Our water softner is very likely 20+ years old and I'm not sure the resin has ever been recharged.
Now, it's creating some water hammer effect that my neighbors can feel (we are in single family homes and have 50' of pipe running between our house and theirs).
What I suspect was happening was the valve for the softner opening and closing was reverberating back across my house (25'), outside to the meter (20') back down to their house (20' past their meter).
Folks across the street said they were getting a similar "knocking" from their water pipes...and they are over 150' away.
I bypassed the water softner and this has stopped. Hurray, my neighbors won't kill me!
We've got very hard water, but lots of people in my neighborhood go without a water softner. Some good friends of mine are using a "salt free" mineral remover with good luck.
Personally, being that we live in a relatively small house, I hate the physical space the water softner occupies. Unlike back east where folks would often have their water softner in big empty basement. Mine is in a mechanical closet in the center of the house, stuffed in there alongside TWO hot water heaters (one for floor heat, one for domestic how water).
To make matters worse, I recently learned that you're not really supposed to drink softened water, and my house isn't plumbed with bypass lines (though I've been adding them for outdoor irrigation).
Thoughts?
