Boiling water tap - Quooker alternatives

[Nick Laslett]

We have used Harvey Twin Tank Water Softener for more than 25 years in Kent. Good for a house of four. 
 

They usually last 10 years. 
 

https://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/products/water-softeners/

 

The newest model is overkill as it has SMART functionality!!!

 

We bought direct from these guys and self installed. 
 

https://newatersofteners.co.uk/collections/harvey-water-softener-range/products/harvey-twintec-s4?variant=44088604033260

 

 

 

[canalsiderenovation]

27 minutes ago, Nick Laslett said:

We have used Harvey Twin Tank Water Softener for more than 25 years in Kent. Good for a house of four. 
 

They usually last 10 years. 
 

https://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/products/water-softeners/

 

The newest model is overkill as it has SMART functionality!!!

 

We bought direct from these guys and self installed. 
 

https://newatersofteners.co.uk/collections/harvey-water-softener-range/products/harvey-twintec-s4?variant=44088604033260

 

 

 

I'm definitely going to look into the non electric ones, it's an absolute pain being an all electric house as we have frequent power cuts and I'm not fussed on smart functions, our wifi signal is crap even with a mesh system and seems to be even worse since Openreach insisted on upgrading to digital.. if our phone signal was any good I'd do away with any form of router but it isn't and that's a whole new issue.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, Gone West said:

Not actually true. We've used Kinetico in the past as a whole house water softener. The twin cylinder softeners are good because they can soften water using one cylinder while the other cylinder is being regenerated.

Sorry, yes the larger capacity units can. I meant the single 'cartridge' types are usually not 'man enough'.

 

Multi-tasking atm which never goes well....

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, Nick Laslett said:

They usually last 10 years. 

What mileage have you got out of the units over 25 years? Same one or 2.5 replacements?

[Nick Laslett]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

What mileage have you got out of the units over 25 years? Same one or 2.5 replacements?

The one in our one bed rental flat is still going, installed in 2000. The one in our 4 bed house was replaced after 14 years. The engineer from Harvey quoted the 10 year average lifespan. 

[LnP]

It's worth thinking about whether you're happy to drink softened water. I'm not an expert and can't give advice but in principle, water softeners work by exchanging calcium and magnesium ions for sodium ones. So e.g. calcium carbonate is converted to sodium carbonate. Calcium carbonate precipitates out when you heat it, i.e. hardness, but sodium carbonate is completely soluble, so stays in solution. The harder the water, the more Ca and Mg ions need to be exchanged and the more sodium ones will be in the water. With a water softener you'll be consuming more sodium ions and the harder the water is, the more sodium ions you'll be consuming. I found this from Kinetico.

[Russdl]

A Combimate solves the potential problem of drinking softened water whilst still keeping lime scale at bay.
 

(There are probably other water conditioners out there but I don’t know of any).

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, LnP said:

It's worth thinking about whether you're happy to drink softened water. I'm not an expert and can't give advice but in principle, water softeners work by exchanging calcium and magnesium ions for sodium ones. So e.g. calcium carbonate is converted to sodium carbonate. Calcium carbonate precipitates out when you heat it, i.e. hardness, but sodium carbonate is completely soluble, so stays in solution. The harder the water, the more Ca and Mg ions need to be exchanged and the more sodium ones will be in the water. With a water softener you'll be consuming more sodium ions and the harder the water is, the more sodium ions you'll be consuming. I found this from Kinetico.

I always fit a raw cold supply to the kitchen sink for ‘human consumption’, and usually that’s in the form of a 3rd party faucet or a filtered water gadget of some sort, often preceded by a charcoal or other filter.

 

I worked for 2 doctors and they didn’t have stupidly hard water so they instructed me to put the softened feed to the kitchen mixer tap as is, with zero faff.

 

If 2 doctors will drink softened water then who am I to argue? 

[Mike]

3 hours ago, LnP said:

It's worth thinking about whether you're happy to drink softened water.

It's recommended that there should be a supply of unsoftened water in the kitchen - either feeding the kitchen tap, or a separate one like @Nickfromwales provides.

[canalsiderenovation]

If we do have a Kinetico we would keep the Quooker for a while and the associated Cube which also has a water filter for cold water. It would therefore filter the water that has already been softened. I do drink a lot of water so I'm a bit worried if it's particularly bad to drink softened water.

[Nick Laslett]

Drinking water quality… HUGE can of worms!!!

 

We are in the safe hands of Ofwat and the commercial water companies for the quality of our drinking water!

 

Here is a UK Government note on Water Hardness:

 

https://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumers/learn-more-about-your-water/water-hardness-hard-water/

Document ‘G’ sets out the regulations. Here is an FAQ that covers the topic of “wholesome water”:

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a81a884e5274a2e8ab552a5/160321_Part_G_FAQ.pdf

Here is a good primer on the topic of softened water from a water treatment specialist:
 

https://watertreatmentservices.co.uk/drinking-softened-water/

 

Here is the standard for our water:

 

https://www.dwi.gov.uk/drinking-water-standards-and-regulations/

 

You can check your local water quality on your suppliers website. Here is an example. 
 

https://www.stwater.co.uk/my-supply/water-quality/check-my-water-quality/

 

Use the Water company HQ post code CV1 2LZ for results. 
 

TLDR, Your main drinking water supply should be from the mains. Recommendation is not to regularly consume large quantities of water that contains more than 200mg/L of sodium. You will need to test the water provided by your water softener to see if it is below this limit. 
 

For a comparison reference, here is the water analysis for Buxton Mineral water

 

https://www.buxtonwater.co.uk/bottled-water/still

 

WHO paper on Sodium in drinking water:

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/wash-documents/wash-chemicals/sodium-background-document.pdf

 

 

Edited August 24 by Nick Laslett

[sharpener]

17 hours ago, Nick Laslett said:

TLDR, Your main drinking water supply should be from the mains. Recommendation is not to regularly consume large quantities of water that contains more than 200mg/L of sodium.

 

Has been the received wisdom for decades. I would be particularly hesitant to drink softened water if immunocompromised, have high blood pressure or less than perfect kidney function.

 

Difficult to avoid entirely as our tap water comes ultimately from Dartmoor so quite acidic. A SWW chemist told me they treat it with NaOH to raise the pH. But according to the calculator at www.aqion.de only 0.1 mg/l is required to raise it to pH 8.4 so it is miles below the 200 threshold.

 

Nearly all the outlets in the house are fed from harvested rainwater; to raise the pH we treat it with NaHCO3 at about 100g/m^3, which is quite a lot of sodium. So we have tap water piped to drinking water taps in the kitchen and bathrooms.

 

 

Edited August 24 by sharpener

[canalsiderenovation]

I need to see if we can get cold water from the mains and if it is viable with the Quooker Cube (which has a filter). I'll have to ask Wrekin Water when they come out next week and see what they suggest.

[Nickfromwales]

12 hours ago, canalsiderenovation said:

I need to see if we can get cold water from the mains and if it is viable with the Quooker Cube (which has a filter). I'll have to ask Wrekin Water when they come out next week and see what they suggest.

At least then you'll have the..........cold, hard, facts lol.

[canalsiderenovation]

Wrekin water came out today. Really helpful and informative guys. Tested water and watching the colour change. Our water is definitely hard 300 ppm.

 

We are waiting for prices but there are a couple of options.

 

The Eco 15 Ultra eco version

https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/products/ecoultra-hc-high-capacity-digital-metered-water-softener-high-grade-ultra-resin?variant=50680066736457

 

I wasn't really keen on electric but the Eco 15 Ultra seems really simple and apparently very cost effective to run and you can set the cycle for a specific time and also uses far less salt than Kinetico. I think it's probably going to be around £1200 installed but they did mention they may have some reconditioned models so may be able to get it cheaper and they also will give us 6 months of salt. Apparently you can programe it to do its regeneration thing when it's cheap electricity too.

 

I was told the Kinetico was more expensive to buy and does use more salt but obviously is non electric.

 

Re drinking softened water. They don't recommend it as previously mentioned for baby formula or those on sodium controlled diet although the guy that came.to see me said he drinks his softened water with no issues but it does taste differently (not bad just different).

 

We could get the cold water feed on our utility tap left as hard water but this sort of defeats the option of having the Quooker Cube/cold water filter fitted if we aren't going to drink the water from it! They are looking into if it is possible to leave the cold water feed as hard water in the kitchen (our water doesn't come in there it comes in our utility but they put in an external stop tap outside the kitchen when they ran the water to our garage). 

 

I guess one thing I'm struggling to get my head around is the Quooker hot water Combi tank in particular and tap suffers terribly with limescale so if we leave the cold water feed as hard under the kitchen sink surely we are still going to have limescale issues with the Quooker. And I'm not sure if the Quoomer cube combi fills up with cold water which is then boiled or hot water. Completely confused.....

 

Does anyone have a water softener and Quooker Combi tank and water softener?

 

[canalsiderenovation]

Edit to add that Quooker have confirmed that our Quooker Combi tank is cold fed as is the Cube so if we left the cold water feed hard then the water in the combi tank that is boiled will remain hard which is pretty much one of the main reasons we were looking into a softener as it's destroying the Quooker Combi tank! They pretty much had to replace it a couple of weeks ago when they came out and it has huge shards of limescale in it.

 

If we leave the utility cold feed hard then we could drink that but I like my ice cold filtered and sparkling water from the Cube!

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 11:16 by canalsiderenovation

[canalsiderenovation]

I also emailed Kinetco directly and had some conflicting info. So one one hand it's safe but not if you're on a low sodium diet (I'm not for medical reasons but do try and maintain a low sodium diet) and a hard feed is recommended but it is beneficial to have the softener feeding the Quooker system! If the softener was feeding the Quooker system (the combi and cube) it would be drank (boiling and cold filtered)... 

 

Softened water is completely safe to drink, but we would advise against this if you were on a medically prescribed low-sodium diet. Most people don’t like the taste of softened water, which may be why a hard feed comes recommended.

 

It is likely beneficial to have the softener feeding your Quooker system.

[-rick-]

As others have mentioned there are other solutions that are seen as preferable for a drinking water tap. (The phosphate ones). The whole house softener is good to reduce scale build up on other appliances, showers, etc. Did Wreckin bring those up?

[canalsiderenovation]

11 minutes ago, -rick- said:

As others have mentioned there are other solutions that are seen as preferable for a drinking water tap. (The phosphate ones). The whole house softener is good to reduce scale build up on other appliances, showers, etc. Did Wreckin bring those up?

 

No they didn't, they mentioned something called Reverse Osmosis but our main issue is limescale so the focus was on softeners. It seems our options are:

 

1. Soften all water coming in (which includes that going to the Quooker) which we will drink.

2. Leave the cold water feed hard where the Quooker is but we will still get limescale then in the Quooker Combi which is cold fed then boiled but our hard cold water will still be filtered via the Cube. Limescale will still be an issue for anything in the kitchen as the Cube is cold fed and the Combi is cold fed (and cold water mixed with the boiling hot).

3. Soften water but have a cold water hard feed in our utility for non softened water but this means it's barely drinkable unless we filter it meaning another water filter needing to be fitted/Britta jug and therefore rendering the Quooker useless!

 

🤯

Edited Wednesday at 12:37 by canalsiderenovation

[-rick-]

Option 4. Install a combimate before the quooker, use the whole house softener for everything else

 

On 20/08/2025 at 05:50, Russdl said:

@canalsiderenovation I’m guessing you don’t have anything to counter the hard water?
 

As it seems you have a working Quooker/Cube combination for the time being and their after sales service is pretty good perhaps you should tackle the hard water issue first as that is going to kill any replacement boiling water tap you install.

 

We are in a very hard water area as well and we have a Combimate in line before our Quooker. So far have had zero scale issue in 4 years (but we have enjoyed Quooker’s after sales service for numerous other faults - we’re on our third Cube already!!) If you were to go down the Combimate route and still decide to replace the Quooker then at least the replacement tap wouldn’t be killed off by the hard water.

 

The Combimate can do the whole house or just one appliance, as in our case. If it’s just for the one appliance then you only need a half fill of the Combiphos balls every 12 months which would cost around £17/year at current prices. 

 

[Russdl]

2 hours ago, canalsiderenovation said:

Does anyone have a water softener and Quooker Combi tank and water softener?

Yes. 
 

And, as @-rick- reposted above, to prevent all limescale formation in the house we have a salt softener for the whole house (non electric) and a Combimate solely for the Quooker.
 

The feed to the Quooker is a hard feed that goes through a water conditioner (Combimate in our case) before it gets to any of the Quooker gubbins.
 

The Combimate phosphate doses the hard water which, in a nut shell, gives you hard water that can not form limescale. 
 

This combination has worked flawlessly (regarding limescale prevention) for 4 plus years, I thoroughly recommend it. 
 

 

[canalsiderenovation]

Thanks, I'll look into the Combimate ... its getting more expensive than I'd hoped. 

 

I take it Combimate is not recommended for the whole house as it is a conditioner rather than softener....

[canalsiderenovation]

Strangely Kinetico have partnered with Quooker and yet ask either any company questions about water softeners on Quooker Combi/Cube and drinking it and you can't get a straight answer! https://www.kinetico.co.uk/quooker

Edited Wednesday at 13:34 by canalsiderenovation

[Russdl]

1 hour ago, canalsiderenovation said:

I take it Combimate is not recommended for the whole house as it is a conditioner rather than softener....

As it happens, I believe it can do the whole house and it would be a far cheaper option for you. 
 

Perhaps look into fitting a Combimate to do the whole house and see how it goes, and then if you want to add a softener later on you could - but keep the Quooker on the Combimate. 

[canalsiderenovation]

1 hour ago, Russdl said:

As it happens, I believe it can do the whole house and it would be a far cheaper option for you. 
 

Perhaps look into fitting a Combimate to do the whole house and see how it goes, and then if you want to add a softener later on you could - but keep the Quooker on the Combimate. 

 

That sounds like a good idea to see how we get on.

 

I was looking at Combimate and just to understand any similar products are these the same concept? https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/collections/polyphosphate-dosing