What is the Best Salt for My Water Softener? Top Picks for Cleaner, Softer Water
What’s the best type of salt for your water softener system? In this ultimate guidebook for today’s health-conscious homeowners, we’ll explore:
- Why it’s crucial to choose high-quality salt for your home’s water filtration
- The different types of water softening salts
- Additives that can enhance your water quality
- How the licensed plumbing experts at Angel Water help ensure your family has unlimited access to clean, pure water
The salt you choose directly impacts its effectiveness and longevity. Using the right type of water softener salt encourages optimal performance, reduces maintenance needs, and provides consistently soft water throughout your home.
By the end of this post, you’ll be able to confidently buy the best salt for your home’s water softener every time. Let’s dive in!
Why Selecting the Best Salt Matters
Whether from the municipal supply or via a private well, millions of households across the country are dealing with cloudy water that tastes bad, causes dry, itchy skin, and leaves unsightly stains.
Common water supply contaminants in our service areas include:
- Hard water minerals like calcium, magnesium, and gypsum
- Heavy metals such as iron and lead
- An unpleasant variety of pathogens
- Chemicals from industrial waste
- Other harmful elements such as radium, PFAS, phthalates, and chromium-6
These pollutants can have serious health effects, including various forms of cancer, as well as cause expensive plumbing problems and home appliance malfunctions.
It’s more important than ever to have your property’s water regularly tested by an experienced and licensed water expert. Once you know what’s lurking in your home’s supply, you can take steps to protect your loved ones with a professionally installed and calibrated salt-based water softening system.
These advanced products utilize sodium chloride, and a process called ion exchange, to filter your water and remove contaminants, especially those that cause hard water issues. Water softeners use resin beads supersaturated with sodium to attract harmful ions and flush them away, leaving behind soft, clean water.
Discover the Best Water Softeners of 2025!
Sodium is basically the fuel that powers your softening system and keeps your water pure and healthy. Using high-quality salt in your water softener is essential for several reasons:
- Efficiency: Premium salt dissolves more easily and completely, allowing your water softener to operate at peak performance.
- Fewer maintenance visits: Utilizing purer salt forms fewer impurities, reducing the frequency of cleaning and maintenance for your system.
- Longevity: High-quality salt helps extend the life of your water softener by minimizing the buildup of residue, sludge, and contaminants.
- Better water quality: The purer the salt, the cleaner and softer your water will be, resulting in improved taste and feel.
Utilizing the best available salt can make all the difference in the lifespan and effectiveness of your water softening system.
Divining the Best Salt for Your Water Softener
A salt-based water softener will make your home healthier, reduce scale buildup, and ensure you always have good tasting and perfectly filtered hydration on tap.
But all water softeners are not the same, and depending on the results of your comprehensive EPA-certified water test, some systems will be more effective for the specific contaminants found in your home’s water supply and your household’s water usage.
Asking the right questions ensures you choose the best water softener for your situation, save money in the long run, and enjoy the many benefits of clean and pure water. There are several different types of salt used in the softening systems sold and serviced by Angel Water — let’s take a closer look.
Evaporated Salt
Evaporated salt is created by evaporating brine (dissolved salt) using heated steam in a controlled environment, turning the salt into a crystallized material that can then be produced into salt pellets, crystals, or cubes for your water softener, according to Angi.
This type of salt is some of the purest available (99.9% pure sodium chloride). Water softener salt with high purity levels lasts longer (giving you more bang for your bucks) and is less likely to form annoying salt bridges, which can clog up your brine tank.
While evaporated salt is ideal for homes with very hard water (over 180 mg/L), it does tend to clump in regions with high humidity.
Rock Salt
While it’s the most budget-friendly option for water softeners in homes with high water usage rates, these rocky (or “extra coarse”) chunks of sodium aren’t the best choice overall. Rock salt is mined from underground and can contain impurities and elements that could seriously damage your filtration system and cause buildup in your brine tank.
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It’s great for ensuring your snowy sidewalk isn’t slippery and making homemade ice cream, but we don’t recommend using rock salt for your household water softener system.
Solar Salt
Produced by evaporating seawater using the power of the sun, solar salt is typically available in crystal form. It’s more soluble than rock salt and is typically 99.6 to 99.8% pure sodium chloride, making it the most efficient choice for most water softener systems.
Solar salt is best for homeowners with medium to high water usage, which you can find by checking your utility bill or using a water use calculator — the average person uses 75 gallons per day.
Solar salt is also the preferred water softener salt of Angel Water’s CEO, Drew the Water Guru.
Blocks and Pellets?
Block salt is intended for use in large-capacity water softeners and is designed to resist issues like bridging and mushing that can occur in brine tanks.
Compact blocks allow for less frequent refills compared to salt crystals or pellets, making maintenance easier while ensuring efficient regeneration of the softener resin. However, pellets have a uniform shape that dissolves more quickly and easily. Be sure to consult your water softener owner’s manual to determine if a certain type of salt is recommended for your system.
Lower-quality salt can dissolve slowly or incompletely, requiring more water for regeneration, increasing your water usage and potentially raising your water bills. Some “discount” salt types contain impurities that can harm the environment when discharged into the wastewater system.
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Enhance Your Water Quality with Salt Additives
Some manufacturers offer water softener salt products with special additives designed to enhance performance and protect your system. Here are the most common additives and their benefits:
- Corrosion inhibitors: These additives help protect your plumbing system from corrosion caused by high levels of iron.
- Sequestering agents: This ingredient can help prevent the formation of limescale and metal deposits on your appliances and fixtures.
- Anti-microbial additives: These can help reduce the growth of bacteria within the brine tank, which is especially vital for homeowners getting water from a private well.
- Resin cleaner: Extend the life of your water softener with specially formulated liquids designed to clean water softener resin beds by removing contaminants that salt alone cannot eliminate.
So, what is the best salt for your water softener? The kind of salt and additive(s) you need depends on the contaminants present and what type of water softener is right for your property.
Angel Water: Your Trusted Partner for Clean Water Solutions
The licensed plumbers at Angel Water have decades of experience helping homeowners find the best water filtration products for their needs. While it may seem easy enough to DIY a water softener from Costco, improper installation can quickly go wrong and introduce bacteria, viruses or other illnesses into your plumbing, which feed straight into your family’s drinking water.
Why take that risk? Ensuring only licensed plumbers work on your home means keeping your family (and investment) safe.
We understand the importance of clean, high-quality water for your home. Our team of licensed plumbing experts can:
- Assess your current water quality: We conduct a comprehensive water analysis to determine your specific water hardness levels and identify any other potential water quality issues or harmful pollutants.
- Recommend the best water softener or filtration system for your needs: We offer a wide range of high-quality products to suit various budgets and water demands.
- Provide expert installation: Our highly skilled technicians will ensure your water softener is installed correctly and operates at peak efficiency.
- Offer ongoing support and maintenance: We provide regular maintenance services to keep your water softener or reverse osmosis system running smoothly to optimize its performance.
We also provide a convenient salt delivery service in the Chicagoland area to help ensure your family never loses access to clean, wholesome water throughout your home.
The water softener experts at Angel Water only recommend the finest solar salt to ensure your system operates at peak efficiency. We’re your one-stop shop for complete water filtration solutions and the highest quality products.
Reach out to Angel Water today to schedule a free consultation and learn how we can help you enjoy the benefits of the best water softener salt delivered directly to your door!
Want Softer Water? Schedule an Appointment Now!
Find out how a water softener can help protect your home from hard water damage. Schedule an appointment with our water specialists today to explore the best solutions for your home.
