Question:
Our "new" house, has VERY Hard water. (Water company says "17 grains"???, when 12 grains is considered hard.) Brother-in-law says we shouldre-pipe with copper, although our 30-year old pipes aren't "showing" anyproblems,....yet. Okay. So, with copper pipes, is the idea of gettinga water softener still needed? My Mom and Dad got copper pipes aboutsix years ago, and Mom's wondering if they still need to still bebuying/pouring all that salt? I'm thinking that after copper, the bestinvestment would be a Reverse Osmosis Filtration system for drinking andcooking, and leave the rest au natural, eh?

Answer: Unless you are experencing specific problems such as leaks, low waterpressure at the taps, etc, I don't see the need to re-pipe. You didn'tmention what your current pipes are made of but from what little youdid say I'm guessing galvanized iron. The fact that they are still inservice after this amount of time is probbaly due to your hard waterlaying down a protective coat of scale which presents a physicalbarrier between the pipe material and the natural corrosive nature ofwater, a barrier that a softener will remove. (Be sure your folks areaware of the additional sodium that softener is putting into the water.It's not that much looking at from a healthy point of view but ifeither is on a sodium restrictive diet, it is a significant source tobe considered.)

The only area that may cause you trouble with such hard water (andreally at 17 grains (actually grains per gal or gpg, an old mostlyarchaic measure) or 290 mg/L I would only class this as moderatelyhard, not VERY hard) is the water heater. I'd check to see how old itis and when it was last flushed. If its been awhile you may need tothink about replacing it in the near future but try and flush it outreal good first before you spend the bucks. If you do replace it, tryand flush the new one about once a month and you should have no troublescale buildup and shouldn't need the softener at all.

The choice to use RO at the kitchen tap is certainly yours to make, butif the hardness is the only reason you have, don't. Personally I don'tsee the need for any additional treatment unless your hardness was inexcess of 400 mg/L. You are well under that.

The kind of pipes in the house won't affectwhether you use a softner. Other things may bepresent in old pipes such as lead solder which canleach into the drinking water. A reverse osmosiscan reduce the hardness and the lead(if present)but will not last long if iron or manganese isalso present. many people use a softner thenfollow it with a reverse osmosis to take out thesalt ions from their drinking water at the kitchensink.