Greg and I suggested installing a water softener for the whole house solves other potential and existing problems with extremely hard water (26 gpg....any iron by the way?) beyond the new espresso maker. Of course, using bottled water (better check the hardness there too) is an option, short or long-term, but I was thinking of the bigger picture. The softeners aren't cheap.

My water hardness is 10 gpg and there is no iron. I'm not convinced the 'saltless' methods are the answer....I'm going with the conventional salt-regenerated ion exchange softeners. Yes, it is also inconvenient to haul 40 lb bags of salt too, but this only happens on occasion.

-Bill

Hi All,

Thank you all for your responses. I appreciate everyone's views and opinions.

Here is what I did!

I called Matt Glass (Glass Water Systems). He came out to the house yesterday and met with my wife (The Princess and Boss....I planned on buying the Anita after much research....she said no.....wanted the Andreja!). She has wanted a softener in the house since we moved in 4-years ago but never really did any investigation. She was happy with what he proposed. It is a salt system (NELSEN C SERIES 1 INCH METERED 32000 GRAIN WATER SOFTENER SYSTEM COMPLETE). He is installing it tomorrow for $675 plus $125 for installation. Hopefully this is a reasonable solution?

In 4-years we have lost a $500 Insinkerator HC1100N Insta-Hot Filter system that my wife loves (we purchased a replacement). The replacement guy said it was due to the hard water. So our new espresso machine was good to push us over the edge to deal with the issue. I think had the price been >$1,200 I would have started off with filtered/distilled but now all our water appliances should benefit.

Again, thx for the help and recommendations! This was great help to this newbie.........maybe I will be ready to fire up the new machine in a few days!

Bob

Bob,

Very reasonable purchase! Now, go enjoy some espresso!

-Bill

Cheapest solution would probably be to buy either distilled or R.O. water at the grocery and add minerals to bring your tds up to about 150ppm and hardness to around 60ppm. You'll need a tds meter to monitor your water with. It will be well worth it. Remember espresso is about 80% water.