Recommendations for water softener for small flat

[vargen]

Hi all

Can anyone recommend a water softener system for a small 2 bed flat, preferably zero or low maintenance electric, please?

Our water is very hard in Cambridge. There's just the wife and I in the flat. Water consumption is minimal, eg just an electric shower - no bath; 10 litre water heater - no tank.

All suggestions very welcome.

 

[vargen]

bump

 

[oilman]

Depends what you want a water softener to do. This will keep the scale out of your shower head and boiler heat exchanger, but it's a scale reducer, not a softener. However if you want clean clothes, water softeners are ineffective, as the chemistry doesn't allow the dirt to be held by the water molecules as well as with harder water.

 

[vargen]

Thanks for that. Didn't know that about softened water. Assume the same applies to dishwasher washing up then.

I'd thought a softener would prevent limescale generally and give a better lather in the shower with added benefits for bad hair days and my dry skin eczema. Didn't realise there were dirty drawbacks!

Appreciate your input. Thanks again. I'll get a Combimate for sure.

 

[lequetas]

However if you want clean clothes, water softeners are ineffective, as the chemistry doesn't allow the dirt to be held by the water molecules as well as with harder water.

I know this is a very old post - but it still links up on some search engines and this information is just wrong - washing clothes in softened water means you can use less detergent as the detergents are not having to compete with the water hardness. There is no chemistry for dirt and water molecules
It is the use of the linked polyphosphate feeder that will not do anything for washing as the level of dosing from these is so much smaller than the actual level used in normal detergent formulations. It could help prevent some scale on a cold fill boiler but that is about it for washing.