White crust on fixtures and spots on dishes and shower doors come from hard water minerals.
The same scale builds up inside water heaters, dishwashers, and pipes, quietly shortening their lives.
City water is treated with chlorine. It's safe, but you can taste it, smell it, and feel it.
Soap doesn't rinse well in hard water. Most people notice softer skin and hair within the first week or two.
36,000 grain
48,000 grain
48,000 grain
| Softener + Filtration (Standard, XL) | Dual Tank City Water | Dual Tank Well Water | Salt-Free Conditioner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Removes hardness (true soft water) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Prevents scale buildup | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Removes chlorine taste and smell | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Removes iron, manganese, and sulfur smell | — | — | ✓ | — |
| Uses salt | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Needs a drain line | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
It depends on where your water comes from. If you’re on city water, we can usually recommend the right system over the phone. We’ll ask a few quick questions about your home and household, and we already know a lot about local city water. If you’re on a private well, we’ll come out and test your water for free first, since every well is different. Already had your well tested recently? Send us the results, and we may be able to skip the visit. Either way, if you don’t need a system, we’ll tell you that too.
A softener on its own doesn’t. That’s why our Standard, XL, and Dual Tank City Water systems include carbon filtration, so they take care of hard water and chlorine together. Well water usually isn’t chlorinated, so our Dual Tank Well Water system focuses on hardness, iron, manganese, and sulfur smell instead.
Most households add a bag of salt about once every one to two months. It depends on how hard your water is and how much water your family uses. Adding it is easy: lift the lid on the brine tank and pour the bag in. Our salt-free conditioner never needs salt at all.
No. Softening adds a small amount of sodium to your water, but not enough to taste salty. If you’re watching your sodium closely, you can pair your system with one of our drinking water systems, which removes sodium from the water you drink and cook with, or choose our salt-free conditioner.
A softener removes the hardness minerals from your water, giving you true soft water: no spots, better lather, and that smooth feel. A salt-free conditioner leaves the minerals in but changes them so they don’t stick to your pipes, fixtures, and water heater. Both protect your plumbing from scale, but only a softener gives you truly soft water. The conditioner is a great fit if you’d rather not use salt or don’t have a drain nearby.
Yes. Professional installation is included with every whole-home system, so the price on our Pricing page is the price you pay to have it installed.
Your system’s core components are covered for life: the Hankscraft ceramic disc control valve, the fiberglass mineral tank, and the brine tank. These are the heavy-duty parts that do the real work, and they’re built to last. The electronic controls and the filter media inside the tank are covered for 5 years. If you ever have a question about your coverage, just give us a call.
Most installations take about three to four hours and are finished in a single visit. Your water will be off for part of that time, and we’ll let you know before we shut it off. When we’re done, we’ll show you how your system works and clean up before we leave.
Tell us a little about your home and we’ll confirm your install price. You already know what it costs, because it’s right on our website.