Water Softener - Using Potassium Chloride as a Substitute for Salt

For those who are on a salt restricted diet, potassium chloride can be used as a substitute for water softener salt since potassium chloride is not a salt (sodium chloride).

 

Potassium chloride may be slightly more expensive than salt and the water softener will regenerate more often since potassium chloride is not as efficient as salt. We recommend setting the water hardness 20% higher if using potassium chloride instead of salt.

 

Please Note: No harm will be done to the water softener should you accidentally mix salt and potassium chloride together.

 

The water softener does not know if there is salt or potassium chloride in the brine tank. So, the amount of brine that the softener makes with either salt or potassium chloride is the same for any given regeneration cycle. Salt is more efficient at removing hardness from the resin. The softener is programmed with the assumption that salt (most common) will be used for regeneration. It takes more potassium chloride to remove the same amount of hardness from the resin bed as salt. If potassium chloride is used in a GE Appliance water softener, the hardness setting for the control will need to be adjusted up. This adjustment will allow more brine solution to be made to achieve the same amount of actual hardness removed from the home water supply.