First of all, I've read many of the previous posts about water softeners but my head is spinning. I read not to trust someone who doesn't tailor the system to your specific water/usage but I've had a couple in-home quotes and called many others and asked how they will determine the best system - and around here it doesn't seem the treatment folks are doing specific tests to determine these things.

Our water hardness is 18g/g and it's city water (no iron). A gallon of water filled up in the bathtub faucet in ~6.5 seconds so that's about 9.23 gallons per minute. We have 1 1/4" water pipes throughout. We have 2 people (but need to plan for 4), and 2.5 baths. One bathroom has a giant freestanding tub and shower with 3 different shower heads. These features will be used regularly, so flow rate is important to us. All sprinklers and hoses will be hard water, but we are asking for an extra soft water spigot outside to wash the car and use the pressure washer. We just moved in so we don't know exactly how much water we use, but my skin is already crawling, and we need to plan for 4 folks anyway.

The local well-reviewed/recommended joint is offering a 1 cu ft system. We are looking at water softener only (no whole house filtration). After reading some threads it sounds like a 1 cu ft system might not be enough and/or might restrict our flow rate too much. We can upgrade to a 1.5cu ft system for $300.

Any thoughts/recommendations?