Culligan is the only local option. Yay/nay and lots of ???
We are building a new home with city water. I don’t even know if what I want is possible/worthwhile. Our water is very hard and has high iron (I haven’t had it tested as of yet but will before purchasing a unit).
I would prefer a whole house filtration system. I would like to be able to turn on the tap and drink the water. Does the type of system I want exist? If I buy a system to take care of the hard water/iron will it be drinkable?
We only have one local h2o treatment company, which is Culligan. Kinetco is available but the serviceman/office is 2 hours away. EWS system is 3 hours away with no systems in our town that I know of.
I have looked at each of their websites and if $ and location wasn’t a issue, my top pick would be EWS. But I know nothing about water except that we have a Culligan water softener in our current house and they have been courteous and available when I have had a problem.
Any advice would be very much appreciated. I don’t know how to proceed. Our builder thinks we should go down to Sears buy a softener and call it a day.
A water softener removes hardness and iron up to 5 ppm although most regular softeners can’t handle that much iron. On city water you will not have near that much iron, so you wouldn’t need an iron filter to remove it. Or did you mean some other type of filter?
Your city water is drinkable now, you may not like the taste but health wise there should not be a problem with it so what are you concerned about or wanting to filter out of it?
The three brands you mentioned are proprietary and expensive and you will have to be dependent on that local dealer for service and parts; regardless of the prices. There should be independent dealers in your area, they sell non proprietary industry standard usually no brand name equipment.
Or you can buy from an independent dealer online and install it yourself or hire a plumber to do it. If you go that route, I suggest you look at a correctly sized softener for your family size and water quality and the SFR your house requires, using a Clack WS-1 control valve.
As to a big box store brand, I strongly suggest not doing that. They last 2-5 years and the parts and service are pricey for what you get. And in many cases the constant service flow rating (SFR) is low because of the style of softener they sell; a cabinet model which limits the size of the resin tank which limits the volume of resin used which dictates the SFR of a softener.