NSF Certified Water Softeners

Choosing a certified home softener system for best performance to reduce hardness in your drinking water efficiently

NSF certified water softeners are listed under the NSF/ANSI Standard 44: Cation Exchange Water Softeners. The standard covers softener systems designed to reduce hardness from public or private well water supplies. NSF is an internationally recognized, not-for-profit, third-party testing organization that tests and certifies home water treatment systems to ensure they meet strict public health standards. Certified water filters and softeners as well as other products are tested to verify that they meet certain standards for health and aesthetics. This will ultimately provide customers with the assurance that the softening system will remove hardness in water just as the manufacturer’s literature says it will do.

To be certified, the following are few of the NSF strict requirements a water softener has to meet:

• Operating pressure must be at least 125 psig to be able to push water through effectively.
• Regeneration accuracy—all regeneration settings must be accurate to ensure the proper use of softener salt.
• Efficiency—a softener system must achieve 3350 grains/lb of salt to be considered efficient. System must use no more than 5 gallons of regenerant water per 1000 grains of hardness removed.
• Rinse effectiveness—system must rinse effectively so they can leave less saline softened water; so the chloride content must not be greater than 100mg/l.
• Pressure drop—operation of softener should not critically affect water flows in your pipes; pressure drop must be no more than 15 psig.

NSF Certified Water Softeners