Many people in Santa Cruz County use water softeners and no wonder, much of the water is considered moderately hard. More than half of the water in the U.S. is considered hard. Using data from the … ...

Key insights. Water softeners typically take 85 to 90 minutes to regenerate. You might spend between anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars for a water softener.

A report to the region said about 142,000 households in the region use what's called an ion exchange water softener which discharges an estimated 21,000 tonnes of salt which ends up in local ...