Frugal way to soften hard water?

[cercis]

Is there something you can just add to the water (vinegar, baking soda, etc)?

Our water is extremely hard. It actually will eat away at chrome fixtures and copper pipes (many people do pvc plumbing here). You can imagine what it is doing to my dishes and clothes. I'm soooo frustrated, but the cost of a whole-house water softener is prohibitive, plus the water from one just tastes salty and awful (our water is already slightly salty) and except for dishes and clothes, the hard water doesn't bother me.

[PrincessPerky]

I think baking soda in the wash helps, but that is not scientific, just based on the soft water slippery feel, it is there when I use baking soda in the washer.

[flash]

Do you know what your pH is? Makes a difference. You can get test strips for aquariums, gardening, health, etc. You need to know that first.

A good water softener will first pass through a lime filter, removing heavy metals and sediments, then through a salt (sodium chloride, potassium chloride) for ion exchange. For drinking water, usually a filter, reverse osmosis or other, to remove the residual salts, can be applied at the tap and input to the frig. For bathing, laundry, etc., the salts are fine.

These systems are NOT cheap, though, and do require maintenance. So, first figure out what your pH is.

[cercis]

This information makes our water look bad:

This is from 2003, I can't imagine much has changed (they haven't added any new equipment. It doesn't say pH, but does give the measure of alkalinity.

WATER CHARACTERISTICS

SUBSTANCE/YEAR/DETECTED/RANGE(LOW-HIGH)
Sodium (ppm) 2003 123 110-123
Total Alkalinity (ppm) 2003 123 81-123
Total Hardness (ppm) 2003 385 242-385

All the numbers are on the top end.

[flash]

Wow, that is really brackish. The numbers indicate they are beyond the detection/measuring limits.

The first things I would suggest is you get a few pros out to discuss alternatives and cheapest solutions.

Most important would be to get a neutralizer. This passes all your water through lime. The most expensive part is the timer, which is mechanical or electronic. Mechanical is cheapest. The timer is also the part which will give out first, but usually after ten years. This would filter out some of the metals and reduce the alkalinity considerably. THIS would save your pipes.

A water softener can be added in AFTER the neutralizer, but that increases the expense. It is ultimately the right way to deal with water hardness, but the neutralizer will at least get the water "clean". For the taste, you can (and should) use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride if you install a softener in the future. It also offers health benefits (potassium), but is more expensive than the sodium.

While it is "possible" to neutralize this severe alkalinity with vinegar, as you suggested, but we are talking probably several bottles per load of laundry, letting it mix in with the water, then adding soap and clothes, and in the end it's going to be fairly expensive, and not pleasant.

At a minimum, I hope you are using a drinking water filter?

[cercis]

It actually doesn't taste that bad, believe it or not, and we don't have to salt pasta. We had a pur water filter, but it doesn't fit on our faucet in our new house.

Of course, I drink mainly tea at home, the kids drink mainly apple juice and then we drink filtered water at work and school (this isn't on purpose, it just works out that there is filtered water in those places).

I'm surprised, though, that my water kettle hasn't mineralized. I haven't seen any build up of minerals there. The last house, the dishwasher elements were completely covered in minerals.

Okay, so there's nothing easy and cheap I can do. Well, that at least relieves me from that worry, you know? We'll add the things you said to our list for after the cc is paid off.