Can You Hook Up a Water Ionizer When You Have a Whole-House Water Softener?

Yes, you certainly can AND SHOULD get a water ionizer if your house is set up on a whole-house water softener, but you need to read this article first. The problem with a whole house water softener system is that it removes the good minerals (for human consumption), such as calcium and magnesium and replaces it with sodium or potasium. This actually makes your water slightly alkaline, but it’s alkaline minerals are the wrong ones for your overall health. Sodium, in particular, is an alkaline mineral that you don’t need more of! Running softened water through a water ionizer will make your drinking water too concentrated in sodium. Since the nature of a water ionizer is to concentrate the alkaline minerals into your drinking water and sodium is alkaline, it follows that all the sodium in the softened water will be pulled over to the alkaline pole within your water ionizer and then come out the drinking water spout. This means that you’ll have double the concentration of sodium in yout ionized water than you have in your softened un-ionized tap water. This wouldn’t be healthy for your body. Some sodium is fine, but softened water has too much of it and is void of the good alkaline minerals, like calcium and magnesium.

I’ve seen some of what hapens to people who drink softened water, my parents for instance. It most likely contributes to health problems like osteoporosis and blood-pressure issues. It’s not in my opinion healthy to consume softened water on a regular basis, no matter what the water-softener people tell you. What’s good for your household plumbing does not mean it’s the right thing for human consumption. I understand that some people have to soften their water or they’d have rust-colored toilet bowls or clogged-up water heaters all the time, however when you make the choice to “save the life of your appliances and fixtures” with a water-softening system, you should also consider saving the lives of the human inhabitants of that house with a special RO Combo Water Ionizer system I will describe below.

There are two ways you can get healthy water for human consumption if you have a whole-house water softener.

One way is to tie right into your hard-water water line (prior to the softener). This may take some plumbing knowledge to do. It may not even be very expensive to do if you know a good handy-man (or family member) who can do the plumbing cheap. One more thing is you would need to get an anti-scaling device to protect your water ionizer from the hard water. The cost for an EOS is around $160 every 2-3 years.

The other (possibly even better) alternative is to set yourself up with a reverse osmosis system, tank, presurizer, & remineralizerall under your sink [which all of that, total, costs only about $400] and then tie the water ionizer in the line right after the remineralizer. By the way, the remineralizer is designed especially to put back 70+ trace minerals plus plenty of calcium and magnesium for excellent water ionization! Then you can either get an undersink kit so all you see is the double alkaline/acid spout above the sink, or set the ionizer on the counter and drill a small hole in your sink or counter-top to run the water feed line directly in-line — just after the remineralizer).

If you have your water report (from your water company) and see your water hardness is caused mostly from clacium or magnesium, I think the best choice is to try to tie directly into your hard-water line (prior to it being softened). However if your hard water is coming from a variety of undesirable minerals, such as iron, lead, etc. the best choice is to get the RO Combined with Remineralizer and Water Ionizer system described above.

No matter what the source water, if you are using a whole house water softener system, you need to do something to make your drinking water healthy. Some people might think it’s better or easier just to drink bottled water. DO NOT DO THIS! Bottled water is not good, and is the subject of thousands of other blogs. I can’t think of a single brand of bottled water that is a desirable alternative for your health. If you have to drink bottled water for some odd reason, and you can’t yet do what I’m suggesting with an RO + Remineralizer + water ionizer combination, then buy only the bottled water that comes from high altitude mountain springs. It will be more expensive, but it will be the only bottled water that’s even remotely healthy for your consumption. The better choice, though, (and cheaper in the long run) is to go ahead and take the plunge and get yourself the system I’m describing in this article: Reverse Osmosis + Remineralizer + Water Ionizer which can go directly under your sink.