wrote in message
oups.com...
I live in Phoenix and my dishwasher stopped working. I found out all
of the washer heads were plugged with white flakey stuff. I pulled it
apart and the thing was just filled with deposits. I assume this is
due to our very hard water. I am now considering a water softener.

But then I hear that you don't want soft water for your plants, and I
have a automatic irrigation system around my house. I also have a
swimming pool with auto-filling system -- is soft water good or bad for
a swimming pool (just for topping it off with water due to
evaporation)? In reality hard water is bad as eventually the pool
water gets so hard that you have to drain it. Would soft water fix
this and indeed be a good thing? I have a salt system for my pool
which means I believe it has dissolved sodium in it anyways, so maybe
it doesn't matter.

In any case, on to my real question. I am considering soft water
primarily to protect my appliances, showers, bathtub, etc. Would it
make any sense to just install the soft water system before my hot
water heater? This would protect my hot water heater, dishwasher,
washing machine, and we'd have mostly soft water for showers/baths.

Also, is it possible that my hot water heater is filled with this stuff
as well, making my problem worse? My house is 7 years old, never had
soft water.

Thanks!

I once lived in a house with an add on water softener that was installed
only on the hot water. I think they did that that way because it was much
easier to install.
The house I live in now was built with a water softener in mind. The
outside hose connections are before the softener and the rest of the house
has all soft water. I am thinking of adding a soft water hose bib in the
garage so I can use that to wash the cars. The hard water leaves the cars
almost looking worse than before washing.
Kevin