Q: I'd like to soften the water in our house, or at least get some of the minerals out of the pipes. Culligan-type water softeners are supposed to release a lot of salt into the ground, which I think ...

Protecting our local groundwater supply is critical, the city of Solvang said. Traditional salt-using, self-regenerating water softeners, the kind that use rock salt or potassium chloride pellets, ...

Water softeners usually substitute sodium for calcium and magnesium in hard water. The synthetic resin beads in a water softener prefer positively charged elemental ions in this order: calcium, ...