"Mark Thorson" > wrote in message
...
> 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.

use potassium instead of salt. a bit more expensive, but leaves the sodium
taste out. an r/o as mentioned is ideal.