Yes. A salt-based water softener adds sodium to your water. It swaps the calcium and magnesium that cause hardness for sodium, so the harder your water is, the more sodium the softener adds. The Vermont Department of Health puts the rate at 0.46 milligrams of sodium for every 1 milligram of hardness removed.
That number matters most to people who have been told to limit sodium. If that is you, talk with your health care provider, then use the options below to keep your drinking water low in sodium while the rest of the house stays soft.
How Much Sodium Does a Softener Add?
The amount depends on how much hardness your water has before it reaches the softener. Multiply the hardness removed by 0.46 to estimate the sodium added. As a hypothetical example, water with 200 mg/L of hardness would pick up about 92 mg/L of sodium (200 x 0.46) after softening.
Two limits apply to that estimate. It shows the sodium added by softening, not the total sodium in your water, so a well that already carries sodium will test higher. And hardness varies a great deal across the state, which is why our county-by-county look at New Jersey water hardness is a useful starting point before you do the math.
Who Should Limit Sodium in Drinking Water?
The Vermont Department of Health notes that high levels of sodium in drinking water may harm your health, and it cites a U.S. EPA recommendation of no more than 20 mg/L of sodium in drinking water for people on a 500 mg/day sodium limit. Compare that figure with the example above and it is easy to see why the question comes up.
Whether the limit applies to you is a question for your health care provider, not for a water treatment company. This page is general information, not medical advice.
How Do You Keep Drinking Water Low in Sodium?
You do not have to give up soft water for the whole house to lower the sodium in what you drink. The table compares the three common approaches, what each one does, and what you give up with it.
| Option | What it does | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen cold tap bypass | Plumbs the kitchen cold faucet so it skips the softener while the rest of the house stays soft | Water at that tap is hard, and it needs a plumbing change |
| Reverse osmosis at the tap | Treats drinking water separately from the softened supply | Adds a unit to maintain, and results vary by system, so check the sodium reduction rating |
| Potassium chloride in the softener | Replaces sodium chloride as the regenerant | Less efficient at removing hardness |
The Vermont Department of Health names the kitchen tap bypass and potassium chloride as options. If you are comparing reverse osmosis with whole-house treatment, our guide to reverse osmosis vs. whole-house filtration explains how the two differ.
Does Potassium Chloride Solve the Problem?
It swaps the sodium for potassium, so the water carries less added sodium, but it is not a free upgrade. The Vermont Department of Health states that potassium chloride is less efficient at removing hardness than sodium chloride. The salt you choose also affects how the softener performs, which our guide to choosing the right softener salt for a New Jersey well covers in more detail.
Ask your health care provider before changing salt for health reasons, and ask your service technician whether your softener’s settings need to change with it.
Does a Salty Taste Mean Something Is Wrong?
It can. Softened water should not taste salty. When it does, brine is usually carrying into household water because the rinse part of the cycle is not completing, which is a fault and not a sodium question. Our guide to control valve problems explains the causes and what to check.
Should You Test Your Water First?
If you are on a private well, a test tells you how hard the water is and what it already contains before you decide how to treat it. The Vermont Department of Health recommends testing a well for hardness every five years. Our page on private well water testing in New Jersey covers what to ask for.
Sodium content aside, a softener still depends on correct setup and a working regeneration cycle to deliver soft water at all. A new system that leaves water hard despite no taste or sodium issues usually comes down to a programming or sizing problem from installation, and a unit that stops cycling altogether needs a different kind of check entirely.
If you would like help adding a kitchen tap bypass or checking that your softener is running as it should, our team services water softeners throughout New Jersey.
