Water Taste and Plastic
 

Please consider Zero Water instead of buying bottled water. So much cheaper! It tastes great!

Worrying about plastic is not the same as worrying about global warming. Global warming is politically controversial. There is no political controversy in addressing what plastic is doing to the oceans and to life in them. Its horrible. Plastic does not fully biodegrade. It becomes small particles that cannot degrade further. They hurt the ocean. They even hurt seafood we consume which hurts us. All for the sake of using what are usually completely unnecessary plastic bottles and bags.

You will also eventually save money and help the environment. if you use cloth bags so supermarkets do not have to buy all that plastic (that is used for a five minute drive home then discarded).

Wait and see option
 

Had a similar debate when we first moved here - saw posts both ways. Decided to wait and see. After about four months and noticing dishes not getting clean; calcium build-up, etc. - we decided to get a system. Water always tasted good, just finally observed that anywhere the water touched, the surface began getting a cloudy appearance.

Can't take shower with it, your skin absorbs a lot of chlorine and other contaminants.

Not needed, but a filter helps
 

I am a snowbird. The water in the Villages is much softer than in my northern local where I absolutely need a softener. But the water here is not overly clean. I would strongly recommend going with a whole-house water filtration system. There are a couple of systems sold by plumbers in the area that go for $400-600 installed. Your water will taste better and your clothes will be cleaner. Plus, these systems take up a fraction of the space needed for a softener.

I do know that without it the Newer DW Sensors can clog and it is $3-$400 to replace. Happened to me and I ended up just getting a New one, but learned a lesson.

What is a DW sensor?

We were running both a whole-house softener and filter. Had to remove the filter because it took the chlorine out and that resulted in high bacteria counts at the sinks and refrigerator dispenser. Both aerobic and coliform bacteria were present. Went nuts tracing this down. Flushed entire system with bleach twice. Even went so far as to confirm that when the house was built, they did not plumb the irrigation water to the fridge. Not sure of the source of the bacteria as the raw incoming water tested fine for bacteria. Only solution found was to remove the Whirlpool whole-house filter, install a UV filter and allow chlorine to pass through system. Put the fridge filter back in service to handle drinking water.

Thank you!

(That "nails it", as they say.)

I'll bet the water treatment salespeople will love this post.

Where do you live?

Something doesn't sound right, the water entering was good.

Where did the bacteria come from?

That type of bacteria is most commonly found in fecal materiel.

You say you now use a UV but that removes chlorine.

My guess is the carbon in the Whilpool unit wasn't maintained.
How often were you changing the filter esp the carbon?

Where is the bacteria and coli-form coming from?

Even if the chorine is removed from the water there shouldn't be any coliform bacteria in the water. Before we moved to The Villages we had our own well with no filter or softener and no chlorine.

I had the water tested regularly and had a 0 coliform count, which is required for houses in MA. One time we did have non zero count and it turned out the be that the rubber gasket on the well head had deteriorated. After I replaced it I had to shock the well with bleach and then flush the system. Then coliform count went back to zero.

When you shocked the system with bleach did you open ever spigot (hot/cold even the ice/water in the fridge and the toilettes ) until it smelled of bleach, then close it, then let the bleach sit in the system for at least 24 hours? Just putting bleach in the system and then flushing right away won't kill the source of the bacteria.

Bypassing my water softener....
 

Had a water softener and whole house filter system (Kinectico- $$$) while living in Tampa for over 28 years. Moved to the The Villages this past March and have installed a Nova whole house filtration system and hit the bypass switch on the already installed water softener. All good here. The water is not as hard as in Tampa from what I have read. My wife is fine with washing her hair. Water tastes great. No stains anywhere in the house. Don't need to ever change the refrigerator filter or go to Lowe's and add salt.

Water Softener
 

Something to consider when thinking about a softener is that if it is a salt based softener that house plants will not be happy with the water. And remember - at least at my house - the outside spigots are on the house line not the irrigation line. Easy to test by turning off the water at the connection in the garage and turning on one of the outside spigots. I have a water filter because of the chlorine smell when I first moved in (Nova System) - wish I had a softner for the calcium in toilets and on faucets, but my orchids would not be happy!

To remove the calcium deposits from toilets, get a pumice stone from the swimming pool section of Home Depot. It works great.