I was warned that potassium chloride clumps up and plugs easier. First time I moved to Houston, I had a softener installed in my garage and used KCl despite warning. Plugged all of the lines between dual tank water softener.
Switched to Morton’s sodium chloride and never plugged the lines the remaining 4 years I lived there. Still had to stir salt with a stick periodically to prevent bridging.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity
DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.
Posts: 24149 | Location: Northern Suburbs of Houston | Registered: November 14, 2005
We have been using Nature’s Own Potassium pellets for 4 years now without a problem. It doesn’t clump, is clean, and works well with our septic system.
Posts: 298 | Location: North Central Florida | Registered: December 16, 2009
I buy potassium in bags from Costco for the water softening equipment in our well house. No problems. Prior owners used sodium and it kills the vegetation when it resets.
Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.
When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005
Originally posted by snowdog: We have been using Nature’s Own Potassium pellets for 4 years now without a problem. It doesn’t clump, is clean, and works well with our septic system.
Is your water softener in a climate controlled space?
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity
DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.
Posts: 24149 | Location: Northern Suburbs of Houston | Registered: November 14, 2005
Mine is in a hot Florida garage. It gets a 40 lb. bag of potassium cubes every 3 months. I do have a reverse osmosis system under the bar/coffee bar sink that only serves that area.
Posts: 298 | Location: North Central Florida | Registered: December 16, 2009
I always used potassium in ours at the cabin and we never had trouble of any kind. Softener was a Kenmore installed in an insulated weathertight wellhouse, heated in the winter.
Posts: 27313 | Location: SW of Hovey, Texas | Registered: January 30, 2007
We have used Sodium chloride for 30+ years. Basically just wondering if switching to potassium chloride will cause any problems - or is it better not to switch. Bags of potassium chloride says its 100& compatible.
My recommendation is to take a water sample now with the NaCl as the softener to test how soft it currently is then, after you switch and the system has had time to adapt, take another sample and have it tested to see if there is a difference between the salt and potassium softening agents. My understanding is that KCl does less softening than NaCl and that a water softener may have to be "tuned" to the new agent.
Also, have you looked at how much/little sodium there is in the drinking water via a softener? Is there really enough to make a difference?
I have used KCl in the past and my personal preference (mainly for plants and septic) would be to keep using it, but at 3x's the cost of NaCl ($24/bag KCL vs. $8/bag NaCl) I'm going to stay with NaCl. I don't have any plants, the yard is mostly rocks and weeds so I don't water it, and the septic system worked fine on 30 years of NaCl in the past with pumping and inspection every 4 years.
Posts: 5094 | Location: Arkansas | Registered: September 04, 2008
