Softened Water Sodium: How Much a Softener Adds

A water softener does add sodium to your water. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension gives the rate. Sodium is added at about 8 mg/L for each grain per gallon of hardness removed. So the answer depends on how hard your water was to start with. You can work out your own number in one step.

There is no need to guess at this one. The extension published the rate.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension states the rate. Sodium is added to water at about 8 mg/L for each grain per gallon of hardness.

That is the whole formula. Write your own hardness number down before you read on. Everything below runs off it. Take the hardness the softener removes, in grains per gallon, and multiply by 8. The answer is milligrams of sodium per liter.

Notice what drives it. It is not the brand. It is not the tank size. It is your own hardness number.

The same page works the math for one household, so you can see it move.

Water that was 10 grains per gallon of hardness will have about 80 mg/L of sodium after softening.

The extension then puts that in drinking terms. That is 80 mg of sodium taken in for every liter of water a person drinks. A liter is 0.26 gallon.

Softer water to start with means a smaller number. Harder water means a bigger one. That is why your own hardness reading is the first thing to find.

You can run the same steps with your own number. The math never gets harder than one multiplication.

You have probably seen a page compare this to a slice of bread or a handful of chips.

We looked for a food comparison from a source we trust and did not find one. Everything we found was written by someone selling water treatment.

So there is no food comparison on this page. You have the formula and the extension's own example instead. A comparison you cannot check is not proof anyway.

For most households this is a number, not a worry. For some, it is worth a conversation.

The Nebraska extension names the group to watch. It says people on restricted sodium diets should be aware of the added sodium from softened water.

The Minnesota Department of Health goes one step further on who to ask. It says that if you or someone in your home has a history of high blood pressure, consult a doctor about drinking softened water.

We are a water site, not a clinic. We are not going to tell you what your limit is or whether this fits inside it. If a doctor has set a sodium limit in your house, this is a question for that doctor, and now you have the number to bring.

The Minnesota Department of Health lists two fixes, and neither one means giving up soft water.

The first is a tap that skips the softener. The department says to have an unsoftened tap for cooking and drinking. Your dishes and your shower still get soft water. Your glass does not.

The second is a change of salt. The department says you can regenerate your softener with potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride.

It also answers the obvious next question. Potassium chloride is available at most stores that sell softener salt.

So one fix is a plumbing choice at install time. The other is a choice you make at the store on your next salt run.

This is where people ask about reverse osmosis, so here is what we can source and what we cannot.

The EPA lists reverse osmosis as a technology used for removing salts. Its overview says reverse osmosis can be used for removing salts from brackish water or sea water.

That tells you the technology works on salt in general. It does not tell you what a unit under your sink does to the sodium in your softened water.

We found no sourced percentage for a home reverse osmosis unit and sodium, so we are not printing one. It is worth asking any seller for their own test data on that exact question.

Every number on this page runs off one input, and it is not a number you can guess.

Find the hardness where you live. Multiply it by 8. That is roughly the sodium in milligrams per liter that softening would add.

That is the number to bring to a doctor, a plumber or a seller. It beats a guess off a sales page.