Has anyone here lived in a house long-term that has both a water softener and a septic system? I’m thinking about getting a water softener to take care of a manganese problem (similar to iron). Some articles I read said that the salt from the softener is no issue, based on a study out of University of Wisconsin. Another article I read said that study was done with a different kind of tank rather than a Septic tank, and that in Septic tanks what happens is the salt water that gets flushed out from the water softener settles at the bottom of the Septic tank and pushes the sludge to the top. The sludge then travels into the trenches and can end up clogging the trenches, causing your fields to fail. I’m having a hard time believing this second article because if it’s true, I’d think that no one with Septic systems would use one. Any thoughts?
@greenwitch - yes. No wood burning fireplaces are being permitted here. Nor would I want one… one more mess to deal with. 
Great, there are so many options!
@melvin123 We had both a water softener and septic system in one of our houses many years back. Every house in the area was built that way and we didn’t hear of any problems. That said, we weren’t there for very long.
Bunsenburner - we have a direct vent gas fireplace from Heat’N’Glo, and LOVE it. It’s rated as a furnace. It worked perfectly without any of the yearly maintenance that they suggest, for 19 lovely years. This year we had trouble getting it to light, and had some of its parts replaced, and now it works beautifully again. I push the wall switch and instant fire and lovely warmth. Direct vent fireplaces are terrific!
We added a gas fireplace to the family room about five years ago and absolutely love it. Wonder why we didn’t do i earlier!
Narrowing down on the vanity for the main bath. Have a question on tiles surrounding the tub. Anyone here use large tiles to cut down the grout? Or non-tile surfaces? We did see one at a local store but the look was very contemporary/European and I am a bit hesitant - not sure how it would fit in with our very typical colonial house.
We have 2 dv fireplaces - one in the library and one in the master bedroom. While those are great, what we really miss is a FP in our living room where we hang out and watch TV. We are having a couple of local FP installers come out and give us bids later in the spring. Right now, they are crazy busy fixing stuff.
Our MB is sort of in its own “wing,” and the fireplace works like a very efficient zone heater. So we think the same trick would work well for the living room.
I can’t wait to convert our wood burning fireplace to gas. I totally miss being able to flip the switch!
@arisamp - We had the same debate about tile sizes. We ended up mixing and matching sizes of the same tile so the floor is one size, the shower walls another, the shower floor yet another. The one “out of the box” thing our tile installer did was to use one of our large floor tiles as the base for the shampoo cut out so there would be no grout to clean under containers. It worked out well and looks more classic.
@BunsenBurner - By “electric mirror”, do you mean the LED lighted mirrors? We have four of them. They’re great for shaving and (I’m told) applying makeup.
Yes, they are LED lit mirrors. Electric Mirror is the Everett-based company that pioneered incorporating TVs into edge-lit hotel mirrors. They still make them in Everett. Silhouette is the one we are considering (same as the mirror we had at our prior home). I also want to get one of their Mirror covers for our kitchen TV.
Anyone have body jets in their shower or tub with shower? H has decided that this is a must-have (of all the times he has to have a opinion on something!)
We inherited a jetted tub with this house, and I despise it. Have to do a periodic clean with Oh Yuck jetted tub cleaner to get the biofilm out of the jets. Regular chlorine bleach or Oxyclean does nothing for biofilm. I suppose showers would not require such a hassle as they don’t recirculate water in which a human butt is immersed.
We have body jets. It was a must have for my dh too. We love them. We have a series of these: https://www.grohe.us/en_us/bathroom/shower-collection-relexa.html
We haven’t had any issues keeping them clean (we had them in our old house too). Definitely easier than jets in a tub as they’re basically just side shower heads.
Couple of things to consider - these side jets use a lot of water. You need to consider what kind of water heater system you have. At our last house, if someone was in the master shower, there was basically no hot water available to any other bathroom. We would also run out of hot water in less than 15 minutes. Not optimal. We have a recirculating system in the new house. In the summer we had unlimited hot water for as long as we wanted. In the winter, the system prioritizes the heat (we have hot water radiators) so it’s more limited if the heat kicks on. Tankless hot water systems are ideal.
Grrr… getting really tired of dealing with a local showroom. They say " by appointment on Saturdays," but then when I emailed them to schedule, they began to backpedal. What the heck are they showcasing Mon-Fri 8-5? To whom?! Builders? They advertise themselves as custom suppliers. Certainly homeowners would want to look at the options, and a big slice of homeowners works during those times.
@momofsenior1 - thanks for your input. I’ll take a look at the Grohe shower heads. H wants shower body jets - not jets in the tub. Everything I’ve read so far says to make sure that your hot water heater can handle this. But get this - H never takes a hot water shower! Even in the cold of winter, he takes a cold shower.
@melvin123 - We have had septic and a water softener in this house since 1996 and most of our neighbors do too. No problem here-Northern Illinois. @SOSConcern - I would never buy a house that hadn’t had its septic pumped out. Pumping out is pure maintenance. Think of it like an oil change. It isn’t that expensive and it can save lots of repairs. When we have our tank pumped, they check the baffles and other things. We have room for another field but I certainly don’t want to have one put in- lots of expensive and your yard will get torn up. Do you put enzymes into the system periodically?
^^Here, it depends on what the maintainer says. We had maintainers check the system and tell us “no need to pump yet”. Before the sale, a seller needs to get a special report generated that the septic is in working condition and operates as intended. And “enzymes” are a waste and can be detrimental to the health of the septic bacteria.
This doesn’t really qualify for this thread but hoping someone here has some advice. There is a really bad smell coming from our guest room. We’ve turned the room inside out and it seems like something may have died in the wall. We have a Terminex contract and they always treat and bait for rodents but we haven’t seen any evidence of any rodent problem at all, anywhere in the house. (Our last house we routinely had mice activity so know what to look for). There is definitely not a good smell coming from that room. Short of starting to drill holes in the wall, is there anything else we should be considering??? I’m totally grossed out.
My mom lived in a condo once where something clearly died in a wall but it could not be located. She had fans going until the smell finally went away. I know this isn’t much help.
Can you leave it to just decompose without attracting bugs?