We love our new water softener, our dishes and countertops are clean again, and our clothes are much brighter. However, we find that when showering, we experience a “slippery” feeling on our skin.  It seems like the soap is more difficult to wash off.  Is this normal?

Answer: The slippery feeling that softened water yields is actually what clean skin feels like – it just means your water softener is functioning well.  We don’t mean to suggest that skin is dirty without soft water, but the calcium and magnesium deposits that are left on skin cause that “squeaky-clean” feeling.  When they are no longer there, skin is naturally slippery when wet.  Further scrubbing gives you the “squeaky-clean” feeling again, but that is due to abrasion of the skin.

By the way, with the hardness removed from the water, you can use much less soap for washing hair and skin, dishwashing, and in the laundry.  When you first bathe in softened water, it takes awhile to learn how much less soap to use – this is probably why you feel that it takes longer to wash of the soap – you are using too much!  Hope this helps, and let us know if you have any other questions.

I have a second home with a softening system. When we leave and shut down the house, we set the system on bypass, turn off the water to the system and unplug it. When we come back, there is always a dried puddle of salt water on the garage floor. It seems as if the brine tank is expelling water after the system has been turned off. What is going on?

Answer: This is an odd one.  Assuming that your by-pass valve is completely shutting off the water feed, then the only source of this water must be from the solution already contained within the brine tank.  Is the puddle formed underneath the safety overflow drain?  If so, it may just be that evaporation is causing water to drip from this port over time – however, this is not a common occurrence – and you mention that the puddle seems to contain salt (evaporated water would not contain much salt).  Is the water softener installed in a very hot location?  If so, this lends some validity to the evaporation theory.  Please let us know.