RO/DI and Water Softener

[scbauer]

Hello everyone, I'm in the planning stages of getting my tank set up again, and since we purchased a new house that has a water softener, a question came to mind...

Are there benefits or problems with running tap water through a water softener before it enters an RO/DI filter?

My common sense says that the water softener has removed a lot of the hard metals and minerals from the water thus reducing the load on the RO membrane and the DI cartridge, but I'm not sure...

Thoughts, experience, or scientific data appreciated.

-Scott

[bertoni]

Your observation is correct. Using a water softener tends to help RO membranes, since the metals they replace with sodium are harder on the filter.