On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 18:12:11 -0800 (PST), Sheldon
wrote:

Charles wrote:
"SteveB" wrote:

I believe that the hose bibs on the outside of my house are hooked to the
soft water system. ?Is there any disadvantage to watering with soft water?
They're about to turn on the irrigation water system in our rural area, but
I need to get around and water some of the trees before that.

For occasional watering it is fine. ?For steady use I'd avoid it.
Most softening systems replace the calcium and magnesium with sodium.
Plants need calcium and magnesium, sodium is toxic. ?Over time it will
build up, change the soil properties.

That's not true. There is no more salt contained in softened water
than there is in the bottled water that people drink, usually less.
If softened water contained salt then it wouldn't be softened water,
now would it. The salt used by water softeners leaves the sytem as
grey water (along with the other minerals the system removes), that
never enters the domestic water. If the typical water softener uses a
pound of salt a day it's a lot, usually will use closer to 1/2 pound/
day. The trick is to find a way for disposing of the grey water
without it building up in one spot. My grey water (water from my
water softener, dehumidifier, and RO filter) is piped by gravity to a
creek, the same creek that collects run off from many thousands of
acres of lands as the creek meanders over many miles, which includes
the many tons of salt spread on the roads in winter by the highway
department.. my couple handfulls of salt a day is so negligible that
it doesn't count. And salt is not toxic it's a necessity of life, a
salt lick for live stock places more salt into the ground than any
water softener. Softened water contains very little salt, certainly
far less than if the water were not softened.



Wrong, unless you are using a dual ion exchange system. The common
household water softener just exchanges calcium and magnesium ions for
sodium. The carbonate, sulfate, or whatever else is in the water
stays where it is.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-a...question99.htm