Dropped $850 on a whole-house water softener in Marietta and I'm not sure it did anything
Had a guy test our water and he said it was 'hard enough to damage the pipes over time', so I panicked and signed the contract same day. Eight months later the dishes still spot and my skin feels the same, and now I'm stuck buying $40 salt bags every few weeks. Has anyone here actually seen a real difference from one of these, or did I just buy an expensive salt habit?
The "hard enough to damage the pipes over time" line is doing a lot of work there. Hard water leaves scale, sure, but it usually takes decades to really mess up pipes, and it's not some emergency that means you have to sign a contract that same day. That was a sales pitch, and a water test that only the salesman runs is not a real test. I would get an independent test done, or buy a cheap kit yourself, and actually find out your grains per gallon before you spend another dime. Also, a softener only softens, it does not filter, so spots on dishes can still happen if you have other stuff in the water or if the unit is not set right. If your skin feels exactly the same after eight months, either the thing is not working or it was never sized for your actual water. Check the hardness of the water coming out of the tap, not the water going in.