This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Culligan International for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.
Think a Culligan water system for your home is too expensive? It’s not! A Culligan water softener and a Culligan Aqua-Cleer Reverse Osmosis System will actually help you save money in your household budget.
One of the first things all our friends told us when we bought our first home in 2009 was that we needed a water softener. Las Vegas has notoriously hard water. So we had a salesperson from some water softener company that I didn’t know come to the house and give us a price for a water softener system. I don’t remember the exact cost, but it was way more than we were able to spend. I have assumed for the past almost decade that a water softener was simply out of our budget. But I was wrong. It turns out I simply called the wrong company.
A few weeks ago, we had the “Culligan Man” come into our home to give us the rundown on our water situation. I learned a lot about water in general and it turns out that even without a water softener system, I had unknowingly already been paying for water softeners. The Culligan representative performed several different tests on our tap water.
Water Contaminants
First we determined the level of contaminants in our tap water. The EPA says that anywhere from 0-500 is safe. Culligan’s goal is to use their water softener to get the water to between 0-50.
My water was at 438 parts per million! Just barely on the EPA levels as “safe.” And way too close to the top range for me.
Water Hardness
The next test was to determine how hard our water is. The purple bottle on the right is water that has been softened. The pink water on the left is water from our kitchen sink. Softened water will be purple to blue.
I knew our water was pretty hard. But I had no idea. A level of 10.5 is considered “very hard” water. Our water is at an 18! It took 18 drops of softener to turn our pink water purple. 1-2 more drops turned the soft water to blue.
Chlorine
Believe it or not, chlorine is allowed by the EPA to be in our drinking water. This was the only good news with my water. Our levels were relatively low, but I still don’t love having chlorine in the water.
How to Save Money with a Culligan Home Water System
So what’s all this have to do with saving money? As it turns out, we’re already spending money to soften our water. Did you know that most major laundry soaps have water softener as an ingredient? I had no idea!
Soft Water Saves Money on Soaps and Cleaners
All that hard water means you have to use more soap to get things clean. The beaker on the left is my tap water and the water that we use to wash dishes and do laundry. The water on the right is Culligan softened water. You’ll notice that the water on the left has no bubbles at all. We kept putting more and more soap in and got nothing! What you can see is the soap clinging to sediment in the water getting in the way of cleaning. This also applies to shampoo, conditioner, bar soap, and dishwasher detergent. You can use less soap saving money on products.
Soft Water Saves Money on Gas and Electric Bills
We had a Culligan whole house water system installed. I thought it would take a few weeks to notice difference. We noticed them in less than 24 hours. The hard water has tiny rocks in it. When it is heated up to take a shower, do laundry or the dishes, it takes more electricity or gas to heat the water. We’ve noticed a considerable difference in the heat of our water when taking a shower. It heats faster and it’s much hotter.
Culligan Aqua-Cleer Reverse Osmosis Water Saves Money on Water Bottles
I did the math and we were spending about $25 each month buying water to drink. Because our water is so bad, most people in Vegas buy water or have a water service for drinking water. We had a Culligan Reverse Osmosis (RO) system installed in our kitchen sink. As a self-proclaimed water snob, I had my doubts. But I haven’t had a drop of bottled water since the RO system was installed.
Usually an RO system has a tiny little faucet head that is installed next to the main faucet in the kitchen. But Culligan has cutting edge technology called Culligan ClearLink Pro that uses a remote to control the RO water right through the kitchen faucet. Just a push of that button and RO water is flowing through my faucet.
I was concerned that the Culligan water systems would be out of our budget. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they are not. In fact, you can actually rent a water softener unit and the RO unit or you can buy them outright. There are options for every budget. Plus, Culligan will also move your units if you decide to move to a new home.
We are beyond thrilled with our new Culligan water systems!
