> Whatever you do: do NOT use a water softener before the tank.

I'm curious why not? I can't immediately think of a reason why that would be bad, but I admittedly know hardly anything about plumbing.

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ProllyInfamous 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Corrosion will destroy the tank's fittings/liner. Quickly.

So quickly, in fact, that it is mentioned multiple times in the installation manual to not do lots of things (no salt-fed softeners in bold/red/all-the-things).

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andy99 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Curious about this because I thought the entire point of a water softener was to prevent damage to appliances due to mineral buildup. I’ve never heard before that the salt is bad for any appliance.

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tass 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Possibly obvious point, water softeners add salt to the water.

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rstupek 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not all water softeners add salt to the water. nuvoh2o sells a water softener that does not use salt.

	▲	ProllyInfamous an hour ago \| parent [-]
		While this may be true (have no knowledge \| how does it work w/o salts?), the OEM will immediately void your warranty if you use any sort of homeowner water softener, per both Rheem and AOS installation manuals. I have both; mine are warranted "platinum\|10yrs" — why chance it?

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ProllyInfamous 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Correct. This is the reason.