Dallas-Fort Worth draws its municipal water primarily from surface reservoirs, and that water is genuinely hard. Hardness is dissolved mineral, and it does not stay dissolved. It comes out of solution as scale on fixtures, inside pipes, and on the heating elements of every appliance that uses hot water.
A softener runs your water through a bed of resin that swaps the hardness minerals for sodium. The water that leaves the tank is soft. Periodically the resin is rinsed and recharged with brine from a salt tank sitting beside it, which is the regeneration cycle.
The system installs off your main water line, usually in a utility room or garage, so every tap in the house gets softened water rather than one fixture. Most installs are straightforward. If your home has a tougher setup, we tell you the adjusted price before any work starts, never after.
Softening is part of our flagship whole-home bundle. On its own, the price depends on what your home actually needs, and you get the all-in number on your assessment call before anything is scheduled. Flexible financing is available, no credit check.
Keep two to three bags of salt in the brine tank and check it every few months. Salt is about $7 a bag. There are no filters to change on the softener itself; it cleans itself during regeneration.
Sometimes. Softening handles hardness and scale. It is not the part that addresses the chloramine DFW utilities use as a disinfectant residual, which is what carbon filtration is for, and it is not drinking water treatment, which is what reverse osmosis is for. The assessment tells you which of those your home actually needs.