On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 18:21:23 -0800 (PST), Sheldon
wrote:

On Mar 1, 8:42?pm, Billy wrote:
In article ,





?Charles wrote:
On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:10:13 -0800, "SteveB" meagain@rockvilleUSA
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.

Thanks.

Steve

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.

Like Charles said, you would basically be putting salt on your plants.
You don't want to drink it either, again it is salt (or the cation half
of the salt) and you risk raising your blood pressure. It is good for
washing things because the Ca++ in the water (hard water) is out and you
don't precipitate fatty acids or get calcium stearate (better known as
bathtub ring) which interfere with making the dirtiness soluble in water.


What tripe. There is virtually no salt in softened water... whatever
salt was contained in the water before it was softened would be far,
far less.

From:
http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/se...es&searcha=yes

Finally, the best sources of water are those that simply don't have
many dissolved chemicals; or at least none that cause trouble for your
body. That means that your water shouldn't have much lead or arsenic
dissolved in it or any of a number of noxious organic chemicals. The
purest waters are distilled water, rain water (assuming minimal air
pollution), and water that has been chemically filtered (via ion
exchange, reverse osmosis, and/or activated carbon). Spring and well
waters tend to contain substantial amounts of dissolved calcium and
magnesium salts, which make the water less pure but probably don't
affect its healthfulness. One special case to look out for is water
that was very hard but that has been passed through a water softener.
The dissolved minerals that made the water hard will have been
replaced by sodium compounds during the softening process and
excessive sodium consumption may be a problem for some people.