LawyerRon said:
We have hard water that leaves calcium on the shower door, dishwasher, etc. My wife would like a water softener to help with this problem. However, the bit of research I've done reveals that water softeners have a few disadvantages like salt in the water, etc. Also, I do not have a drain in my garage for the regeneration cycle required by salt type water softeners.
Therefore, is there some sort of newer, alternative technology to soften the water, ie, get rid of those annoying minerals, etc, that someone would recommend?
You can run the drain line up to and across a ceiling and then 30'+ to the side. Or to a dry well (depending on where you live).
Mechanical/Physical anti-scale/descalers do nremove hardness. They are supposed to effect the water ions to prevent them rom forming scale. In closed loop systems that operate 24/7 or close to it, they can work but in residential water lines no. An ion exchange water softener is your only choice unless you go with nanofiltration, which I wouldn't suggest.
The sodium added to the water is calculated by 7.85 mg/l times the grains per gallon (gpg) of compensated hardess. I.E. you have 20 gpg hard water times 7.85 and you get 157 mg/l of added sodium; roughly a quart. Now if you check a loaf of bread you'll find from 10-160 mg of sodium. An 8 oz glass of skim milk, 530 mg, V-8 juice, 560 mg. And so on, so the added sodium, not salt, is next to nothing and unless you're on a sodium restricted diet, it's not a concern unless the hardness is way higher than the average 10-30 gpg.
DI (dionized) water has all ions, both positive and negative charged, removed and thereby is very aggressive water. A softener only removes positive charged ions.
Potassium chloride, salt substitute is not as efficient as soium chloride because no softeneing (cation) resin is made in the potasium form, they are all sodium form. In many cases, depending on the salt dose efficiency of the softener, you must use up to 30% more potassium than sodium chloride.
Running hard water to the kitchen faucet and toilets, or a separate hard water faucet at the kitchen sink, is not a good idea because hardness causes a lot of hidden problems to all fixtures and appliances it is used in. And, you must drink A LOT of hard water to get any benefit from any minerals in it. And drinking too much water will kill you. Plus there usually isn't enough added sodium (BTW all waters contain some sodium) to justify it.
Softener discharge will kill vegetation by drowning or from sodium IF the water can not soak to below the roots of the plants/trees. So it's not a good idea to put it on the ground. Dry wells can contaminate wells in the area but some states require them because they ban the discharge to septic/sewer systems; where it belongs says the EPA after two studies. Some states, namely CA bit it's spreading, want to ban softeners due to very poor science (being repeated all over the country) saying the discharge is taxing sewer treatment plants and responsible for them not meeting chlorides content maximums. Their chlorides come from the Colorado river and the repeated agriculture reuse of the water adding it back to the aquaducts. That's not to say that old softeners don't add more than a softener should, but to require no softeners when there is no other choice but to live with 20-30 gpg hardwater...
As to what softener, I suggest a correctly sized softener using a Clack WS-1 control valve.