As an Albuquerque resident for 15+ yrs I guess I almost
qualify as a "desert rat" . I think the 8 hrs is too
frequent to dump the water. It realy depends on how
hard the water is but I would think about once a week
would be enough to help a lot. The "bleeder" technique
will work to some extent but it just takes a fraction
of all the water so some of it is the just introduced
fresh water. I guess the REAL solution would be a
hardness monitor and when a certain point is reached
then dump it all. :-) (a retired electronics engineer
speaking) :-)
...lew...