I think ion exchange systems are always going to be a problem - and most of the DS is going to be Na or K, depending on whether you're using NaCl or KCl. Can't you 'T' off of the supply line before it hits the softener & put a spigot, indoors & out, off that line - or connect a hose to it?

Al

Thanks for the suggestion, Al. My fear though is that if I tap off of the supply line, I'll be back to the water that gives the red residue. You'd be surprised what ~10 ppm Fe will do over time.

Several years back I looked into switching to KCl for the softener, but it was about 5 times as expensive as NaCl. I go through a lot since I have >1 acre of lawn under sprinklers. I actually listened to the sprinkler guy at the time of install and I went to the effort of replacing my softener with a larger, more powerful model. This one isn't on a timer, but runs through its refresher cycle as needed based on water usage. It'll run two or three times from October until May, but then 3-4X/week during the summer. As a result, I never made the switch to KCl.

Too bad the plant staging area is on the other side of the yard from the house, or I could go for the rain barrel solution. In fact, I just got a sealed 30 gal barrel to store my irrigation water in (from the hose), so that it can sit for long enough to equilibrate thermally before I use it for irrigation.

Agreed. Although your native water has calcium and iron, the plants can use those. Sodium is really bad for your plants.

Have you thought about using rain barrels, at least for summer? My rainwater is about 40-60 ppm and pH6.0. Plants love it. I wish I had it year around. May have to build an underground cistern.

Sorry, your post wasn't up when I was replying. If you can make the rain barrel work, that would be your best bet. Good enough for plants, anyway. Not sure you'd get enough for lawn watering though, you'd need a huge roof for that.