Water softeners- hot water only

[Jeffh40]

How common is this? Some googling shows that softening just the hot water is a common practice, I'm just wondering how common and how good the benefits will be.

In my house, the way the plumber installed the lines, it will be very easy to install a water softener for the hot water only. I have a nice space right next to the water heater to put it. Installing it for the hot and cold will be much more of a challenge since the water inlet for the house is on the other side of the house and I would need to tap into it and put a loop of piping through finished basement ceilings. Possible, but not fun.

Water here is 8-10 grains so measurably hard, but not really very hard.

 

[Showkey]

Not common…….if your going to soften there’s no advantage or reason to do just the hot.
Especially since laundry often uses cold or mix of cold water. Same for baths, toilets and other devices that benefit from softened water over time.


Some will plumb the cold at the kitchen faucet for “unsoftened” water.
The water softener is usually installed at the water line entrance. Then out side faucets and others are plumbed to your needs.

EDIT: My garage faucet is softened for car washing

 

[ScaldedDog]

Some will plumb the cold at the kitchen faucet for “unsoftened” water.
The water softener is usually installed at the water line entrance. Then out side faucets and others are plumbed to your needs.

We did this, and also plumbed the hose bib in the garage so it could be softened (the default) or not. The other outside hose bibs are never softened. Having had this, I wouldn't do it any other way.

Mark

 

[FMB4]

Wife and I previously had a system that softened only the hot water. We now live in house with a system that softens both hot and cold. My wife much prefers this system over our old hot only softener.

 

[riddleyo]

On well water here. Without a softener, my water heaters would die very quickly and the sacrificial rod would melt away in a matter of months. Since adding a softener, the lifespan has increased dramatically. I think the benefits of softening the water heater are enormous but I would definitely do hot and cold for reasons stated above.

 

[dcg9381]

Not common…….if your going to soften there’s no advantage or reason to do just the hot.
Especially since laundry often uses cold or mix of cold water. Same for baths, toilets and other devices that benefit from softened water over time.

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I've had wells that contained really hard water. We didn't really mind it for washing, laundry, etc. But it would absolutely destroy things like tankless water heaters. If you're trying to protect a water heater / tankless heater and want to minimize the induction of salt into your water (or the use of salt), I can totally see doing it this way.

 

[930dreamer]

Ours is tapped off the main so the whole house is softened. I would have rather had a way to exclude the outside bibs for lawn watering etc, so I just have to bypass the system when watering outside now.

 

[glend123]

Ours is tapped off the main so the whole house is softened. I would have rather had a way to exclude the outside bibs for lawn watering etc, so I just have to bypass the system when watering outside now.

How do you bypass the system? this is exactly my setup and watering the grass and garden during this drought is using up all the salt.

 

[930dreamer]

How do you bypass the system? this is exactly my setup and watering the grass and garden during this drought is using up all the salt.

Softener has a bypass valve on it(red handle).

 

[Showkey]

Salt in softened water is one of the topics:

Myth: Water Softeners Make Your Water Salty - EcoWater

Sodium is found in almost everything you consume, but the idea that water softeners make home water too salty is a total myth. Learn more from EcoWater.

homewater101.com

Myths About Water Softeners — 8 Things People Get Wrong | Water-Right

www.water-rightgroup.com

Its also the reason some choose to run unsoftened water to the kitchen cold.

If your water is salty……the softener is broken.

 

[toyotadriver]

We have a softener on hot and cold lines inside the house. The ice maker/drinking water on the refrigerator gets unsoftened water and all exterior bibs get unsoftened water as well. We do have a hot and cold hose bib inside the garage (love it by the way) and both the hot and cold sides are softened for washing cars and washing the house a couple times per summer.

 

[HenryAZ]

Softening hot and cold both helps lessen calcium deposit buildup on all your fixtures. It does not eliminate the deposits entirely (at least at our house/well), but you will be cleaning them a lot less often.

 

[Briancapecoral]

We are on well water. Softener on hot and cold. Sprinklers and 1 hose bib connect at the well and aren’t softened. 2 other bibs are. We have reverse osmosis with a separate tap at kitchen sink for cooking and drinking. It also feeds the ice maker in refrigerator. We get build up at faucets and valves with the softener, I wouldn’t want to see it if cold wasn’t softened.

 

[firebirdparts]

for normal people, it's no trouble to soften everything in the house with the same installation. It only affects salt consumption. If your water is not all that hard, I would say the water heater benefit is not that important. You didn't mention what you were trying to accomplish.

You may or may not be correct about needing to run a line across the basement. Certainly no need to run two.

 

[Jeffh40]

for normal people, it's no trouble to soften everything in the house with the same installation. It only affects salt consumption. If your water is not all that hard, I would say the water heater benefit is not that important. You didn't mention what you were trying to accomplish.

You may or may not be correct about needing to run a line across the basement. Certainly no need to run two.

Good comments in here. I didn't think much about the return line. I could certainly just tap into the cold water line right at the water heater so I only need one line going back to the water inlet.

So the main goal is to keep the calcium buildup to a minimum on the appliances and faucets. With our water hardness at 8-10 grains, the shower head and dishwasher get pretty nasty after 5 years or so and are about useless at 10 years. I got 15 years or so out of the hot water heater before I replaced it too. Since this house is new and we just moved in last year, I want to keep things in good shape as long as possible.

 

[Keyblazer]

Question.
Just bought an inflatable hot tub, and people saying fill it with hot water to speed up heating.
I wanted to run the water thru a rv portable water softener first.
Any issues with running hot water thru the softener?

 

[no704]

I hAve mine on the hot side only. Keeps the heater and dishwasher clean. You can still rinse soap off in the shower.

 

[HogDude]

Not common…….if your going to soften there’s no advantage or reason to do just the hot.
Especially since laundry often uses cold or mix of cold water. Same for baths, toilets and other devices that benefit from softened water over time.


Some will plumb the cold at the kitchen faucet for “unsoftened” water.
The water softener is usually installed at the water line entrance. Then out side faucets and others are plumbed to your needs.

EDIT: My garage faucet is softened for car washing

EDIT: Times 2. And that’s both hot and cold. Originally for car washing in the cool seasons but works great for pets too.

 

[Jaguar Fan]

I plumbed my house with soft water everywhere except the kitchen sink cold. I have external dual spigots around the periphery of the house: one is hard water (Lake Mead's Finest), and the other is RO fed by a commercial RO system in the garage that has a 300 gallon RO storage tank. I use RO water for washing my cars. I also use RO to wash the solar photovoltaic panels.

 

[FredWanaker]

do the whole house. Put the irrigation on its own system so the softener salt won't kill the plants. With a water softener you will find that faucets etc., corrode quicker because of the salt in the water. It takes a while to get used to it when showering because it feels like one is still covered in soap. We are lucky here to have Sierra runoff which is quite clean water by the time it is treated.

 

[428PI]

Was talking with family and how we grew up. We used cistern water on the hot side (which would be soft water) and well water for cold side. Had a "suds saver" tub in the utility room for saving washing machine water. Sometimes would run out of cistern water and have to haul some in. In the house I live in now I have softened water except for the toilet. The toilet also used to be run on well water where the rest of house was on rural water.