The Internet is a great place to find reviews on just about everything. But as you move up the ladder of expense and complexity of a product it becomes more difficult to determine how accurate or complete the reviews are. In the case of water softeners you can find a lot of reviews that may be accurate, but not always complete.

A review will likely tell you features and benefits of a particular softener, but not get into installation details. For example, they won’t describe how to set up a bypass in your plumbing system or how to drain waste water. These are things you typically learn after you get the unit home and have to figure out how to install it.

Since I did the installation myself I had to cut into my existing plumbing system. It was all copper so I become somewhat adept at sweating copper. Well, good enough to not cause any leaks anyway. I installed new shutoff valves to turn off water to the softener if I ever need to remove or repair it (which I never did, thankfully) but I did not put in a bypass. I realized later that a bypass is useful if want to completely isolate the water softener, and even remove it, while still maintaining water flow to the rest of the house. I never needed to do that, but it bugged me all the time because I knew I didn’t have it if I ever did need it. Ah, and about those valves, it’s best to use ball valves over gate valves. Yes, they’re more expensive, but they are very reliable and have a short throw (90 degrees) which makes them easy to use.

The reviews are generally pretty good at giving you the differences between digital and purely mechanical units. The electronic softeners are generally more expensive up front, but can be less expensive in the long term. Since the digital units track water usage they will regen less often and keep you from having to add salt as often.

One more thing that water softener reviews may mention but that I want to also point out here is that you want to isolate your lawn sprinkler system (if you have one) from the rest of your house water. There is no need to spray softened water out onto your landscaping. It will just use up the salts in your softener system and is probably not good for your plants anyway.

It may be pretty apparent to you that you need a water softener. The most obvious signs are orange stains in your fixtures and soap that doesn’t suds properly when doing dishes or laundry. Sometimes it’s just a nuisance but other times it can be bad enough to clog pipes. Another big hint that you might need a water softener is if the local supermarket carries the salts needed to maintain softeners.

If you don’t see the obvious signs in your home but you still suspect hard water you can get your water tested. In some areas you can give some water to the local hardware store for them to test. In other cases you may want to get a kit online and send it in yourself to get the water tested.