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FAQ

Keeping Your Family Happy & Healthy

LOS ANGELES WATER TREATMENT FAQ

Answers to Your Water Softener Questions

Pro Water Solutions has all the answers to your water treatment questions! We understand that many homeowners do not fully understand the benefits of water treatment systems or how they work. Read our FAQ below to see how these systems may help protect your water supply.

If you have further questions, reach out to us at (888) 904-4453. We offer free consultations in person or over the phone, and we serve Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and north Orange County.

  • Water Treatment

    • WHAT IS HARD WATER?
      Hard water simply means that the water contains minerals. The harder the water, the higher the mineral content. The most common minerals in water are calcium, magnesium, and iron. Hard water problems include scale and deposit buildup. Pro Water Solutions has systems to effectively tame or remove the minerals that lead to the damage of faucets, bathroom fixtures, kitchen appliances, water heaters, and pipes.
    • WHAT IS SOFT WATER?
      Soft water simply means the absence of minerals in water. The benefit of soft water is that a homeowner or business will greatly reduce the amount of buildup found on anything water comes in contact with.
    • IS SOFT WATER UNHEALTHY?
      If the minerals are removed by salt using self-regenerating softeners or exchange tanks, water loses some of its life-giving nutrients and the water should not be consumed. This is why houseplants die if watered by soft water. It is recommended by The American Heart Association that people with low sodium diets don’t even use it for cooking. A water softener is not designed (nor is it effective) to remove lead and other metals, chlorine, taste/odor compounds, nor chlorine by-products. Its purpose is only to make hard water soft. Softening water is often very helpful as it has a number of benefits — in particular, reducing scale buildup. However, the hard water to be treated passes through a bed of the resin, which contains sodium and potassium ions. As the water passes through the resin, the hardness ions are trapped in the resin and replaced by the sodium or potassium ions, which are released into the water – effectively softening it. The harder the water is, the more sodium or potassium ions are released from the resin and into the water.
    • ARE WATER SOFTENER SOFTENERS AND EXCHANGE TANKS BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?
      The brine solution used to regenerate water softeners is flushed away as waste. Several U.S. cities – including Los Angeles – have gone so far as to ban brine discharge into public sewers, thus banning the home water softener. Since Assembly Bill 1366 has passed, every city in California has the ability to enforce a softener ban. This is especially so in areas where wastewater is treated and used to irrigate cash crops or drained into local rivers, because brine can negatively affect the growth of grass and vegetation. In many places, only salt-free water treatment systems are permitted. Chloride is one of the two components of water softener salt, be it sodium or potassium chloride. Too much chloride in water can damage agricultural crops and local rivers. It may also cause harm to aquatic life.
    • HOW CAN PRO WATER SOLUTIONS HELP SOLVE MY WATER QUALITY ISSUES?
      Pro Water Solutions has systems that add nothing to your water while filtering out unwanted chemicals, bacteria, organics, tastes, and odors. These systems provide clean, natural water to every faucet in your home – it’s water the way nature intended it and the way your family deserves it.
    • WHAT IS REVERSE OSMOSIS?
      Reverse osmosis is a membrane filtration treatment process. However, there are key differences between reverse osmosis and filtration. The predominant removal mechanism in membrane filtration is straining, or size exclusion, so the process can theoretically achieve perfect exclusion of particles regardless of operational parameters such as influent pressure and concentration. This is very technical, so to put it in terms easier to understand, RO water is usually placed under the kitchen sink and the treated water comes out of a spout close to the tap water faucet. You can also look at it this way: 80% of all bottled water is reverse osmosis water. This means it meets the FDA guidelines of good drinking water free of minerals and contaminants.
    • CAN REVERSE OSMOSIS BE USED ON A WHOLE-HOUSE APPLICATION?
      Since we specialize in whole-house water treatment, we have systems available that deliver bottle-quality water throughout the entire home or business. In the past, because under-sink RO has been a very wasteful system, large applications have not been achievable because the traditional RO dispels up to 20 gallons of water down the drain for every gallon of clean water used. Pro Water Solutions has RO systems that have zero waste and mineral- and chemical-free water is received throughout the home. See our products for more information.
    • WHY SHOULD PRO WATER SOLUTIONS BE YOUR WATER SPECIALIST?
      We have over 25 years of water treatment experience at your disposal. Integrity is the cornerstone of our business and we treat our clients like family. There is nothing we won’t do for our clients. We have the best systems at the best prices anywhere. All our sales associates and technicians are licensed with the California State Contractors Licensing Board and we do not subcontract out other plumbers. We do all the work ourselves so it is ensured that the job is done right, and we won't use high-pressure sales tactics. We are also bonded and insured to protect your property and absolve you of liability issues.
    • WHAT ARE EXCHANGE TANKS AND WHY ARE THEY UNPOPULAR?

      Exchange tanks are large tanks that produce soft water throughout the whole home, much like a softener you add salt to. These tanks are much like portable water softeners that are recharged in a different location. 

      Exchange tanks are problematic in many ways.  

      Costly: The exchange tanks are a bill that never goes away. If a homeowner used the money spent on exchange tanks, in approximately 3 years the amount spent would be equivalent to the price of a whole-house system. This exchange tank bill can be raised at any time and consistently is after the first year of service.  

      Inconsistency: Rarely do exchange tanks last the full week in which they are designed to last. They exhaust very quickly and when they are regenerated there is no way to tell if they are full. Homeowners often comment on how much they dislike them. In places like Santa Clarita where you cannot legally use self-regenerating water softeners that add salt, some owners have hired their services because they have no other choice for soft water or mineral-free water that doesn’t cause hard water-related problems.  

      Privacy and security: Exchange tanks are located in the garage and the company that provides the service has to have access to your home to make the exchange every week. The company, or more importantly whoever they hire, can enter your garage at any time. This is a concern of people who have valuables or documents stored in the garage.  

      Environment: Just because they are exchanged doesn’t mean that the byproduct of soft water is still not dispelled because it is — it’s just dumped into our environment at another location instead of down the homeowner’s sewer drain. When they regenerate the tanks, the brine and chlorides in the tank are dumped right down the sewer drain and into our rivers, streams and oceans. The tanks also need to be transported. The amount of fuel and emissions that this delivery process produces and that these large trucks create are massive, however un-calculated by any agency at this time.

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