By ben
•
August 18, 2020
So how do I decide which is best for me? Or WHO is best for me? Firstly, it is important to note that a water softener should provide you with soft water for 10 to 15 years before it needs to be replaced (we have customers who have had their machines for 20+ years). In that time, you will need salt and you may occasionally have questions or the machine may require servicing. Using a local reputable company will mean you deal with the same people each time and you can count on experienced professionals and personable service. You also want an independent water softener expert to be able to provide you with recommendations without being tied to one manufacturer. And WHICH water softener should I choose? We are not in the business of simply selling as many water softeners as we can, we want to provide the best solution to our customers’ problems. To us, this means less hassle operating a water softener, a reliable machine that doesn’t require regular servicing, and of course the guarantee of soft water. All water softeners use a cylinder that contains ion-exchange resin to remove minerals that make your water hard. This resin needs to be cleaned in order for the machine to continue to work, and it is how and when this cleaning process happens (“regeneration”) where you find the different types of water softener. In our opinion and 30 years of experience, a non-electric twin-cylinder water softener offers the best solution to our customers. A non-electric block salt water softener uses two cylinders so it doesn’t matter when the machine regenerates, you are always guaranteed soft water. An electric single cylinder machine cannot do this, so has to perform an estimate of when it is best to regenerate (clean itself), to minimise disruption to your soft water supply. Electric machines can use a time-meter (like an alarm clock) to set a time to regenerate each day – meaning they use more salt and water, and are far more prone to breaking down (or at least requiring an annual service). The other type of electric softeners use smarter programming to find the most efficient time to regenerate – this means they are far more efficient, but they require programming (the instruction manuals are long, tedious affairs) and the clever printed circuit boards within the machine can be expensive to repair. A non-electric block salt water softener requires no programming, the regeneration cycle is solely dependent on water pressure and water usage in the house. The ingenuity of these machines lies in the relative simplicity of how they work, and because of this they do not require regular servicing. The leading manufacturers, Harvey Water Softeners and Kinetico, provide market leading 10 year warranties that back this up. Block salt makes life a lot easier as the blocks are easily stored and loaded into your machine. I thought you were independent, but you only recommend one type of water softener? Absolutely! We are independent and we are free to sell which ever softeners we like. We sell softeners that give the best outcomes to our customers, and in our opinion those water softeners are non-electric twin cylinder machines. We could probably sell more water softeners if we offered other types of water softeners, but that would betray our goal to provide the best solution to our customers. Imagine your favourite restaurant serves the best seafood around, they could serve other food but they take advantage of the wonderful seafood available from the local area. You go there because you want delicious, fresh seafood. Well, if you’d like a water softener that offers soft water 24/7, reliability and efficiency, and leave you more time to enjoy the finer things in life (let’s be honest, there are many finer things than dealing with your water softener) than feel free to book a table with us today! If you are after steak, or a water softener that requires programming and regular servicing, I am afraid they are not on our menu.