Water Softener Salt Reviews: How to AVOID and Fix PROBLEMS

What is Hydrogen or Hydrogen Peroxide Water Softener?

Hydrogen or hydrogen peroxide is not strictly a type of salt. It is a chemical compound that you can use to treat hard water.

Hydrogen peroxide is also an effective chemical cleaning agent. It eliminates germs in bacteria (i.e. disinfectant). This is why some homeowners like to add a small amount in their drinking water to remove all harmful microorganisms present in water.

Can I use hydrogen peroxide for softening water? Yes. When you add hydrogen peroxide to water it removes calcium and magnesium ions. This is essentially what the softening process does. However, the peroxide chemical also removes bacteria and disinfects the water while softening the water.

Hydrogen Peroxide Water Softener Problems?

When you use hydrogen peroxide, it removes everything from water. Absolutely everything. This means that you can be left with a bland and quite clinically clean tasting water.

Hydrogen Peroxide Water Softener Benefits?

Using hydrogen peroxide to soften water is good for you if you’re eco-friendly or health-conscious. Also, it will cut down on softener maintenance time and costs. This is because hydrogen peroxide not only cleans the water, it cleans the tank as well.

Culligan Water Softener Salt

You do not need to rent or own an actual Culligan softening system to use their salt. Anyone and everyone can buy Culligan through their softener salt delivery service. They also deliver all brands and types of water softener salt not just their own. Culligan offer 2 types of softening salt:

• Solar Extra Coarse Water Softener Salt.
• Solar Cubes Water Softener Salt.

Water Softener Salt Pellets OR Crystals?

If you are trying to decide between water softener salt pellets, let’s quickly look at both.

What is it? A slightly larger tablet of salt.	What is it? A smaller flake like form of salt.
Pros: Less messy. Suitable for most water softeners. Food grade purity. Tablet size means cheaper and easier to transport.	Pros: Dissolves faster so likely to cause salt build up in softener machine. Suitable for most water softeners. Food grade purity.
Cons: Bulkiness can cause salt build up in machine.	Cons: Causes more mess if spilt.

Common Water Softener Problems

Sodium based salts are the standard way to make water softener machines regenerate soft water. They have a proven track records of efficiency and reliability. But that is not to say that things don’t sometimes go wrong.If something goes wrong and you don’t spot it, you may inadvertently end up drinking lots of hard water. And this defeats the whole point of buying a softener machine in the first place.

So let’s see the most common water softener problems, how to spot them and most importantly how to prevent them from happening in the first place.

Salt Bridge Water Softener

Salt bridges forming inside the tank can cause the machine to stop working properly. The sad part is that once your water softener machine has experienced salt bridging, it’s likely to happen again. Salt bridging will tend to re-occur again at an even faster rate.

The quickest way to deal with salt bridging is to remove small formations when they appear. And keep the machine clean and well-maintained to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Another way to fix this salt bridging issue is to:

1. Secure something with a long pointy handle like a a broom stick and use the long handle to immediately break up the bridge.
2. Mix the broken up softener salt with the water until it totally dissolves.

Soft Water Smells Like Rotten Eggs

When water smells like ‘rotten eggs’ it is a possible sign that it contains too much sulphur. If sulphur is not the culprit then it means there is some other kind of contaminant in the water.

It can possibly be that your water supply contains lots of iron deposits. Iron contamination of water gives soft water a metallic type of stench and / or flavor.

Another possibility is that your brine tank contains bacteria and germs. In severe cases, this can cause the water to have a seaweed-like stench. If you are sure this is the cause of the smell then the solution is simple:

1. Flush the tank out with all the salt that is already inside.
2. Thoroughly clean the tank.
3. Use a little hydrogen peroxide solution in the water after you have cleaned the tank to prevent this happening again.

How else can I get rid of rotten egg smelling water?

If you have this bad smell in your water, you can do one of two things.

1. The first thing you can do is empty the tank and thoroughly clean it from top to bottom. Load it up with fresh new water, salt etc. and re-start the machine.
2. The second thing you can do is call the supplier and ask them to send out a service person. This might cost you some money depending on the type of warranty you received when you bought the machine.

However, your home insurance might be another place to seek help if all else fails and the problem gets worse.

Water Softener is Not Using Salt

Over time the salt in your softening machine can create a solid mass at the bottom of the salt tank. This solid block of salt can stop water flowing freely through the salt tank. When this happens the device stops producing soft water and it also stops using salt to make brine.

This means that even though the machine is still producing water, this water will be hard. Your water softener will not produce soft water until you address the issue created by the salt build up.

Maintain Water Softener

You can avoid many of the water softener problems by maintaining your system. Doing a regular health check and keeping up good practices solves lots of problems. Better still, good maintenance solves the problem before they ever become a problem.

The first place to start is the softener manual itself.

This will always include system’s maintenance requirements. What you need to do, how often and what resources you will need to perform the task.

Taking note of all of this and performing the actions as directed will give you a better performing system. It will ensure you get the highest quality soft water and longest running machine without too many breakdowns.

Water Softener Maintenance Cost?

There are many companies offering an annual inspection of your water softener machine. Getting one of these services will make sure your water softener always works at peak efficiency. The annual service will typically include a full service. The service person will check if the soft water is properly functioning, tell you how to best operate the system and point out any possible future problems.

The cost of an annual water softener service and check up starts at £59 in the UK and $100 in the US. However, the cost will depend on the complexity of your machine as well as a number of other factors.

How To Service A Water Softener

1. Use pure iron and salt remover.
2. Do not add the salt until all of the salt already in the tank is finished.
3. Once finished, refill the tank until no more than two-thirds full.
4. Once a year use ‘Iron-Out’ to clean out the resin bed as well as parts of the control valve.
5. Make sure you clean the brine tank at least once a year because even the purest salt contains contaminants.

Use pure salt and Iron-Out – they will keep your water softener clean.

Best Salt For Water Softener

Here is a selection of the best water softener salts on the market. You can typically expect to get much better prices online than in a physical store. This is because online stores have smaller overheads so they can pass on savings to you the customer. The list below comes from customer reviews and how popular a product is among consumers.

Water Softener Salt Reviews – The Best Water Softener Salt

Product	Best Features
Evaporated Salt Pellets	- Easy to scoop, no spills. - Made in the US - Easy and simple use kit. - Good customer reviews.
Morton Rust Remover	- Prevents rust. - Improves water taste. - Removes 15x more iron.
Iron-Out Purpose Rust Stain Remover	- Rinses rust away without scrubbing. - Does not contain harsh or abrasive chemicals.
Rain Drops Water Softener	- Soft water aids in the washing and rinsing process. - Works as a laundry booster. - Clothes come out cleaner, whiter and brighter.

Known Problems With Morton Softener Salt….

Here is a message sent by one of my readers…

“Are you aware of issues with small pieces of rubber embedded in Morton salt pellets?  Our Kenitico system recently stopped functioning.  When the Kenitico repair person came out he said we had “bad salt”!  He explained that they are finding cases of small pieces of rubber embedded in Morton’s salt pellets.  These pieces jam up the works of the softener. He showed them to my wife.  I can send pictures if you’re interested.  He said Morton is aware if this issue.

He cleaned out our unit and told us to dig out all the salt, skim the remaining rubber pieces off the surface of the water at the bottom of the salt tank, and use someone else’s slat.  We were charged $85 for the call/repair.

I’ve contacted Morton, sending them pictures of salt with the rubber pieces stuck in them, but because I can’t supply them with “batch” information from the bags (which were thrown out, not realizing I would need them to file a claim) they refuse to reimburse me for the repair costs.  They are going to give me $12.00 as reimbursement for the two bags of salt I threw out – how does that make sense?

Here are two pictures of the salt pellets – the Kinetico repair person found one; we found the others as we cleaned the remaining salt out of the tank.  The rubber pieces are actually embedded in the pellets. As he told us we would, we found a number of rubber pieces floating on the water at the bottom. The repair person told us to stop using Morton products, period.

I’ve used only Morton salt in our softeners for almost 40 years. The only thing that was different lately was that I had recently bought two bags of Morton’s Rust Remover salt.  Maybe this is only an issue with that product – I don’t know.”

Treats hard water UP TO 25 ppm (low to medium low hard water).	Treats hard water OVER 25 ppm (medium to extremely hard water).
Does NOT require electricity.	Requires electricity if using the electronic head monitor.
Control Your System With An App:? NO	Control Your System With An App:? YES
- Powerful salt-FREE water softener. - 1,000,000 one million gallon capacity. - Aquasana Rhino exceeds NSF standards. - Treats hard water WITHOUT salt. - Removes chlorine, bacteria, iron, sulfide, manganese, mercury, lead etc. - Includes pre-filter, copper-zinc and carbon filtration stages with standard fittings. - 90-Day Pure Satisfaction Guarantee. - Limited 10 year warranty.	- Powerful salt-BASED water softener. - 1,000,000 one million gallon capacity. - Also includes a multi-stage filter. - Easy installation (inside or outside) - Sufficient for 1-3 bathrooms (options for 4-6 and 7+ bathrooms also available). - 6 month money back guarantee. - Limited lifetime warranty.
$$$ Ships to US and CA.	$$$ Ships to US, CA and Puerto Rico.
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