Any Benefit to Insulating Water Softener?
 

I have a Sears brand water softener in my garage that softens the water before it goes into the water and the house. Do the members think there would be any benefit to insulating the softener? If so, what would be a good way to do it?

my guess is you're plumbing will go something like Main -> softener -> hotwater heater?

If so it depends on what you're concerned about.

If your garage is colder then the water coming in you could insulate to keep water temps higher, or you could not insulate to use that cold water to heat your garage.

Either way I doubt you'd see enough gain to warrant the money spent. if you have issues with your softener freezing then sure go ahead.

Yes, main to softener then branched to water heater for hot and straight into the house for cold. The garage is colder than the incoming water in the winter and hotter than the incoming water in the summer. The softener doesn't freeze.

I think theres probably better places to save energy. However, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt.

Yeah, I agree. I think I'm gonna go with a Rheem heat pump water heater from Home Depot while I can still get the tax rebate. Then I might plumb my old electric water heater in series with it (before the Rheem) and use a small dump-load heating element powered by a wind turbine (future project) to preheat the water.

That is a cool idea. :)

I'd be concerned about bacteria counts in incoming water, especially if its insulated.

I use on-demand water heaters, not tanks, and filter the water at the point of use. I'm installing a copper reservoir tank in the attic (avg temp is 80F up there, incoming cold city water is 45F in winter and 55F in summer). That means the heaters don't have to work so hard, even though my hot water heating costs dropped by over 60%. US Made in Puerto Rico too. Marley's SANTON heaters were made and sold in the UK for over 20 years. Marley made them under license, and just got their UL/CSA labels.

I'm frugal, not cheap.:D

The chlorine takes care of that if it's city water. Definitely a concern for well water, but ozone generators are easy to build.