Although ion exchange water softening is the most reliable and practical water treatment available for hard water, that doesn't mean it's always the only water treatment you'll ever need. In some situations, you water may require supplemental treatments or even treatments to counter some of the effects of the water softening process. Here are three reasons why this may be the case in your situation.

1. Narrow focus of the process

Water softening switches out hard water ions (such as calcium and magnesium) for sodium ions. The sodium ions don't cause limescale buildup in your pipes and don't give that "hard water" flavor to your drinking water. However, the process isn't designed to remove other contaminants, such as bacteria, chemicals, or heavy metals from the water supply. If you're worried about other contaminants in your well water, installing a filtration system such as reverse osmosis can work well, especially in concert with your water softening system; reverse osmosis is very inefficient when used on hard water, since the minerals tend to cause the membrane to wear out more easily. This is just one example of how other purification systems can work better in conjunction with water softening.

2. Addition of sodium ions

Because the water softener has to trade something for the hard water ions, sodium ions are the currency of choice due to their low impact on water quality. That's not to say that they have no impact, however; you may notice a slightly off flavor to your softened water, and if you're very sensitive to water flavor this could call for the addition of another water purification system to work together with your water softener. This is also the case if you have special dietary needs, such as if, for example, you're on a low-sodium diet for health reasons and had a very high degree of water hardness (the more minerals are in your water, the more sodium ions will be exchanged into the water).

3. Possible leaching from pipes

Some experts feel that softened water is not good for your pipes because the softening process makes it more likely to draw metals out of the pipes as it makes its way through your plumbing system. Of course, heavy metals in your drinking water aren't good for your health either. If you have pipes that include any heavy metal content, you may wish to install a point-of-use system to filter out any heavy metals that may have entered the supply from your pipes. Or you could just replace the pipes with safer ones, but that's a big project.

These three reasons show why you may wish to have an additional filtration system set up in conjunction with your water softener to maximize the safety and drinkability of your water supply. For more information, talk to a professional like Anderson Water Systems.