On Sep 9, 10:43 am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article .com,

wrote:
If you use KCl (potassium chloride) as brine to regenerate your
softener then YES you can.

How do the osmosis or Kinetico-type softeners fit into this scenario?


Kurt,

Reverse Osmosis (RO) is an "uber filter" that pretty much removes
everything but the "H" and the "O" from the water but wastes about 2-3
gallons for every gallon of water it makes. Not a good choice for cost
effective "plant water".

Kineticos are great softeners and have a large and loyal customer
base. They are "ion exchange" softeners and follow the same rules of
chemistry and physica as ALL other ion exchange softeners.

So, as I said in an earlier reply...

If you use NaCl (sodium chloride) as brine to regenerate your softener
then NO, you can't use softened water to water your plants.

If you use KCl (potassium chloride) as brine to regenerate your
softener then YES you can.

More info here... http://softeningsalt.com/page8.html from the largest
supplier of softener salt (both NaCl and KCl) in the western
hemisphere.

KCl (potassium chloride) costs more per bag than NaCl but if you value
your plants it's a small price to pay.

The simple, and cost effective answer to your question is... get a
properly sized and setup industry standard softener from a water
treatment professional, soften the ENTIRE house, and set the softener
to use KCl (potassium chloride) as a regenerant.