Many water treatment companies will tell you that the average cost of a water softener is around $3000 for a base model, and $8,000 or more for larger more advanced models. This is complete nonsense!! Many water treatment companies will also push water softeners on customers claiming that an expensive water softener will solve all of the customers problems. That is also completely FALSE! Yes, 85% of all municipal water in the United States falls into the hard water category but not everyone has hard water and a good water softener costs nowhere close to $8,000 for a residential home, in fact the average price is only 3K because of shady water treatment sales reps that just want to sell the customer the highest possible package price that they can.
So how do you know if you in fact do need a water softener? The first thing any water treatment company should do is test your water. A hard water test can be done in minutes and should also be done right in front of you. Without going into a lot of details here lets just say that the longer the test takes the harder your water is. A simple drop test that requires more than 4-5 drop to change the water that is being tested to a blueish color means you do have hard water, the more drops it takes to turn the water blue – the harder your water is. There are other things that a trained water tech can look for that might suggest that you have a hard water problem but make sure a test is done to verify the tech’s suspicion.
Your tech should test the water and measure the size of your home, check on the number of faucets you have and find out how many people there are in your household. If you have a larger than a normal home, you’ll need a larger water softener.
I was in two homes this past week that had already been visited by other water treatment companies. One family was quoted a price of $9,000 for a water softening system, thankfully they decided to shop around and compare prices and called Palm Beach Water Purification. When I visited their home and conducted a FREE no obligation water test for them at their kitchen sink they were happy to find out that they did NOT have hard water and did not need a water softener at all. Based on other testing I preformed for them they ended up investing about a third of that $9,000 that they were almost conned out of and ended up with a water filtration system that satisfied their water treatment needs. They were also very disappointed by the fact that a company would try to scam anyone in such a manner.
The second family I visited was so convinced that they needed a water softener, again by a water treatment company that was at their home a day before that I had to preform the hard water test four times and show them that they did not require a water softener at all. I felt so bad because even after the fourth test the gentleman still wanted to buy a water softener based on what the previous company had convinced him of. I told him I couldn’t take his hard earned money for a water softener when his water showed not even a trace of hardness. In the end he ended up with the perfect water filtration system for his family needs and it did not include a water softener and was a fraction of the price that the first company quoted him.
Water softeners work work very efficiently in a home that has hard water (again, most homes do have hard water) but you should not be fooled and taken advantage of. A good water softener system should cost between $1,200 on the low end and a little less than $4,000 on the extreme high end for a residential home. The cost and size of a water softener will depend on the hardness of your water, the size of your home, the amount of people living in your home and the amount of faucets/showers/baths etc.
Don’t be scammed by companies looking to hit a home run and sell you something that you don’t need. At Palm Beach Water Purification our only goal is to recommend the right solution for a customer’s water treatment needs. That is our definition of hitting a home run!