Soft or Hard water

[brosnt1]

In most houses where I live (Minnesota), cold water faucets in the kitchen sink are plumbed with unsoftened water. Some say it is that way because the hard water tastes better, and I suppose the minerals are better for you. I would like to hear what others have to say about this issue.
Thanks in advance for your replys

[Mike Swearingen]

Not here in NC, but I would think that that would be an interesting regional call, based on water taste and local preference.
Here, a lot of people prefer well water over public water, and many do not soften it at all.
Mike

[leejosepho]

The cold water at my kitchen sink is not softened, and that is for the reasons you have mentioned. I made that change a few weeks ago ... and now the water passes through our coffee filters more easily. With soft water, the filters would fill up and coffee grounds would end up down in the pot.

[master plumber mark]

if you have high blood pressure, its best not to drink
soft water , or so I have been told....

the soft will have some salt in it,
and you can taste the difference between the two

[hj]

Soft water does not have salt in it. It has Sodium and therefore persons on a low sodium diet should not drink it. But they can convert to Pottasium Chloride and eliminate that problem, or do what the majority of users do and install a reverse osmosis unit for drinking water.

[Gary Slusser]

The formula for added sodium is 7.85 mg/l, roughly a quart, per gpg of hardness. Ten gpg water would have 78.5 mg of added sodium per quart. A slice of white bread has like 120-160 mg per slice! A glass of skim milk hundreds of mg. And I could go on.

Most people that run hard water to a faucet at the kitchen sink mistakenly think that drinking hard water is good for them. You have to drink a lot of water to get a benefit from hardness minerals in it. It is only done in a few small regions of the US. If you ever taste salt in softened water, there is something wrong with the softener.

[hj]

In fact, one problem I have with drinking soft water is that it is "flat" and has no taste at all. That is how I usually do a superficial test to see if the softener is working.

[dmaceld]

The plumbing code for the State of Idaho was changed last spring to require the installation of a water softener loop (softener not mandated), plus hard cold water, soft cold water, and soft hot water lines to the kitchen sink. I asked a local plumbing supply house guy what plumbers were doing for a hard water faucet at the sink, or were they just leaving a stub out. He said stub out.