On Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:51:19 -0800, Mark Thorson >
wrote:

>I'm watching Ask This Old House, and they're replacing
>a water softener. Actually, they're using the old tank
>but replacing the head and the resin beads. As they were
>dumping out the old beads, there was all this black muck
>at the bottom of the tank. They didn't comment on that.
>I'd hate to think of my drinking water passing through
>that crap.
>
>When I was a kid, a friend of mine across the street
>had a water softener at his house. I always thought
>the water tasted terrible over there. Borderline
>undrinkable.

Ideally, softened water should only go to your water heater.

Softened water shouln't be used for cooking or drinking.
There's too much residual sodium in the water after softening.