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Take special precautions with automatic dishwashers.
Soft water, when combined with caustic phosphates in some dishwasher
detergents and very high temperatures in the dry cycle, can etch dishes and
glassware. To prevent this possibility:
•use the “no heat” dry cycle on your dishwasher;
•use the minimum amount of a good quality, low
phosphate dishwasher detergent needed to clean
your dishes. This may be as little as 20 percent of
the amount recommended by the appliance
manufacturer or on the dishwasher soap box;
•wash good china and crystal by hand.
Special care for plants and fish.
Depending on your water hardness level, amount of rainfall and how often you
water, you could use soft water for outside watering,
but why waste your soft water? Water your lawn,
shrubs and outside plants from an outside hard
water faucet, or put your Kinetico Essential Series
water softener in by-pass before
watering. See “By-
pass” on page 6 for instructions on by-passing your
system. Many houseplants can be watered with soft
water, although some can be highly sensitive to the
elevated level of sodium ions in soft water. You may
prefer to water houseplants with hard water or water
from a reverse osmosis system.
Fish accustomed to hard water may have trouble with an abrupt change to soft
water. Make the change gradually over a period of seven to 14 days by blending
hard and soft water until the tank contains 100 percent soft water. Once you
begin using soft water, you should notice that your fish tank stays cleaner longer.
