Your water heater suddenly starts lasting longer after you install a softener. That’s great—until you realize you now have to replace the water heater anode rod every five years. It’s a $50 part, but the labor? Ugh. Also, soft water makes soap super sudsy, so you’ll use half the detergent. But then you’ll buy a new fancy soap dispenser because you’re fancy now. It’s a vicious cycle.
Oh, and if your house has old galvanized pipes? The softener can knock loose decades of iron sludge. Suddenly your water is the color of iced tea, and you’ll need a pre-filter ($100 extra) just to survive. That’s the universe’s way of saying, “You should have bought a house built after 1980.”
