Soft water loops are a common sight in many homes, designed to give you the best of both worlds: soft water for most of your home and untreated water for many uses including drinking and cooking . But are they still necessary with today's advancements in water treatment? 

Here's the traditional thinking behind soft water loops:

• Hard water woes: Hard water is notorious for causing scale buildup in pipes, appliances, and fixtures, reducing their lifespan and efficiency. It can also make soap less effective, leaving your skin feeling dry and your hair looking dull.
• Salt-based softeners: Traditional softeners combat hard water by replacing calcium and magnesium minerals with sodium. While this solves the hard water problem, it introduces sodium into your water supply, which isn't ideal for drinking or cooking. Sodium in water can also change the flavor, making it unpleasant to drink. It can be harmful for people on salt-restricted diets and can kill houseplants, lawns, gardens, and other vegetation. Many pets won't drink water with high sodium levels, and fresh water fish can't survive in salt-softened water.
• Protecting your drinking water: Soft water loops were designed to bypass the softener for specific outlets, usually your kitchen faucet, ensuring you have access to untreated water with lower levels of salt for drinking cooking and all other uses.

But here's where things get interesting...

• Outdated regulations: In some areas, plumbing codes still require soft water loops, often based on older salt-based softener technology.
• Salt-free alternatives: New technologies, like Cascadian's PolyHalt® salt-free water softener, address hard water without adding sodium. This eliminates the need for a separate loop for drinking water.

Detecting a Soft Water Loop in Your Home

Identifying a soft water loop in your home can be as simple as observing your home's plumbing, checking labels, or turning off the water at your softener to see if water still flows from certain faucets.

So, what are your options if you have a soft water loop?

1. Refrigerator / Pitcher Filter: This is a quick fix for better-tasting water, but it only filters water for your fridge or pitcher and doesn't address the hardness.

2. Under-Counter Reverse Osmosis (RO) System: RO systems provide highly purified water, but they can be bulky, require a separate faucet, have a low flow rate, and limited daily capacity.

3. Cascadian ICS-TPU: This innovative solution treats all your water without adding salt, eliminating the need for a reverse osmosis system or faucet. It's compact, efficient, and provides clean, healthy water for all water needs. 

   The ICS-TPU, is a smaller version of the popular ICS-TP whole house salt free softener, can improve your water quality without the drawbacks of salt based systems. It can eliminate bad chlorine taste and soften more water more effectively, making it a viable replacement for a large, expensive and wasteful RO system. 

The bottom line?

While soft water loops served a purpose in the past, advancements in water treatment technology offer more efficient and comprehensive solutions. If you're building a new home or considering upgrading your current system, explore salt-free softeners like PolyHalt and whole-house solutions like the ICS-TPU. These options can simplify your plumbing, improve your water quality, and eliminate the need for outdated soft water loops.

Want to learn more about modern water treatment solutions?

• Learn about the ICS-TPU.
• Contact us today for a free consultation!
• Take a look and see how much smaller a ICS-TPU treatment system is when compared to a reverse osmosis system under the sink.
• Contact us today for a free consultation!
• Watch this video to see the ICS-TPU vs. a reverse osmosis system.