Would a water softener help with extending life of elec. water heater or would the salt be worse on elements?
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A water softener does not put salt in your water. It does add sodium ions, but not sodium chloride. You should benefit from the softener.
You can also use potassium in the softener if it makes you feel better about the sodium.
Mr. Nice is correct, and a softener will extend the life of all the appliances that use water and cut down on soap usage. IF the water heater has any age on it, you probably have some lime in the bottom of it. If it is an electric water heater, you can take the bottom element out and rake out the lime pretty easily and get most of it out. After getting the lime out of the bottom of the heater, putting it back into service with the softener will cut down on the amount of lime buildup. Of course, this all depends on the quality of water. Here in N.E. Kansas, out city water that comes from the wells is very high in hardness, so a water softener helps, but doesn't take the all the hardness out. Again, I agree with Mr. Nice that softeners don't put salt into the water. It uses salt to clean the resin in the softener and should flush most of the salt down the drain at regeneration. At our house, we have a potassium softener with a incoming water hardness of 70 ppm. It works well, but had to add an R.O. (reverse osmosis) system for drinking water at the kitchen sink. Hope this helps! Good luck!!
Mix with vinegar
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