Best Water Softeners

Benro asked:


I just bought this house and am learning to use the water softener that is 5 years old. It was just about empty so i called Sears and someone told me to add 3 bags of salt. I set it to regenerate and it kicked on but i don’t know how to tell if it’s working properly. it’s making sounds but i don’t see any water. should it run thru the softener or is it more subtle than that?

rob b asked:


We bought a maytag quiet series dish washer from Sears about 3 years ago. Now we are seeing spots and residue on the glasses and plates. About once a month we run a special plastic cleaner in there to clear up the spots. And we also run the plastic cleaner. The inside of the dish washer is plastic not stainless steel. Our water is hard and we do have a water softener, could the water softener which is old be failing? How can I tell?