Pros and Cons of Salt-Free Water Softeners

If you’re dealing with scale in your home from hard water, you’ve probably come across the terms salt-free water softener and water conditioner. But are they the same thing? And more importantly—which do you need? 

In this article, we’ll debunk the myths surrounding salt-free water softeners and explain how they differ from salt-free conditioners. We’ll also explain how to find the best fit for your water problem so you can make a confident decision.

What is a salt-free water softener? 

A water softener that doesn’t use salt doesn’t actually exist. If you are in the market for a salt-free water softener, you’re likely looking for a salt-free water conditioner, not a softener. All water softeners require salt to remove hardness minerals through a process called ion exchange. Alternatively, water conditioners don’t require salt. They can’t soften water, but they can prevent hardness minerals from binding to surfaces. If you need to protect your home from scale without using salt, you need a scale prevention product, like a salt-free water conditioner.

What is a salt-free water conditioner? 

A salt-free water conditioner is a water treatment system that prevents scale by crystallizing the magnesium and calcium minerals that cause hard water. Unlike water softeners, water conditioners do not remove hardness minerals. Instead, they physically alter them into micro-crystals that are unable to attach to pipes and water heaters in the form of scale.

Water conditioner vs. water softener

A water conditioner renders the hardness minerals inert, and a water softener removes minerals from the water. Although water conditioners do address the problematic aspect of scale that hard water causes, they do not result in softened water and may not produce all of the desired results a homeowner may need.

You need a water softener if you want to fix a hard water issue and prevent scale. A softener helps resolve symptoms of hardness in addition to other hard water effects, such as stiff and discolored laundry, soap scum on surfaces, streaky dishes, ineffective soap, and skin and hair damage.

You need a water conditioner if you want a simple solution to preventing scale in your home, or if water softeners are banned in your area. In areas where water softeners are banned, your options to treat hard water are limited to using a salt-free water conditioner or a scale inhibitor. 

Why are water softeners banned in some states?

In states like California, where drought is prevalent and water conservation is a critical concern, the wastewater produced by softeners is controversial. Here’s why:

Ion exchange (salt-based) water softeners go through periodic regeneration cycles, during which chloride is flushed into city water drain lines. The municipal wastewater treatment plants are then tasked with removing the elevated levels of chloride from the water before sending it to the environment.

The amount of sodium added by water softeners is minimal, but the added chloride content has led to an environmental push for salt-free alternatives in some areas. The resulting bans on water softeners unfortunately resulted in misleading marketing strategies for “salt-free water softeners.” Water conditioners billed as “salt-free water softeners” target those seeking a salt-free system, but the implication that softening occurs is scientifically inaccurate and may leave some of your hard water symptoms untreated.

Municipal water vs. well systems

The system you choose for your home may also depend on the source of your water.

Salt-free water conditioners are effective in city water applications at preventing scale, which is one of the most significant side effects of hard water. Because they do not remove the hardness minerals, they do not prevent other side effects of hard water, like soap that doesn’t lather well, laundry that feels stiff or looks dingy, and skin that becomes dry or irritated.

Salt-free water conditioners are not effective for well systems because of the presence of iron and manganese, which coat the TAC media and render the nucleation sites incapable of crystallizing the calcium and magnesium ions in hard water.

How does a water conditioner work? 

Water conditioners use a process called template-assisted crystallization (TAC). Hard water flows through a tank of TAC media consisting of tiny polymer beads covered in craters. The craters are called nucleation sites and act as templates to form the hardness micro-crystals.

When the hard water contacts the media, the magnesium and calcium ions are caught by the nucleation sites. As more calcium and magnesium ions build up within the sites, small micro-crystals form. When they reach a certain size, these crystals break off the media and are released into the water. These micro-crystals are stable and will retain their crystalline structure as they flow through your plumbing instead of attaching themselves to your water pipes as scale. 

What is scale?

Scale is a mineral deposit that looks like a white, light brown, or orange crust and appears wherever hard water collects and evaporates. Scale prematurely ruins appliances like coffee makers, dishwashers, and laundry machines. The damage done to hot water appliances is particularly devastating, as the hotter the water, the faster the formation of scale occurs. 

Scale is also destructive and detrimental to household plumbing by lowering water pressure, restricting flow rates, and, in extreme cases, completely preventing water from flowing through your home. Replacing household plumbing is enormously expensive, so a scale inhibitor or a water conditioner like a ScaleNet is an effective investment if scale prevention is your primary concern.

Is drinking water from a salt-free water conditioner harmful?

No, there aren’t any harmful effects from drinking water treated with a salt-free water conditioner. The TAC media in water conditioners does not have a negative effect on the drinking quality of your water. Instead, beneficial minerals are retained without any sodium added by a water softener.

Uses for salt-free water conditioners

Salt-free water conditioners are often used for tankless water heater protection, whole-house scale prevention, and pretreatment for reverse osmosis (RO) systems. Many homeowners also choose salt-free water conditioners to treat hard water in areas where water softener systems are banned due to their sodium discharge.

Tankless water heater protection

Pretreatment for a tankless water heater is one of the most popular and effective applications of a water conditioner. When scale collects in your tankless water heater, it causes premature failure and diminishes efficiency, sending the costs of your energy bills skyrocketing. Scale attaches itself directly to the heating element of water heaters, so when the temperature increases to heat up the water, it must first heat up all the scale encrusted on the heater. 

Hot water dramatically accelerates scale accumulation, so installing an anti-scale filter before any hot water appliance is a smart investment. Paying to descale a water heater is exorbitantly expensive, and other anti-scale treatment systems like phosphate filters perform poorly in hot water environments. The temperature of the water causes the phosphate to break apart, allowing some scale formation to materialize. A ScaleNet tank or inline cartridge scale inhibitor will prevent your tankless water heater from amassing scale and will save you the hefty costs of salvaging your water heater. 

TAC Anti-Scale System for Tankless Water Heaters

Whole-house scale prevention

A scale inhibitor, like a salt-free water conditioner, provides the best benefits when installed at the point of entry in your home’s plumbing. This treats all the water entering your home, protecting all of your appliances, pipes, and water fixtures from scale build-up at once. With a point-of-use scale inhibitor, only the appliances or water fixtures connected to the system can benefit from scale prevention. Because the primary benefit of scale prevention is the protection it provides to your home’s plumbing, using a whole-house scale inhibitor is the most effective use of a salt-free water conditioner.

Reverse osmosis systems pretreatment

The membrane of an RO system can become clogged with scale when processing hard water, lowering its effectiveness and ultimately shortening its lifespan. To protect your RO system, you can install a single anti-scale filter cartridge in front of the filter. The resulting crystallized minerals will be able to flow through the RO system without binding to the membrane and creating harmful scale.

Alternative to banned water softeners

If you live in a county with hard water that has implemented a water softener ban, a salt-free system is a viable alternative. This is most common in drought-heavy states like California, where areas in northern Los Angeles and Santa Clarita have imposed bans on water softeners due to the chloride level in their wastewater. 

Shop All Water Softeners

Pros of salt-free water conditioners 

There are several advantages to salt-free water conditioners that set them apart from traditional water softeners. 

Low maintenance 

Salt-free water conditioners are very low-maintenance systems, especially compared to water softeners:

• Installation is simple, because the systems consist of either a single tank or a cartridge. 
• No need for drain connections because water conditioners don’t backwash or regenerate.
• No need for storage tanks and control valves for regenerating brine, monitoring flow, or initiating backwashing cycles. 
• Servicing needs are rare because of the simplicity of the system.
• Your flow rate is not dramatically affected.
• No electricity is required to operate, saving you on electric bills.  

Because salt-free water conditioners are so low maintenance, they’re a popular choice for homeowners looking for an option to simply prevent scale.

Environmentally friendly 

Salt-free water conditioners have a few environmental advantages over water softeners. Since salt-free water conditioners do not go through regeneration cycles, they produce no wastewater. They do not dump chlorides into the waste stream, which can be strenuous on municipal water treatment plants. Salt-free water conditioners can also lower water consumption since all the water processed by the water conditioner goes straight into your home or tankless heater.  

Low media consumption 

Salt-free water conditioners consume very little media compared to water softeners. Unlike water softeners, salt-free tanks do not need to be filled with the media to sustain an entire whole-house water conditioning system. Most whole-house systems only require between 5–10 liters of TAC media to last them several years, and it only needs to be replaced once every 3–5 years.

Diversity of applications 

If you don’t want to install a whole-house system, scale inhibitors come in a variety of cartridge sizes and flow rates. This means you can install a single anti-scale filter cartridge in front of your tankless water heater or in line with your other water filtration systems to protect them from scale build-up. 

If you want a whole house system with more extensive filtration abilities, a whole-house chlorine reduction and salt-free conditioner system is available. This will both prevent scale accumulation in your home and improve the taste and odor of your water supply. The removal of chlorine and chloramines will also protect the TAC media and prolong the life of the system. 

Improve flow rate by removing existing scale

Another appealing feature of TAC water conditioners is their ability to clear existing scale from pipes, improving the flow rate of your water supply. The micro-crystals formed by the TAC media have a snowball-like effect on scale. 

As the crystals flow through your pipes, they tear apart and scrape up the existing scale attached to your plumbing. It’s possible to unclog years of scale buildup from your pipes by installing a whole-house salt-free water conditioner system. 

One caution: A plumbing system with years of scale accumulation could experience clogging if the amount of scale coming off the pipes is extreme. In that case, it may require a plumber to flush parts of the system to restore flow.

Soft water alternative

If you are adverse to the slippery feel of soft water but still desire the removal of scale from your plumbing, water conditioners provide you with a happy medium. A water conditioner will protect your plumbing from scale without removing the hardness minerals that make your water feel the way it does.

Cons of salt-free water conditioners 

Though they have their share of applications, there are three primary disadvantages to salt-free water conditioners: they’re unusable on well water, don’t provide all of the benefits of soft water, and are less effective in some hot water applications.

Unusable on well water 

Unfortunately, salt-free water conditioners are useless where hard water is the most common: well water. Well water is very likely to possess moderate to high levels of iron and manganese, minerals which coat the TAC media and block the nucleation sites that create the hardness micro-crystals. Even trace levels of iron can cause magnesium and calcium ions to bounce off the coated anti-scale media instead of crystallizing and flow straight into your household plumbing.

The most effective method for treating hardness in well water systems is to use a water softener. Installing a filtration or reduction system in front of a water conditioner in a well system is an unnecessarily expensive alternative that is not guaranteed to work long term. 

Fewer soft water benefits

Water conditioners are the most effective salt-free method for preventing scale from forming in your plumbing, but they do not provide some of the advantages of soft water. Despite the common “salt-free water softener” title, these systems do not provide soft water because they are crystallizing the hardness minerals, not removing them.

Can’t prevent scale in some hot water applications

Boiling water can cause crystals created by a water conditioner to break back down into calcium and magnesium ions. This can have an effect on your hot water appliances, depending on the appliance design.

• If your hot water appliance does not recirculate water, such as a single-serve coffee machine, scale will not build up in the internal mechanism from water being heated and flowing straight out. 

• If your hot water appliance does recirculate water by heating and reheating an existing supply sitting in a tank, the crystals formed by a water conditioner will break down and start to create scale in your machine.

You may also notice a scale on your pots after boiling conditioned water. Although consuming the scale created by hard water is not harmful, it can be an annoying and time-consuming side effect that is only solved by installing a water softener, which completely removes the hardness minerals.

How long do salt-free water conditioners last?

The TAC media in salt-free water conditioners typically lasts 3–5 years, but the lifetime of your system depends on the levels of contaminants in your city service lines. Copper from service lines and high acidity levels from unbalanced pH levels can coat your TAC media, rapidly shortening its lifespan. If you begin to notice scale build-up in your home’s plumbing and appliances again, it’s a sign that the media in your salt-free water conditioner has been compromised and needs to be replaced.

Prevent scale in your home with our salt-free water conditioners

Scale is a time-consuming and expensive problem when it gets out of hand. Preventing scale build-up in your plumbing and appliances can improve your water flow, remove existing scale, and even protect your reverse osmosis system. Shop our scale inhibitors and water softeners and contact our team of water treatment and filtration experts to find a reliable solution for your hard water problem.

You might also like:

• How to Prevent Limescale Buildup in Your Home
• 5 Benefits of Having a Water Softener  
• Water Softener Maintenance 101
• How to Increase Water Pressure in Your Shower (8 Proven Methods)