With more than 30 years’ experience in the residential and commercial water treatment space, Mark Nelson is a Class 1 Drinking-Water Operator and a CBWA (Canadian Bottled Water Association) Certified Plant Operator. As founder and president of Nelson Water in Ottawa, Mark focuses on dealing with challenging water treatment system designs for problem water. He also heads the largest water bottling plant in the city of Ottawa with a delivery network throughout the Valley.

Many people worry about the quantities of salt found in their softened water. If you have high blood pressure or your physician has placed you on a low sodium diet, this is a valid question. In an attempt to lower the sodium (salt) in their soft water, some people filter it through a Brita filter jug. But, is this effective? And, if it isn’t, what is the alternative?

The Hardness of the Incoming Water Supply

A great deal depends on the relative hardness of the incoming water supply to your home. The most common water softener in use today work with an ion-exchange method. This process exchanges the ions of water hardening minerals, including calcium, magnesium, and certain other contaminants, with an equal amount of sodium ions. If your incoming water is especially hard, it will contain more of this mineral content, which would require a higher quantity of salt to replace it. So, it is true that harder water treated with a water softener tends to be saltier.

Can a Brita Filter Remove Salt?

There is no evidence that a Brita filter can remove salt from your water. Perhaps more research is required, but at this time, the Brita filters on sale don’t make this claim, and there don’t seem to be any future plans to release a filter with this capability. So, if you are filtering your water in this manner, you’re probably wasting your time. If you are on a very low sodium diet, you may want to remove the kitchen water tap from the water softener system and use hard water at that fixture instead. Then you could put that hard water through a Brita filter to improve the taste a little. This would mean that you could continue to enjoy the positive benefits of soft water and protect your fixtures and appliances from scale deposits.

How Much Salt is Left by a Water Softener?

The truth is that salt is added, but the quantities are minuscule, and the vast majority of people would never realize any difference. In most cases, softened water only contains around 300mg/L of sodium (salt). To put this into perspective, that’s equivalent to the quantity of salt that you find in 2oz of cheddar cheese. So, it’s fair to say that a water softener doesn’t add a lot of salt to your water. As we mentioned earlier, this could vary a little depending on the level of hardness in your area. A prime example would the preparation of baby milk; softened water in very hard water areas should not be used because the sodium content would be too hard.

The ion exchange process causes a release of sodium into the water from the resin beads. This occurs as the hard minerals are “grabbed,” but as we’ve seen in the majority of cases, this would not be deemed to be an unhealthy amount. If you had a water hardness of 5 gpg (grains per gallon), only 37 mg of sodium would be added to a quart of water. In terms of health advice, this would represent less than 2% of the suggested daily intake of sodium. In comparison, a single slice of white bread contains approximately 170 mg of sodium!

As you can see, the salt added to most hard water would not be classed as an unhealthy quantity. But, the level of salt added is directly related to the water hardness, and for each 1 mg of hardness, the ion exchange process will add 2 mg of sodium. This will be a problem in areas with very hard water, and if you have a hardness of 400 ppm (parts per million) or more, you should install a RO (reverse osmosis) filtration system.

What is a RO System?

A RO system is a water filtration system with exceptional performance. The water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane that allows the water to pass through, and the contaminants are left on the surface. This eliminates virtually all salts and dissolved solids from the water. This system removes a large number of contaminants, but it also deals with any sodium that may be added by your water softener. If your physician has recommended that you reduce your sodium intake, this is the ideal method.

The RO system can be installed after your water softener to clean it and remove any remaining Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and more. There are two possible methods to use; you could install a point-of-use or whole home RO system. The first delivers cleaner water to a single location, which is usually the kitchen tap. If you just want cleaner and salt free water for drinking, this will suffice. If you want cleaner water for every plumbing fixture in your home, a whole home RO system will be needed.

What About Potassium Chloride?

We’ve spoken a great deal about sodium chloride (salt) as the water softener salt in this article. But, for those that are sensitive to sodium, they could use potassium chloride as an alternative. Now it is true that potassium chloride is a salt, but it is far more benign when compared to sodium chloride. If you’re worried about salt in your water, seek advice from your physician, and you may discover that potassium chloride is a viable alternative. From a practical perspective, the main difference between these two types of water softening salt is that potassium chloride does cost more per bag.

In Conclusion

It’s perfectly safe for most of us to drink soft water because the water content is negligible. Some people with an extremely sensitive palette may notice a slight saltiness to the water, but most of us would not notice a difference. If you don’t want to use sodium chloride, you could try a switch to potassium chloride to see if that makes a difference. But, if you have a water hardness of 400 ppm or more, you will need a RO system to remove the extra salt. If you are in any doubt, get some professional advice from your Doctor.

If you want to install a water softener or RO System in your home, contact a local water treatment specialist today.