We have had a Culligan Water Softening unit since 1985 and my DH has had to nurse the thing regularly and if it wasn't for him being so mechanical, the service calls would have put us in the poor house. When it works, the water is wonderful and then it will just go hay-wire. In the beginning, while it was still under warranty, the service guy would constantly repair it.

Nonetheless, we've made up our mind to invest in another unit and the Kinetico guy is coming on Monday evening to talk with us. I know they are very expensive units but having soft water is high on our priority list. We also use a RO system for our drinking water and really love it.

Does anyone have experience with Kinetico?

We had a Kinetico system in our old house. It worked great and in the 10 years we had it, it never had a problem.

When we built this house (7 years ago), my Grandmothers husband was selling water softners for a company through his business. This one has been great too, at about 1/4 of the cost of the Kinetico one!

We installed a Kinetico in our house when we built it in 1984. It's still working great. For 14 years prior to owning it we owned a couple of softners and decided we didn't want to keep replacing them every few years. When ours was installed the salesman told us they had one that was over 40 years still operational in a home in the area! I think that was the selling point for us. We've never regretted making that purchase. I agree that they are pricey, but we feel we've saved money in the longrun. Good Luck with your decision about it.

When our division track homes were built in Vegas (1997), the Kinetico guy was constantly hunting us down to give us a sales pitch. The prices were insane. We ended up buying one from Sears with an extended warranty. It quit working on us once and the Sears hotline talked us through getting it back in working order. We actually only needed to break the "bridge" of salt. Once some seal went bad on it and we bought the parts thru Sears (under $10) and my dh fixed it. Last year something else wore out on it and it cost about $50 to fix. So, in my experience, with the purchase price and warranty and repairs/parts added up, I'm still not at 1/3rd the price of a Kinetico 11 years later. I think I got a better deal.

What is so different about it? Isn't it the same idea of softening salt/potassium pellets? I guess I just don't see what justifies the huge price difference.