in both a h2o filter organisation and water softener might cost more initially, the money-saving benefits of being able to eliminate bottled water use and having longer-lasting and more efficient appliances are worth information technology in the long run.

Something to go on in heed is that if you have loftier water hardness and cull to just buy a h2o filtration organization to filter h2o, you may detect that your filter lifespan is much lower.

Filtration systems can't handle high levels of hardness – magnesium and calcium minerals tin harm filter media and leave scale deposits that block it up – so y'all may demand to utilise a h2o softener before you filter water if you don't want to have to replace your filters all the time.