Water softeners are a very common household appliance in certain parts of the US. Softened water can improve efficiency of your plumbing fixtures. Softened water can be gentler on your hair and skin. But softened water (at least from a salt-based system) can wreak havoc on your garden and indoor plants! You should avoid softened water for plants altogether. But how do you tell if your outside tap is going through a water softener?
Why would my outside faucets go through the water softener?
I never asked myself this question for 15 years of failed gardening. I knew we had a water softener. I knew of the benefits of a water softener for our inside water uses:
- Increased efficiency of soap in the clothes washing machine and dishwasher
- Reduced buildup of hard minerals on plumbing fixtures
- Easier on my skin and hair (the little hair I have remaining needs to be cared for and managed delicately!)
But other than these benefits, I didn’t really think much about other impacts of a water softener.
I tried to manage a small garden in my backyard for years. Like most gardeners, I supplemented natural rain water with manual watering from a spigot attached to the back of my house. During dry spells, I would water my lawn and garden through this outdoor spigot.
After years of sickly garden plants, I stumbled across advice to NOT use softened water for your garden plants.
Softened water is apparently bad for many garden plants (especially tomatoes!) Check out my findings here:
https://doyardthings.com/is-softened-water-ok-for-tomato-plants/
OK, fine. But my outside tap wouldn’t go through the water softener, would it? That seems silly! Why would I need to treat the water going to my tomatoes, peppers and rutabagas? (Just kidding, I’ve never grown rutabagas, nor do I even know what they are. But “rutabaga” is fun to say and type.)
Silly or not, it turns out, many newer water softener systems are installed directly on the incoming water line. In this case, ALL water faucets and spigots would travel through the water softener!
How do I tell if my outside water is hard or soft? 3 primary ways:
Follow the pipes.
My water softener is in the basement utility room. The ceiling is exposed, so I can (somewhat) follow pipes coming and going. I can see a pipe going into the water softener and another pipe going out. But beyond that, the pipes are a bit of a spaghetti mess to follow. Some are hidden behind ductwork and flow through other rooms (completely drywalled and no pipes exposed!)
So I couldn’t definitively determine if my outside tap was going through the water softener simply by tracing pipes.
Observe Mineral Buildup:
Over time, hard water leaves mineral deposits on surfaces that come into contact with water. In theory, the outside tap and hose connection might show signs of mineral build-up. Mine did not show these signs. While this seemed to indicate soft water, I wanted to be sure.
Water Quality Test:
I determined the best way to tell if my outside tap was going through my softener was through a water quality test.
I am not a chemist. But in previous work experiences, our facilities performed frequent water chemistry tests. So I often heard about “Hardness”, “Alkalinity”, “Free Chlorine” and other such nonsense regarding water streams in the facility. Maybe I could test my outside water and compare it to the inside taps? (I knew the inside taps flowed through the water softener!)
I bought a cheap water quality test kit online. The kit provided measurements for 16 different parameters.
Here’s a link to the kit I purchased: Water Test Kit
Do water test kits test for sodium levels?
I was hoping the kit would test for sodium levels. Softened water subtracts calcium and magnesium and ADDS sodium. Tomatoes don’t like being watered with water containing high levels of sodium. But unfortunately, the typical water test kits don’t test for sodium. In fact, there really isn’t a great/cheap way to measure sodium levels in water.
The kit provided analysis for 16 different parameters. Ultimately, the only result I needed for this experiment was the test was for “Total Hardness”.
What does “Total Hardness” of water mean?
My test kit references Total Hardness (GH). GH stands for “General Hardness”. General Hardness is often measured in units of mg/L (milligrams per liter) of calcium carbonate. You might also see General Hardness referenced in ppm (parts per million.) The units are equivalent to each other.
Test kit hardness color ranges:
- 0
- 0-25
- 25-50
- 50-120
- 120-250
- 250-425
The higher the number, the harder the water.
The whole point of a water softener is to remove excess calcium and magnesium. So if a water softener is working properly, the Total Hardness should be near 0. And the color of the test strip should closely match this:
I wanted to compare 3 water sources:
- Outside tap
- Inside tap
- Rain water
Rain water is essentially “soft” in that it doesn’t have high levels of calcium or magnesium. Those “hard” minerals are picked up on the way through minerals in the ground.
I collected some rain water one night – I figured a glass bowl wouldn’t introduce stray minerals (calcium or magnesium)
- Outside tap = 0 mg/L
- Inside tap = 0 mg/L
- Rain water = 0 mg/L
All 3 sources appear to be “soft” water. Or at least similar Total Hardness measurements. It didn’t directly confirm my outside tap had high levels of sodium, but did indicate that the outside tap was likely flowing through the water softener! But I had no “Total Hardness” control. If all of my faucets were flowing through the water softener, how could I compare against supposed incoming hard water?
How to bypass your water softener.
Was I going to have to install a bypass valve? (Maybe a future project.) But wait! There appears to be a manual bypass valve on my water softener! The valve is right behind the controls and lid.
The valve is OPEN by default (hard water flowing in, soft water flowing out.) I pushed the valve to the bypass position. In theory, this would mean the incoming hard water would NOT flow through the softener. Hard water would flow directly to faucets, appliances, etc.
Time for another test…
Water softener NOT bypassed:
Water softener bypassed:
I went to the outside tap and turned on the faucet. I let the water run through the hose for a while to ensure it was draining out all the previous water left in the hose. Then I filled another test tube with the water – now theoretically representing INCOMING hard water, bypassing the water softener completely.
Previous test of outside tap (NOT bypassed water softener) = 0 mg/L
Outside tap (currently bypassing water softener) = 120 mg/L
Eureka! This was indeed “hard water”. No added sodium. With delicious levels of calcium and magnesium for my garden plants to enjoy. My outside tap does indeed flow through my water softener. However, I was able to manually bypass my water softener to provide my outside tap with hard water.
Of course, during this bypass, ALL other faucets and fixtures would be receiving un-softened water also. This is a good workaround and temporary solution for now. But ultimately, I’ll investigate installing a bypass for the outside tap.