Any advice on getting a water softener installed? Or anybody want to talk me out of the direction I'm headed?
The "water guys" like Culligan etc. are simply ridiculous. The retail cost of a water softener system is between $800-$1500 depending on size and features. Culligan and other similar business want to charge $6,000-$7,000, plus they want to sign you up for monthly "maintenance" contracts that push the cost of the first 5 years of ownership close to 10K. One guy told me with a straight face that "it would pay for itself just by the savings from using less detergent." Right, I don't know if I'll spend 10K in detergent the rest of my life.
I don't feel like I have the plumbing skills to do it myself, although lots of online discussions indicate it is a relatively easy installation.
What I'd like to do is purchase the unit on my own, and then hire a plumber to install it for me. Even at the hourly rate of a typical plumber, if it takes a full 8 hour day to install, I'd come out way head of those ridiculous quotes.
I've had a couple plumbers simply say they don't do it, and a couple people tell me it's not a good idea, but nobody has explained why.
Any thoughts or recommendations? (I live in Canyon, so if anybody knows someone up here in the Amarillo market to recommend, that would be awesome)
The "water guys" like Culligan etc. are simply ridiculous. The retail cost of a water softener system is between $800-$1500 depending on size and features. Culligan and other similar business want to charge $6,000-$7,000, plus they want to sign you up for monthly "maintenance" contracts that push the cost of the first 5 years of ownership close to 10K. One guy told me with a straight face that "it would pay for itself just by the savings from using less detergent." Right, I don't know if I'll spend 10K in detergent the rest of my life.
I don't feel like I have the plumbing skills to do it myself, although lots of online discussions indicate it is a relatively easy installation.
What I'd like to do is purchase the unit on my own, and then hire a plumber to install it for me. Even at the hourly rate of a typical plumber, if it takes a full 8 hour day to install, I'd come out way head of those ridiculous quotes.
I've had a couple plumbers simply say they don't do it, and a couple people tell me it's not a good idea, but nobody has explained why.
Any thoughts or recommendations? (I live in Canyon, so if anybody knows someone up here in the Amarillo market to recommend, that would be awesome)