AO Smith Water Softener & Conditioner Reviews

Does your home’s water leave your clothes feeling stiff, your skin feeling sticky, and leaves build-up on your dishes and plumbing? Are you looking for a water softener to get all those extra minerals out of your water? Are you having a hard time finding an affordable softener that you can trust? Well, I hope to convey to you the pros and cons of AO Smith Water Softener Systems in this review post.

Water softeners are a big investment and can be a rather alien topic for many to wrap their head around so a little confusion and hesitation are perfectly normal.

AO Smith is a company that has a line of water softeners and conditioners that are not only dependable, easy to install, and run a range of prices that are affordable even for those on a shoestring budget.

AO Smith has over 60 years of experience in the design and application of both residential and commercial water softeners, boilers, and heaters in the United States and beyond. They have been so successful in their trade that they have over 24 manufacturing locations over the globe.

With this level of production and length in operation, you can rest assured knowing that you are getting a quality product that is worth every dollar, rupee, peso, or euro that you spend.

How Do AO Smith Water Softeners Work

AO Smith water softeners truly stand head and shoulders above their competition, and for good reason. Any engineer worth his or her salt is always trying to improve the design to get more for less, and that shows with AO Smith water softeners.

Their water softeners use negatively charged resin beads to filter calcium and magnesium through a process called ion exchange. While these resin beads are negatively charged they hold positively charged sodium ions. 

Both calcium and magnesium have a higher charge than sodium, so while these hard minerals pass through the resin beads in the water softener, the beads kick out the sodium ions in exchange for the higher positive charges of calcium and magnesium. 

So in effect, it exchanges a ‘harder’ mineral for a ‘softer’ mineral. The amount of sodium in the softer water is negligible when it comes to impacting health and plumbing, reducing scaling in plumbing, and any potential health-related problems that come with running harder water through your house’s plumbing.

The filtering resin beads do however need to be recharged since they can only hold so much. This is accomplished by running salts through the softener in a brine solution. Since the sodium ions in the brine solution vastly outnumber and combined hold a higher positive charge than the calcium and magnesium in the resin, the process is reversed. 

This flushed the resin of hard minerals and replaces those minerals with sodium, effectively ‘recharging’ the resin beads with sodium for effective operation.

AO Smith Water Descaler Review

The AO Smith Salt Water Descaler is a prime example of a quality water conditioner offered by AO Smith. If the history of the company tells you anything about the quality of its products, you can be sure that you are not only purchasing a top-of-the-line product but one that has innovative technology behind it.

This product is a whole house conditioner, meaning that this small device is capable of conditioning the water for all of your water needs such as laundry, cooking, and bathing. 

Unlike water softeners, this conditioner makes absolutely no sound, after installation you will likely even forget that it is there. 

The only con that this product may have if any, is that the medium is graded to condition up to 600,000 gallons of hard water. So depending on the water quality running into it, it may only last up to six years. But with that said the price of AO Smith descalers is very reasonable.

That means that you are only spending $4.12 per year to ensure you are saving your plumbing from much more expensive problems.

[amazon box=”B07R8GW6BJ” template=”horizontal”]

How to Install AO Smith Conditioners

This device is incredibly easy to install, simply find your main water line into the house, before the water heater, cut the pipes and install, the conditioner comes with all the necessary equipment to install besides the pipe cutter and flex seal tape.

Since this model uses no salt or electricity, after installation you are done and ready to go, simple as that.

Once you take a look at it you will realize there is no need for a plumber, and even if you do decide to call one, installation should only take 30 minutes at the longest.

AO Smith Water Conditioner Problems

The only problem that you will have with these products is noticing that there may still be scaling in your plumbing and faucets. This is a sign that you have very hard water and may need to make the upgrade to an AO Smith water softener.

Why Choose the AO Smith Water Descaler

Simply put, if you have water that is not very hard, to begin with, and leaves a relatively small amount of scaling in your plumbing and faucets, then this is the product for you. Not all water is the same hardness there are instances in which can be so hard that it requires a heavy-duty softener to make it usable in the home.

There is not another company that produces a descaler or conditioner that is capable of the same output and that lasts nearly as long. Nor do they have the same engineer-driven results or customer service.

AO Smith produces products for Kenmore and Whirlpool, So when they produce a whole system and slap their name on it you are purchasing an American product guarantee.

AO Smith: An American Manufacturing Giant

AO Smith has a long history in the United States as a driving force and example of the power of American industriousness and innovation. The company was founded in 1874 and at the time was a far sight from manufacturing water heaters and softeners. At the time of its founding, it was manufacturing bicycle and baby carriage parts.

21 years later, in 1895, AO Smith had pushed itself into the position of being the number one manufacturer for bicycle parts. They were able to become the manufacturer by pioneering the technology to form steel tubing from sheet metal.

By 1899 the company had broken into the automobile industry by innovating the world’s very first pressed vehicle technology and immediately began proving frame for companies the likes of Ford and Cadillac. They even patented the cheapest automobile ever made, The Smith Flyer, and sold it to Briggs & Stratton.

AO Smith continued this explosive innovation in the 1920s by building the first fully automated vehicle frame assembly plant as well as a coated welding rod that was used for this purpose. It was also during this time that AO Smith had turned its manufacturing prowess to the fronts of World War I by making bomb casings.

In the 1930’s AO Smith began to dip its toes into the waters, so to speak, of industrial plumbing, patenting the glass-lined water heater in 1939. Unfortunately, WWII saw the company turn all of its manufacturing and production capability toward war.

While a sad affair, the company’s prowess in manufacturing turned out over 46,000 propeller blades, 4,500,000 bombs, and 16,000 sets of landing gear. Immediately after the war ended AO Smith went right back into the development of water heaters by building a plant dedicated to water heater manufacturing and producing them under the name of Kenmore.

In 1948 AO Smith officially entered the water heater market and has been innovating and producing residential and commercial water heaters and softeners ever since. These credentials alone are why licensed plumbers prefer AO smith products in commercial and residential installations.