Do toilets need to be fed Cold Softened Water?

[HomerSimpson]

I'm about to have a water softener installed in our extension and had a question as to whether toilets needed cold softened water or not? It seems to me that they would use up a high volume of softened water unnecessarily? Comments please...

My intention was to connect the rest as follows...is this correct?
Kitchen
Kitchen Cold Tap = Original Non-softened cold water (for drinking)
Kitchen Hot Tap = Softened Hot Supply
Dishwasher = Softened Cold Water
Outside Tap = Original Non-softened cold water

Bathrooms
Basin Cold Tap = Original Non-softened cold water (for drinking)
Basin Hot Tap = Softened Hot Water
Bath Cold Tap = Softened Cold Water
Bath Hot Tap = Softened Hot Water
Shower Cold Supply = Softened Cold Water
Shower Hot Supply = Softened Hot Water
Toilets = ?????

 

[Kes]

Hi,

In essence, no. The ususl practice with salt water softeners is to provide unsoftened water for drinking in the kitchen only. All other feeds are from the softened supply. This is, I guess, as much for the practical problems of providing a separate unsoftened supply pipe to other areas of the house as for any other reason.

You probably won't die if you drink softened water. I can't remember the classes of people who shouldn't drink it, apart from small babies. I've drunk it and it's lovely, not salty but as sweet as er, I dunno.

Rgds.

 

[htgeng]

Hi,
You probably won't die if you drink softened water. I can't remember the classes of people who shouldn't drink it, apart from small babies. I've drunk it and it's lovely, not salty but as sweet as er, I dunno.

Rgds.

I installed a softener for a doctor and he told me that drinking softened water increased your risk of a heart attack.

Re: the loo. If it has a soft water feed then at least you wont get limescale in the toilet.

 

[Agile]

Homer, you can do what you have suggested without any problems.

Its just that no one else bothers with having two seperate water supplies in the house apart from the mains to the kitchen.

Tony

 

[HomerSimpson]

Thanks for the replies all. Given that we're still at first fix, I'll probably get the plumber to run both soft and hard cold supplies to the bathrooms.

One other question I have is that in the water softener literature it says it uses up to 63 litres of water to regenerate. Does this happen every night? If so, then with water costing about 1p/litre, that's 63p/day which adds up to £230 per year on top of the normal water bill.

Is this correct and is that what everyone with a water softener is happy to pay?

 

[Agile]

When it regenerates is dependent on the model.

The cheap ones regenerate on a time basis as you set them.

The better ones regenerate after a certain volume has pased through them.

I think water is rather cheaper them you immagine, about 0.2p/litre. The cost of the salt is likely to be more than the water.

Tony