The 12 Best Water Softener Reviews For Well Water & Whole House [2021]

Removing the hardness of water can be tough but knowing the benefits of doing it can be worth it. The easiest way is by getting the best water softener. By doing this, all those problems with your skin, dishes and plates, and stained laundry will disappear. Once you get your hands on our water softener based on the leading products on the market today, you will definitely maximize your available water.

We’ve listed hard water models, salt free options, home options, and units to use when your water has iron in it. We’ve rated each model for its efficiency, expected life, cost, maintenance needs, and ease of use. You can read our evaluation of what we’ve found to be the perfect product or learn about the factors you should take into account when choosing your own new unit.

Top Choices on the Market

Best Water Softeners Reviews (Updated List 2021)

These are our favorites. We’ve arranged the list with well water softeners that are specialized in some way (iron removal, salt-free) at the top with the more generalized models following. We’ve included the grain capacity and price for each model and their features.

Overall

If you’re looking for the ultimate salt based water softener system to take care of your hard water issues, as well as the orange/brown stains on your fixtures, then SpringWell unit is the choice. They’ve developed a premium whole house system that softens your water through a process commonly called ion exchange.

The innovative design isn’t based on the process itself, it’s based on how efficient the system is with achieving softer water with having less waste. With its state of the art Fleck 5600 valve, it has truly set the standard when it comes to ion exchange technology.

This technology minimizes any buildup of limescale on your appliances and fixtures, which means fewer appliance repairs and plumbing issues down the road. An added benefit is that your scalp will feel healthier and itch less. Plus your clothes will feel cleaner.

If your home operates on a well, there’s a high chance that you have a significant amount of iron in your water. Iron discolors tubs, sinks, and clothes worse than the regular calcium and magnesium grains. Regular products will help, but if you really want to stop the iron flowing through your pipes, try the ABCwaters built Fleck 5600 SXT 64,000 Grain with Iron Mesh.

It is one of the perfect units to begin with, even without the iron removal specialization. The specially licensed control head features our favorite Fleck valves. The 5600 SXT series monitors the amount of water being processed through the resin filter and triggers a regeneration cycle as it nears its grain capacity (64,000 grains in this case).

The large grain filtering capacity provides an economical use of water for families of up to 7 people. Less family members means even fewer regeneration cycles and thus less water and salt wasted.

You can adjust how often the water softener regenerates by keeping an eye on your water and turning the GPG setting up or down. Small adjustments will keep your water clean while conserving more it.

With the power to provide 13 gallons of softened, iron free water every minute, you’ll never experience a lack of water pressure in your busy home.

The ABCwaters built Fleck 64,000 Grain with Iron Mesh even comes preprogrammed to save a little more time, but you can easily change the settings if needed. It’s one of those available at the most affordable price.

Released as an improvement on their Iron Pro series, the AFWFilters New Iron and Sulfur Filter Pro 3 5600 SXT 64,000 Grain Water Softener helps to remove the eggy sulfur smell that some water carries. Water that stains everything orange and smells like hardboiled eggs is almost unusable. If it carries both, the Iron and Sulfur Filter Pro 3 will take care of both.

It has the same grain capacity as the ABCWaters model above, meaning that it will filter 64,000 particles of hard water mineral grains before it needs to regenerate, or flush the filter with salt water. It also features a Fleck 5600 SXT control head and valve.

The Fleck SXT valves automatically trigger a regeneration cycle when your home’s water use approaches the 64,000 grain setting. The frequency is determined by how many grains per gallon you’ve programmed into the control head. A lower GPM estimate allows more gallons of water to flow through the tank while a higher GPM triggers it flush more frequently, providing you with cleaner water.

The AFWFilters New Iron and Sulfur Filter Pro 3 also has a fine mesh resin for filtering iron particles. In addition, it has KDF-85 added to the resin to remove sulfur and manganese. If you’ve ever seen a black, slimy stain in your shower, dishwasher, or sink basin, you’ve seen manganese in your water.

The Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 Grain Iron & Sulfur Eradicator 2000 is made by Fleck itself, so you know it’s going to be a high-quality water softener. It perfectly filters hard water that has up to 50 grains of minerals per gallon. That will take care of some very hard water. We do wish that it had a higher grain filtering capacity though. In a home with hard water, iron, and sulfur-rick water, this model might be used by families of 2-3 people.

It does feature the 5600 SXT control valve common to all of these units. If you know or have accurately estimated the grains per gallon in your water, you can set the SXT to regenerate as needed. It will use the gallons per grain you program into it to automatically perform regeneration after processing so many gallons.

The Eradicator 2000 also comes with a fine mesh resin to filter iron. Added KDF-85 Mediaguard helps to filter sulfur and manganese. Calcium, magnesium, iron, sulfur, and manganese will all be captured and flushed away into your septic system.

If you have softer water or want to add one of the other salt-free water softeners to your supply line, you might enjoy the Aquasana Whole House Water Filter and Salt-Free Softener.

Like the Hard Water Bullet, this Aquasana model crystallizes hard water grains so that they’ll flow harmlessly through your pipes and drainage system. It uses no water to flush itself and no salt.

It is an in-line water softener and filter that yields 7 gallons of soft, clean water per minute. That’s a high enough flow rate for a family of 3-4 people to never experience low water pressure, even when running two showers, a washing machine, and a kitchen faucet at the same time.

The Aquasana Whole House Water Filter and Salt-Free Softener’s price might seem high but it is guaranteed to last 10 years or to process 1 million gallons of water. That’s a total yearly cost of a whole lot of water.

This is the Hard Water Bullet Poly Triple Softener. It’s different from a conventional water softener in that it does not remove hard grains from your water. Instead, it crystalizes and coats the grains in polyphosphate so that they don’t stick to your pipes, sinks, tubs, hair, and clothes.

Polyphosphates are used in city water treatment facilities and pose no risk to your health, to your appliances, or your plumbing. It does have a 30-micron filter to catch sediment and provides 30 gallons of softened water per minute.

The Hard Water Bullet connects as a pass through onto your water supply line. Weighing only 4 pounds with a 9” x 10” profile, you’ll hardly know it’s there. Just bolt it to the wall with the bracket, and save yourself some floor space.

The Hard Water Bullet Poly Softener is greatly made and durable. To care for it, simply turn your water supply valve off, run a faucet until the line is empty, and unscrew the softener’s lid. Remove the filter and rinse it in a washtub while you flush the core with a vinegar solution.

The Eddy Water Descaler is a surprisingly effective water softener for well water. It is a small unit that plugs into a standard 110-volt outlet and softly clamps onto your hot and cold water supply lines. The box and coils deliver an electro-magnetic wave to passing water, suspending the grains in the water until they eventually exit your home through the drainage system.

Because it is not even a pass-through system in your supply line, it does nothing to hinder your plumbing’s flow rate. There are no filters to change and no chemicals to add. It’s also the least expensive models.

If that weren’t enough, the Eddy Water Descaler comes with a lifetime warranty. If you have particularly hard water, you can add the Eddy to a Hard Water Bullet Poly or an Aquasana water softening system for added effectiveness.

Because homes with hard water will have calcium and magnesium deposits built up in their pipes, you should give the Eddy Water Descaler a month before judging its performance. It might take that long to clear your pipes of past mineral grains and show the true effectiveness of the electro-magnetic technology.

The Eddy Descaler does run continuously, so you might see a slight increase in your energy bill. The amount, however, is negligible compared to the cost of salt, water consumption, and electricity needed to run a conventional water softener.

The Fleck 5600 SXT 64,000 Grains is another model by Fleck itself and is one of the great products that you’ll find. The high grain filtering capacity ensures that it can go 5 or more days without regenerating even in homes with very hard water. The Fleck SXT control valve measures your home’s water flow rate and ensures that it regenerates at just the right time.

The control valve also features a back-up power supply that prevents the control head from losing its settings and memory in a power outage. The back-up capacitor keeps it charged and operational for 48 hours. After that, it’s a simple task to reprogram the head and trigger regeneration, ensuring that you won’t miss a cycle.

Like all Fleck SXT’s, the valve keeps tracks of the gallons of water it processes and triggers an automatic regeneration cyclebased on the grains per gallon you’ve programmed into it. If your water still seems hard after installing, increase the grains per gallon setting to allow it to regenerate more often and clear your water of any pass-through minerals.

The flow rate for this model is 18 gallons per minute, one of the highest flow rates you’ll see in an in-line model. The Fleck 5600 SXT 64,000 Grains comes with a full replacement warranty of 5 years on the SXT control head and valve and 10 years on both resin and salt tank. The actual lifespan is expected to be 20 or more years.

When you need even longer intervals between regeneration cycles or want the water to keep flowing during a regeneration cycle, the Fleck 9100 SXT Twin Tank 80,000 Grain Water Softener is a smart choice. The twin tanks ensure that you’re never without soft water.

Each tank filters 40,000 grains of hard minerals. As they reach their filtering capacity, the 9100 SXT control valve triggers one tank to regenerate and then the second when the first is finished. A single-tank water softener can’t process water while it’s regenerating. Having two tanks allows your system to continue processing water through one tank while the other cycles.

The flow rate is 22 gallons per minute. That’s enough to supply a small business, and, in fact, we do recommend this as a commercial model. You can take advantage of commercial power and capacity at home. The 80,000 grain filter capacity will also save you money by regenerating less frequently, less than once per week in most cases.

The Fleck 9100 SXT Twin Tank 80,000 Grain Water Softener comes with a 5-year warranty on the 9100 SXT head and a 10-year warranty on all tanks. You can install it as easily as a single-tank water softener and will enjoy just as few maintenance needs.

Going down in capacity and a little in price is the Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 Grain Water Softener. This is our top water softener overall and might be the product for hard water well water if you have a smaller family. Its filtering performance is just as high as a 64,000 grain model, but regeneration will take place more frequently in a busy home.

Even if you do have a larger family, its flowrate of 12 gallons per minute ensures that it can keep up with 3 showers, a dishwasher, a laundry machine, and two sinks running at the same time. It would simply need to regenerate more frequently and thus use more water and salt than a higher grain model. For reduced costs, we recommend using this model in a home with fewer people or only slightly hard water.

As a bonus, Fleck 48000 comes with a USB drive detailing installation instruction, programming the control head, and how to care for your water softener. It even comes with a water test kit so that you’ll have a better idea of what to input as the grains per gallon.

The control is covered by the standard 5-year warranty and the salt and resin tank for 10 years. You can purchase the Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 Grain Water Softener and get an expected 27-year lifespan. This is the water softener for hard water in smaller family homes.

Note that this water softener does not filter iron or sulfur.

The mid-priced ABCwaters Pentair Fleck 5600 SXT 80,000 Grains with 10% Resin provides the higher filtering capacity of the twin-tank model in a single tank. You won’t need to worry about the 10% resin upgrade in homes with well water (it helps preserve the life of the resin in chlorinated city water), but you will enjoy the savings of less frequent regeneration cycles.

This is the highest grain filtering capacity you’ll find in a single-tank model. It features the improved Fleck 5600 SXT control head that can last up to 27 years. It’s guaranteed for 5 years in case of manufacturing defects or early failure and the tanks are guaranteed for 10 years.

It doesn’t have the alternating tanks like the twin tank model, so you’ll have to wait for softened water until it’s finished running its regeneration cycle. It does, however, keep track of your water usage and will run the regeneration cycle at a typically low usage time (usually in the middle of the night) before it reaches its filtering capacity.

As an added bonus, you can purchase this model in blue, black, or almond to blend in or appear more attractive in finished basements. It also comes with video instructions for installation and programming. Follow along and complete the job in a couple of hours.

The Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 Grain Water Softener with Upflow Carbon Filtration is similar to the model above except for the fact that it doesn’t drain and thus uses less salt and water. It also filters out chlorine and chloramines out of city water and herbicides and pesticides out of well water, combing some of the nicest features of conventional and full filter systems.

The salt water does not drain out of the system after it regenerates and the only electricity it uses is to power the control head. The control head is the same Fleck 5600 SXT that measures your water flow and automatically regenerates the night before you need it to. It also has the same 12-gallon per minute flow rate, sufficient for a family of 5-6 people.

The upflow system keeps the filtering material cleaner and helps it to last longer. The included filter also removes chlorine, which can eat away at the resin. And the fact that it filters common pollutants found in well water makes it a great choice for any home.

An upflow system does take longer to regenerate as it cleans the resin more thoroughly. To minimize any inconvenience, the dual tank system ensures that you’re never without soft water, even in the middle of the night during a regeneration cycle. A true soft water system for your home.

The Aquasana Rhino 6-Stage 500,000 Gallon Well Water Filtration System with SimplySoft Salt Free and UV Filter is an improved version of the above model. It still coats mineral grains in polyphosphate and filters out chlorine and groundwater contaminants. It also includes a larger filter and a UV light to kill bacteria and viruses.

If you have well water, this is the whole house water filtration and softener system you can buy. The larger 20-inch pre-filter catches sediment from your well while the rest of the filters take care of hard water grains. The UV light keeps your water healthy, neutralizing any living germs in your well water, thus serving the same purpose as chlorine in city water.

The UV light will need to be plugged in, and it will be on continuously, but it won’t take any more electricity than a normal lamp.

The only maintenance you’ll need to do on the unit is replacing the polyphosphates every 5 years, changing the pre-filter every 6 months, and changing the post-filter every 6 months. The Rhino filter is rated to last approximately 5 years in homes with well water, after which you can replace it.

Final Verdict

Overall: SpringWell

By choosing SpringWell, you’ll not only have an efficient salt based water softener giving you scale free water as well as softer skin, hair, and cleaner clothes, but you’ll also receive a 6 month satisfaction guarantee and a lifetime warranty on all parts. No need to replace this system after the standard 10 years!  

For Well Water: Fleck 5600 SXT 64,000 Grains

Assuming that you don’t also have problems with iron and sulfur in your well water, the one that you can buy for the price is the Fleck 5600 SXT 64,000 Grains.

It’s built by Fleck with a Fleck 5600 SXT metered valve and control head. It has a high grain filtering capacity to limit regeneration cycles and a back-up power capacitor so you don’t lose your settings in brief power outages. It has a flow rate of 18 gallons of water per minute, meaning it can fill your hot tub, run 3 showers, and every sink and appliance in your house without a problem.

It can reliably last more than 20 years. Why wouldn’t you buy this model? It’s the perfect whole house water softener for well water.

For Whole House: Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 Grain

The Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 Grain is the top unit for its price. Once it’s installed, it will run itself with automatic regeneration cycles and continue to provide you with a 12-gallon per minute flow rate.

The resin filtering system is the most effective at removing hard water grains, and the salt flush periodically cleans the resin. You don’t have to perform any maintenance other than checking the salt level once a month.

It comes with instructions for easy installation, and will most likely last more than 20 years.