New homes are often plumbed with a "softener loop" - a place to connect a water softener that's plumbed correctly so that it doesn't include the outside faucets.

Do you have such a place? It would be in your garage / basement / utility closet.

It will usually include an electrical outlet and a drain also.

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4 .

That would be it.

Do you see a drain nearby also?

Looking at this, the water comes in at the bottom - then branches off to outside and inside. That's your loop.

Unless you have more plumbing / DYI skills than I suspect - you will contact a plumber who can quote you a price on installing a water softener.

Here are some things you should know:

1. You want a water softener - that's a very specific thing that exchanges hardness ions for sodium ions.

2. You do not want anything that claims to be a "conditioner". That's marketing speak for can be virtually anything.

3. You do not want anything that uses magnets, electro magnets, Template Assisted Crystallization (TAC) or any other "salt-free conditioner". None of them work reliably for residential use - and there's no way to prove or disprove that they are working.

A good quality water softener - just the hardware - costs about $900. You are going to pay much more since you are paying someone to install it and they will mark up the hardware. That said, don't get taken to the cleaners. Avoid a national brand that starts with "K" and doesn't use electricity - they are stupid expensive and you don't really get anything for that extra money.

The definition of soft water is < 1 grain of hardness per gallon of water. Once you've done that, there's nothing that you can do to make it "more soft" so don't waste money on things that don't matter.

Water softening is a commodity process - there's no special sauce. Most softeners use off-the-shelf parts (tank, softening resin, salt tank and one of two major control valves: Clack or Fleck)

The big exceptions to this "off the shelf parts" are the expensive one that starts with "K" and doesn't use electricity and Culligan. Again there's no special sauce. It's not going to make anything better than the $900 unit.

You might want a carbon filter under your kitchen sink to clean up taste, odor, remove chlorine and a bunch of chemicals - but you probably don't need reverse osmosis. Don't go down the rabbit hole of "pure drinking water".

Post back if you have questions after talking to some folks and get prices.

JUST TO VERIFY WHAT i AM THNKING IS where it splits off back into the house, one of the lines feeds the outside faucets? the other line feeds the inside of the house?

Yes, that's right.

Is there a standard as to which pipe is which

There is not a standard, but I'd bet the first tee after the pressure regulator goes to the outside.

When they cut into the loop they can confirm it pretty quickly.

I will be installing the SW unit. And plan on checking which pipe feeds what when i cut into the pipes. Thank you for your help.

Jim

Do you know how to size it properly and set it properly?

What is your hardness level in grains per gallon?

I'd like to say that Jake helped me through the process of buying and installing a Fleck water softener a few years ago. I ordered a model 5600 on Amazon, but what I didn't realize was I received a model 5800. The setup is slightly different between the two. But my bigger problem was they had installed a needle valve from the 5600 into the 5800, and the thing did not work at all. Water kept filling the brine tank and never drawing it out. I called the Amazon vendor and he referred me to his support desk. Clearly the guy was only selling products and not supporting them himself. However, the real support guy walked me through some trouble shooting over the phone. He was able to identify the difference between the 5600 and 5800 by listening on the phone. Once we had that cleared up, he had me remove the needle valve and tell him what color it was. It was buff colored instead of purple. I ordered the purple valve from Amazon, installed it, and it works perfectly.

Anyway, listen to Jake and answer all his questions so he can help you.

@ dchall_san_antonio ,

Sorry you had that experience but glad you got it figured out. What vendor did you actually buy it from on Amazon- do you mind saying?

Here is the page as it looked back then.

The DuraWater Store was not the one that fulfilled the order. I learned a lot about Amazon with that purchase. Again I received the 5800SXT.

I also learned that my local water softener installers treated me horribly. If they did not install it, even if they install identical equipment, they did not want to deal with me. There is a good plumber a few streets over who helped me with piping, but he wasn't interested in the guts of the softener at all.