"Ian Cornish" "icornish at talk21 dot com" wrote in message
...
I live in a hard water area, and the house I just bought seems to have a
lot of problems with it's basic water plumbing, mainly steming from
limescale.

Questions:-
1) Would a water softener help reduce the limescale build up over time,
without replacing all the pipework?

Yep!

2) What types of softener are there, and what are the maintenance costs?
Which ones are effective ?

I would recommend the ion exchange ones from experience with them.

The maintenance costs are pretty much just the salt, the salt consumption
will relate to the amount of water you use and how hard the water is.
(http://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/pages/hdwtrmap.htm)

Having a quick look on Google, it seems to suggest the salt cost is about
£1.50-£2.00 per person, per month.

We had our last softener for about 25 years and only changed it because we
wanted a meter one, and also needed a smaller unit when the kitchen was
redone.


3) How easy are they to fit diy?

Ion Exchange This does also depend on where you want to put it, as you
will want to have hard water at the kitchen sink (for drinking) and also
hard water to the outside tap.

You basically have the mains water entering the house, this then goes to the
softener and also to any places you wish to have untreated water.
Then, from the softener, you have the things connected you want to use soft
water with (Water tank in loft, combi feed, taps you want mains pressure
cold on (Like the Kitchen sink - we have three taps, one mixer with soft
hot/cold, the cold being at mains pressure, and also another single tap for
drinking water)

The softener also requires power (usually) a drain, and an overflow (NOT
connected to the same pipe as the drain, or you will flood the place!)

4) Any other considerations I need to think about before spending my dosh?
(the house is 6 yrs old, 3 bed semi, 2 bathrooms)

Remember you need to fill it with salt, so a place to store some 20-25KG
bags, and an easy route to take when filling, if the bags are not near it.

There are two types of Ion exchange (I think), one that generates based on a
timer, so if you start using more water than it is set to, you will start
getting hard water through, or if you have it set too high, you will be
wasting salt.

The better types have a water meter, they measure the amount of water you
have passed through it, then only generate when needed (I have just changed
mine to a meter one, and it is using a lot less salt than the old one!)

If you do get one, make sure you fit a bypass pipe and also a non-return
valve to the input (The instructions should tell you about this)

Sparks...