My dad installed one and told me it uses salt to soften the water.


Am i going to have a problem here washing my car? Its already rusty as it is...don't need the paint to rust on me. Reason im worried is he told me not to get any of the soft water on the grass because the "salt" kills it.

 

I believe it might, and also it leaves stains on your car if not dried off, my family used to have a boat and after our fishing trips we always need to wash down the boat or there will be these rough white stains on the bottom of the boat that are killer to get off after a day or two.

But that is sea salt and it might be different than salt salt?

 

lol..

 

Water softeners are generally installed so as to bypass outside hoses and sprinkler systems. There's no need to soften the water for the grass and plants, and yes it will add salt to the soil. Not a good thing. Besides, you have to pay to replenish the salt in the system, so why waste it?

I don't think it's going to appreciably harm your car. The amount of salt in softened water is far less than in sea water. After all, you can drink softened water but not sea water. It may leave some water spots on the paint if allowed to dry.

But if you installed have a softener, presumably you already had hard water which by definition has a high mineral content. Those minerals are definitely going to leave spots on your paint and the softened water is likely to leave less spots.

By the way, have fun trying to get the soap out of your hair. It takes a lot longer with softened water.....

 

yep, it'll leave those ghey little crusty deposits like rain does, which sucks

cant you go to a city car wash?

 

Exactly. WS's are typically installed in the garage after the pressure regulator but before the line gets into the house. Thus, the water from the water main (street) should still be like it was originally and you should have nothing to worry about.

Your dad's comment about "don't get the water on the grass" comment doesn't make any sense, unless you're hooking up somehow from inside the house/some inside garage spicket or you dad intercepted the main line right after your water valve at the street (which is the wrong way to install it).

 

At my mothers house, we had a WS installed...And when the guy came and explained to us all the benefits, ONE of the benefits was that the water outlet for your hose (that you use to wash the car) would be Soft water, but not the lines going to the sprinklers...im pretty sure those are different (hose and sprinklers) i THINK the hose comes from inside the house...where the water is softened..

However, it makes no sense to think that soft water will be worse than hard water basically because of what the PP wrote...Soft water will leave LESS water marks than soft water.

My house may be different than some? i dont know, but i live less than an 1/8 mile away from my moms house (same neighborhood) and when i wash my car at her house (she has a WS) i can pretty much spend half the amount of time drying it off, and i can let the water sit on the car for a fairly long period (minutes not hours) before i start getting water spots..

Now come to my house right down the street, i DONT have a WS, and i hate washing my car there...if its sunny AT ALL, i gota dry my car ASAP or i get spots i gota buff off...and its a PITA...

I may be wrong, or it may be diff at others homes...but thats my .02

 

I've washed my last two cars with water from a WS and havent had a problem, they usually dry streak free actually. A few of the touchless washes here have soft water setting too. I wouldnt use it on the grass though as it need the stuff in regular tap water.

 

Not if it's set up and adjusted to operate correctly. To much softening and you'll feel it, just the right amout and you should have no ill effects.

As someone has already mentioned, it should be installed in the plumbing so that the outside water source is not softened.

 

I dont think a little salt in the water will hurt your paint. Up here in Canada they put tons and tons of salt on the roads every winter to melt the ice and it takes a long time and a lot of salt to have any ill effects on a paint job....

but yeah, good luck washing with soft water, I cant stand that stuff. You cant rinse our your hair or even get soap off your skin... or it does come off but still feels kinda slimey... I prefer hard water much better, I dont even know what the point of a WS system is... whats wrong with hard water?

 

In modern water softeners, the salt you put in the unit is used to clean the resin bed when the system regenerates. The brine solution used during regeneration is flushed down the sewer. The salt is NOT used to soften the water. The resin bed itself is the softening agent. It's purged of salt at the end of the regeneration cycle. While there may be some trace salt left after purging, the amount is very very tiny. Not enough to worry about.