Just had water softener placed in my home that before had typical San Antonio hard water. I've heard mixed reviews regarding using softened water on my lawn and garden due to addition of sodium inhibiting plant growth. Other than the cost of burning through salt using softened water to water this summer, is it prudent to engage the bypass each time I water?

Normally the water softener should be installed in a position where it only sends the conditioned water to indoor appliances. If your water softener is connected to the outdoor faucets you are going to burn through a lot of salt.

Short answer is I would not use the conditioned water to irrigate the landscape. While we are in a rainy period that will help leach salts in the soil, you will begin to build salts during the dry season. It wont have an immediate effect on your grass but if you have sensitive flowers the salts can accumulate on the leave and have a negative effect on plant quality. I cant give a definite answer on how much of a negative effect it will have without knowing the ph of the water and the EC of the treated water solution.

I readily admit that i'm not super up to date on residential construction or residential plumbing. But I have never seen a house plumbed with outside faucets not tied into the main system. Soft water loops are placed at the head of the water system to the house so that the filtered/RO/softened water is distributed to every take point downstream - washer, sinks, showers, faucets and exterior faucets. The only time I've seen a system separate was for irrigation, which hose bibs are not tied to.

I also think the fear of watering your yard with softened water is an overblown issue, much like watering your yard to begin with.

If you have an automatic irrigation system, they'll be connected upstream of the water softener & it won't be an issue.

If you're talking about hose end stuff, I'd try to get outside hose bibs off the softener. You'll burn through thousands of gallons of water for no reason. Any plants you have should be fine w/tap water. (Assuming you fertilize or spread compost normally to give them the nutrients they need)

I think the separation of the hose bibs outside is something that is overlooked many times by contractors. That and it is not found out until later down the road that a softener or other type of treatment may be needed. On my house I knew I was either going to have to install a softener or other treatment method and we separated the hose bibs and sprinkler system from the inside fixtures. Have valves to shut off each of them and to isolate.

I would not water my yard with softened water.

Apache said:

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If you have an automatic irrigation system, they'll be connected upstream of the water softener & it won't be an issue.

If you're talking about hose end stuff, I'd try to get outside hose bibs off the softener. You'll burn through thousands of gallons of water for no reason. Any plants you have should be fine w/tap water. (Assuming you fertilize or spread compost normally to give them the nutrients they need)

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If it's not done when building, you are going to be able to pay for several million gallons of water and multiple softener replacements for the price of doing a re-plumb to get outside hose bibs off the potable system.

Or you could find where the main goes into the house & cut in a quick coupler key pretty cheaply to avoid replumbing.

(Really should put a backflow device on that quick coupler though)

We put 2 loops on our home.

Exterior loops get hard water
Interior loop gets softened or rain water.

Each can be isolated, turned off, drained.

Apache said:

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Or you could find where the main goes into the house & cut in a quick coupler key pretty cheaply to avoid replumbing.

(Really should put a backflow device on that quick coupler though)

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Oh really? How exactly does that prevent the outside hose bibs, which are plumbed through the existing plumbing, from now having softened water?

All you've done is add something upstream and not even remotely addressed the physical characteristics of the plumbing system.

Yeah I didn't phrase that well.
The outside hose bibs would still be on softened water. The quick coupler would give you access to the non-softened water prior to it going into the system. Hook your hose up there & don't use the hose bibs.

That makes sense.

I only have the hot water side plumbed to the softener. I realized that when I started seeing some minor hard water stains on some of our fixtures.

My parents demanded two separate loops when they built their house 25+ years ago. All inside water is softened plus one outside spigot so dad can wash his cars without hard water spots. The remaining outside spigots are all hard water to save on salt usage.

I can't imagine softened water would contain that much salt that it would harm your plants and lawn. I would think there would be far more natural environmental factors at play that would negatively impact my lawn.

Is it safe to use softened water on lawns if that is all you have?

I don't have an irrigation system and I have two hose bibs (one in the front and one in the back).

My old house has a whole house water softener plumbed into the system at the old well house that now has municipal water entering there. It was all done prior to us buying the house. The pump house is at least 50 yards behind the house (long way to run a house to the front yard).

I realize I will burn through salt (any salt better yellow vs blue bag?? Sodium vs Potassium) but I want to try to get some bermuda grass to grow instead of grass burrs and weeds.

I could let the salt run out but wife doesn't like the hard water...

The big thing with using softened water is obviously the fact that you are using conditioned water for irrigation. It's more expensive, but generally not prohibitively so.

The other is how the salt affects plants and soils. Most of the time the salinity is pretty low so it doesn't have a whole lot of affect on plant growth. Overuse and it could, if you have insanely hard water that uses a ton of salt to soften it, then it could as well. Biggest long term issue will be how the salt affects the soil - sometimes salt can make soils (especially clay based soils) less permeable to water, which increases runoff in rains, during irrigation, etc. It also can make the soil more difficult for roots to penetrate.

I think it takes a whole lot of deposition over time, but I'm admittedly not an expert in the chemistry of soils either. So that advice is worth what you paid for it.

But how much residual salt is left in the after a regeneration cycle?

The salt water brine is used to rinse the mineral deposits off of the tiny softener beads. After several subsequent clean water rinses, how much salt is truly left to be sprayed across an entire yard?

Surely the accumulations can't be too great, right?

dodger02 said:

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But how much residual salt is left in the after a regeneration cycle?

The salt water brine is used to rinse the mineral deposits off of the tiny softener beads. After several subsequent clean water rinses, how much salt is truly left to be sprayed across an entire yard?

Surely the accumulations can't be too great, right?

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The salt is exchanged in the water for the other minerals that make the water hard. So you are "softening" the water by removing calcium ions and replacing them with sodium chloride ions. You aren't filtering them out unless you have an RO system, which is not a softener but rather a filtration system.

The vast majority of the time the amount of salt you are adding to the water is negligible - 10ppm or less. But sometimes the water hardness can require a significantly higher amount that, over time, could have detrimental effects on yards. What that PPM level is and how long - don't have a clue.

dodger02 said:

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But how much residual salt is left in the after a regeneration cycle?

The salt water brine is used to rinse the mineral deposits off of the tiny softener beads. After several subsequent clean water rinses, how much salt is truly left to be sprayed across an entire yard?

Surely the accumulations can't be too great, right?

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Turfgrasses are pretty resilient when it comes to salinity. For example the natural ground water in B/CS has lots of natural salts in it. With normal rainfall, these salts are typically leached out.

The main challenge is with annual flowers or if we get into an extended hot dry period (like another drought) . Cut flowers tend to be very sensitive to salts and if the water is sprayed on the leaves/flower continuously and the water evaporates off the leave it can leave the salts present which over time will effect the plant quality.

The big thing here is the cost of wear on the water softener. If you are watering with conditioned water, say with your hose end sprinkler in the yard you are going to go through a couple of hundred gallons per irrigation event. A simple way to think of it is every minute of hose end sprinkler operation is equivalent to a minute in the shower. How many showers could you have taken in the time you irrigated and how much salt did you go through in your softener?

As mentioned its really not going to effect your plants unless we get into an extended drought again. But it could cause some unnecessary additional wear on your softener unit.

Dude, I have two daughters and a wife at home. I'm going to start charging them by the minute for their showers to offset my salt costs.

schmellba99 said:

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Apache said:

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If you have an automatic irrigation system, they'll be connected upstream of the water softener & it won't be an issue.

If you're talking about hose end stuff, I'd try to get outside hose bibs off the softener. You'll burn through thousands of gallons of water for no reason. Any plants you have should be fine w/tap water. (Assuming you fertilize or spread compost normally to give them the nutrients they need)

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If it's not done when building, you are going to be able to pay for several million gallons of water and multiple softener replacements for the price of doing a re-plumb to get outside hose bibs off the potable system.

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This ......

Plus, if you are worried about some additional sodium chloride ions in your yard, you are watering way, way too much.

schmellba99 said:

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I readily admit that i'm not super up to date on residential construction or residential plumbing. But I have never seen a house plumbed with outside faucets not tied into the main system. Soft water loops are placed at the head of the water system to the house so that the filtered/RO/softened water is distributed to every take point downstream - washer, sinks, showers, faucets and exterior faucets. The only time I've seen a system separate was for irrigation, which hose bibs are not tied to.

I also think the fear of watering your yard with softened water is an overblown issue, much like watering your yard to begin with.

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Watering your yard with softened water can and will kill plants. I lost a tree to this before I realized it. Put in a bypass valve or two for irrigation purposes.

If outside faucets have softened water, then your system was hooked up wrong.

If I had to use softened water on my lawn, I would be applying gypsum as well to help flush sodium

Doc Hayworth said:

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If outside faucets have softened water, then your system was hooked up wrong.

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99.9999% of households are not plumbed with outside hose bibs on a separate system.

Doc Hayworth said:

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If outside faucets have softened water, then your system was hooked up wrong.

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House was built in 1974 with 48' alluvial well as its primary water source (75 yards from Guadalupe River).

I don't trust that well to stay good in drought situations, so I was able to hook onto local municipal water supply and they plumbed it directly to the well house.

Old well can be used for irrigation, but I need to plumb it out or have someone do it. Irrigation system quote came in at $7500. So I am weighing my options.

Cost of salt and muni water vs biting bullet and putting in sprinkler system.

If a softener is installed correctly, it will be placed in line just before the water heater not in the main line coming from a well or meter.

Doc Hayworth said:

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If a softener is installed correctly, it will be placed in line just before the water heater not in the main line coming from a well or meter.

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Incorrect

schmellba99 said:

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Doc Hayworth said:

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If outside faucets have softened water, then your system was hooked up wrong.

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99.9999% of households are not plumbed with outside hose bibs on a separate system.

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True, but you don't put a softening unit in line until you bypass the bibs

Doc Hayworth said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Doc Hayworth said:

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If outside faucets have softened water, then your system was hooked up wrong.

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99.9999% of households are not plumbed with outside hose bibs on a separate system.

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True, but you don't put a softening unit in line until you bypass the bibs

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In a perfect world, sure. But nobody is paying $5k and going through the headache to re-plumb hose bibs to keep softened water off that loop. If you are building it, sure, it's easy to do during construction, but not easy nor cheap after the fact.

Salt is cheap - you can buy a metric crap ton of it for the cost of re-plumbing existing lines simply to keep softened water off hose bibs.

drred4 said:

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I think the separation of the hose bibs outside is something that is overlooked many times by contractors. That and it is not found out until later down the road that a softener or other type of treatment may be needed. On my house I knew I was either going to have to install a softener or other treatment method and we separated the hose bibs and sprinkler system from the inside fixtures. Have valves to shut off each of them and to isolate.

I would not water my yard with softened water.

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This

On all new homes, the bibs and all domestic are on the same line, it's just when the water gets to the water heater, from that point, the cold and hot only service inside appliances, sinks, toilets, showers, etc. it does not loop back into the system with the bibs. the water lines coming into the house at the heaters, is the last entry point for water into the house. Residential homes do not have looped water lines, they branch off of the main line going into the home.

This is why I say if the filter and softener are put in line just before the water heater, you won't be watering your lawn with softened water. It is impossible from that point for water to get back to the hose bibs and it doesn't cost anymore to install it at that point than it does anywhere else on the water line. You just limit where the soft water goes.

If you put a filter and softener in just before the heater, you are only doing half the job. Cold water is still hard water and still will leave hard water stains over time. You filter all of the water coming into the house - cold and hot, or you are wasting your time.

You have one line into the softener, exiting you have a cold water line and a second one going into the heater for the hot. That is how mine is set up.

Doc Hayworth said:

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You have one line into the softener, exiting you have a cold water line and a second one going into the heater for the hot. That is how mine is set up.

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I see what you are saying now, but that is completely dependent on how the plumber piped your house. Most homes aren't run in that manner, builders and plumbers run piping in the shortest runs possible and don't look at future use or maintenance.

We live in the hill country area. Very hard water. For about the last 20 years or so the reputable builders and plumbers in our are building houses like you say. It's SOP out here to do that due to lots of folks with softness.
I did not spec our house that way and the builder did it on his own. Glad he did.

495ft deep well right into the life rejuvenating most tasty Edwards Aquifer water pumped right into the home with only a screen filter. From what I understand, neighbor's softener turned his grass ghey.

Don't really know a darn thing about all this EXCEPT My outside bibs and sprinkler system do not go through the softener. I had to have a line to dump the backwash so I ran it over to a little cattle catch trap outside my yard fence.
I plumbed it in PVC and put a short riser on it by the fence with a water hose connector (no bib) and put a 75' regular water hose so I could move it around and all the salty water would not be in the same place. I moved it to keep from getting wet spots. I did succeed in keeping wet spots out of the area because there is no a blade of grass there alive any more. It all died and I am going to assume it rotted and composted the area so nothing will ever grow again.
On a plus side no grass burs and you can see the snakes very easily with no grass when penning my cows..