If you've been considering getting a water softener installed in your home you may have found that there is a wide range of products with vastly different prices on the market. Whilst it certainly may be tempting to go for the cheaper unit that you can buy at your local DIY store, it is normally a false economy to go for the budget option when buying a water softener. Water softeners vary in price due to the quality of parts and any special functions or extra features. There are definitely advantages to paying a little more for a water softener. So what are arguments for water softener quality vs price?
Resin quality is an important factor in how efficiently your water softener works. Uniform, small resin bead size fits together better and give a higher service capacity between regenerations. Cheaper water softeners tend to have lower quality resin beads which are not uniform and of larger sizes than those used in quality machines. You can read more about it here...
A standard water softener needs four components to perform its water softening task: resin beads, a tank to hold the resin, a brine tank to hold the brine that it needs to regenerate its resin, and a control valve to perform the different functions that make the whole system work. It will come as no surprise that cheaply, mass produced, manufactured parts will not last as long as better quality parts. Not just this, if you need to replace a part on a water softener sometimes it involves placing a whole unit made up of several parts instead of just the individual part. This is found in many of the cheaper models and can prove costly when you need to repair it, often meaning that the cost of the repair is not viable.
When you pay for a good quality water softener you are also paying for a far more efficient system. Unlike cheaper models, a quality machine with a decent control valve is able to go through the service and regeneration cycles using only the salt and water that is needed instead of a fixed amount. This will obviously save you more money in the long run.
An inexpensive water softener is not likely to last as long as a higher quality, more expensive one. This means that you actually do not save any money over the years as you will have to buy several water softeners in the lifespan of just one quality softener. Add to that the fact that the warranty on the cheaper water softeners tends to be only a couple of years compared to the 10 years of the higher quality brands, you could be getting yourself into an expensive relationship.
Another point to remember is that when you buy cheap and off the shelf, you do not have the expert advice and quality installation that you would get by using a professional water treatment company such as ourselves. We have lost count of the times that we have been called out to fix a water softener which was not suitable for the property or has been installed incorrectly. You will save yourself time and money in the long run by making sure that the equipment and the installation is correct from the start.
Book a home survey with us today and find out more about the great quality water softeners that we can install in your home.
