Is soft water bad for your home and outdoor plants? Lawn?
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Distilled, reverse osmosis, or deionized water or rain water are better choices for watering plants to prevent mineral accumulation in the soil. Or, if using softened water, water heavily to wash previously deposited minerals through and beyond the plants' root zones. Heavy sodium or potassium salt concentrations in the absence of calcium or magnesium may affect swelling of soils and retard the growth of plants.
For outside sprinkling purposes the use of softened water is, first and foremost, wasteful. Again, where the concentration of hardness minerals is heavy, the sodium salts replacing them might retard growth and might be sufficient to kill the grass.
Soft water is not bad for your home as it keeps out rust and scale buildup in appliances and pipes. There is also no scaly film on tubs or showers. However, we do not use it on plants or lawns only because you use way too much softener salt if you do (which costs money) plus we feel the salt content in the water is too high for plants, which like nice fresh rain water.
I don't believe it is BAD, but water that is not softened has minerals and nutrients that your plants need. Check to see if your place has a "soft water loop" to your kitchen sink. That means all water in your house runs through the water softener, except your kitchen sink. . .
Soft water will raise the salinity of the soil.
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